Cairns

We are camped here at Bampton Beach which is a beaut little park south of Cairns. It's a nice little beach but we wouldn't be game to swim here of course! We have walked along the beach here but always a bit wary. 

 

Our trip down from Lake Tinaroo was beautiful - through rainforest and with lovely scenery over the mountains. It's much like Declan's favourite trip from Canberra to Batemans Bay!  It was a short drive to here really and we arrived before lunch - just as well as we hadn't booked and it's only a small park. However, once again we were lucky to get 2 great sites together and have had plenty of space with what Dennis calls our garden where we could light our fire in Darryls fire pit. That has proved to be a great thing to have as lots of places don't want fires on their grass. 

      

Dennis and Darryl got to the hose and tap and gave the cars a bit of a clean up and they no longer look red and grotty! I think we still need to find a proper car wash place to give a better clean. I reckon we'll be finding red dust in spots for ages!

Yesterday we headed to Cairns for the day - we were most impressed with the swimming pool area on the foreshore and we wished we had some little ones to frolic in the water. We had a coffee and strolled through the market (amazing that these bob up everywhere!) then headed to the Skyrail.

      

The weather was perfect and the whole Skyrail day was excellent ( better than the day we went up Greg - no ponchos this time!)  Our trip up on the Skyrail was great and the cameras were working overtime! 

    

       

We got to Karumba  and  the walk along the streets was very pleasant. We found a Vietnamese place for lunch and enjoyed quite a feast - so much so that Tops and I ate our leftovers for tea and Darryl and Dennis had a piece of toast! The town is a very touristy place and it heartens us to note Australian made souvenirs in the shops. Not very often you see that. We then caught the train back to the station and that was a great ride. How these early engineers designed a track in such rugged conditions is unbelievable - then the workers who toiled to make the project worked under very adverse conditions - the tunnels were made with pick axes and shovels! 

    

We rate this whole experience as being world class and couldn't fault anything - the personell, organisation, presentation, cleanliness, information - all fantastic! There was a shuttle bus to take us back to the car at the Skyrail which completed the great experience.

Unfortunately, we had to stop along the way home to get groceries - in a huge foreign Woolworths, we seemed to take ages to find things. We were not back at camp till about 6 which is real late for us oldies! We pack up and head south again tomorrow and are staying at some ex Kerang people's place at Forest Beach. Another adventure!

Congratulations to the Murrabit B grade netball and reserves football on their win and good luck at the next step. Good to see Port Adelaide back in form too! 

Hope everyone is happy and well xxxxxxxx