8 am biked to Home Depot with Art for new scraper blades, but they don't have any, so I bought a new scraper. And knee pads. Now I've joined the big boys! 9:30 The new scraper works pretty well, but the knee pads hurt on bare skin. No more shorts. Sadly, my painting pants are all ripped at the knees 10:45 So, for those keeping score at home ... so far we tore up the self-stick linoleum in the kitchen, removed a thousand screws, then the quarter inch plywood under that, then a layer of Pennsylvania Dutch linoleum, then a layer of green linoleum, and now we're down to the black paper and adhesive. We can see the hardwood underneath! 11:15 am New plan-- spray, wait 10 minutes, scrape the upper layer off, repeat twice. I ... read more

12 noon Moving moving moving. Art and Jershon got the stove and sink onto the porch, and the tool bench and tool boards into the living room (cause we know what our priorities are!) Meanwhile I organized the our stuff in the housemate kitchen, and labelled the cabinets. 1pm Erin and Kiimara get back from Mayorga, and Erin and Art remove the dishwasher. It seems to be a simple process. 3:30pm Milkshakes! 5:30pm We are done removing the linoleum in the hall and mostly in the kitchen. Good riddance, I always hated that stuff. Jershon has removed (we estimated) close to 1000 screws -- 4 or more per square foot. 7:30 An early night, as Kiimara, Jershon, Bruce and Erin are going to see the new Harry Potter. ... read more

We went on two reef trips, very different. The first was a small boat, a refurbished pearl-lugger built in 1954, with 13 passengers and a crew of 6. The second was a larger, faster boat built for reef trips, with 120 passengers and a crew of 6. The first trip was on the 28th. The boat goes to the inner reef, where both coral and fish are not as impressive. Jershon and I signed up for the introductory scuba lesson. I don't know if lesson is really the right word -- mostly they hold your hand (1 dive master, 2 students) and don't bring you down much deeper than you could go in a swimming pool. However, it was surprising how nerve-racking it was at first -- during the first half of the swim, all I ... read more

We have been staying at the hostel in Kuranda for 2 days, about to head back to our original hostel in Cairns. This hostel was built in 1906 by the owner of the local sawmill chain for his daughter, and it is amazing (though in a somewhat faded and moldy way). Like most homes around here, the main living area is on the second floor. The "basement" is at ground level and consists of a concrete slab, several courses of brick, then unfinished wood for walls and ceiling. The ceiling joists are about 4 by 12 by 20 feet each -- I think that whole building is about 60 feet long and 30 wide. The ground level is a huge open space, and the walls are about 50% window -- they all open out, and they ... read more

Hi y'all, Or G'day, I guess. Sounds kinda corny to me, although I might start saying "no worries", which is the translation for everything from "you're welcome" to "no problem". So yesterday we went Tjapukai, which is a educational/interaction-oriented park on aboriginal-controlled land. You can throw a boomerang, see a dance performance, and buy lots of souvenirs, among other things. Throwing a boomerang turns out to be not that hard to make it go whizzing all over the field. The hard part is knowing where its going next. The guide said in the mornings all the men compete to see who can throw AND catch the most times in a row, and the record is 36 times! We also got to try a spear-throwing stick, which is trickier. Apparently the guy who holds the Guiness world ... read more