NOTE: this part of the blog is about our ongoing kitchen renovation... if you want to know, start reading on July 18th.... 4 pm I haven't written anything today because nothing too interesting has happened -- we're just plugging along, trying to finish up with the belt sander before 7. Rhea's room got done around 2, and now we're finishing most of the kitchen and breezeway. We'll have the edger for 1 more day, time to do the rest of the breezeway and some smaller halls and maybe even the steps. 11:30pm blech, I'm all sawdusty !! [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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11:15 am Today we're starting on the linoleum under the plywood. Sort of forgot about that. 11:45 am Wow, its really stuck, coming off in chunks the size of my hand. Arrrgh. 3:15 am Erin and I spent the morning on linoleum, now its finally up. Suspense... should we rent the equipment?? Erin is making long lists of sanding belts and disks. She is disgusted that the people at Home Depot have never heard of the red pad that goes under the sanding disks. 6:30 Broke a blade on my little saw while cutting out a bad board. 8:15 pm The [View Full Entry]

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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 [View Full Entry]

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Just a quick note to those who are trying to keep track of where we are -- the best way to reach us is through Cairns City Backpacker Hostel in Cairns. Tomorrow we are going on a one and a half day tour to Cape Tribulation and we'll be staying at a beach house there. However, after that we'll be back in Cairns for the duration... [View Full Entry]

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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) [View Full Entry]

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We went up to Kuranda for the first time on the Skyrail. You get to ride above the rainforest and watch the canopy, including the occasional bright blue butterfly or bird. In a couple of places you get off and there's even a ranger-led walk. He pointed out several rainforest trees to us. The most important to remember is the "wait a while", also called "lawyer vine", for reasons which will shortly be obvious. The vine starts life in the top of the canopy, then works its way down. It has hundred of tiny recurved hooks on it, so it can [View Full Entry]

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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 -- [View Full Entry]

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Today we went back to the same busstop but instead of Tjapukai, we went on the Skyrail to Kuranda. Its a cable car that goes up over a mountain, a few meters above the rain-forest canopy. Its quite beautiful, and once in a while you can see butterflies or cockatoos. There is a stop with a rainforest boardwalk and a guided tour, which was great. We learned that one plant, called the "lawyer vine", has tiny hooks that the plant uses to climb up other plants. The aborigines used them for fishhooks. The guide said one of his mates ran into [View Full Entry]

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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 se [View Full Entry]

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