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Published: August 2nd 2009
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Day 96 - Cairns to Crystal Cascades
Happy Birthday Gos, it’s a comforting feeling to know that we’re the same age again!!! Hope Emma and the boys are spoiling you rotten, bringing you breakfast in bed and all that great stuff!
We enjoyed a good night’s sleep last night and caught up with Fifi and the Sunrise team via this morning’s broadcast from Mossman! She was hanging out on the Cane train and the drivers looked right pleased to see her!
We have to be out of the resort room by 10am which is fine as we’re making another trip to Autobarn to see if we can finally resolve the UHF radio situation. The team in Mackay not only glued in the radio that would never have worked but have also managed to butcher the aerial connection on the front of the car and we still can’t get the old one off! We find that the Autobarn team at Cairns includes a fitter who is more than happy to help if we go someway towards it. His suggestion is to take the old aerial off and start again with the fitting and he’ll solder the new one on
in the spare five minutes he’s hoping to get at some point today! He even said he’d come to us on his day off to sort it out but we thought that was pushing things a bit far! As I type, Darryl is currently under the front of the car in the Autobarn carpark twiddling with the aerial base as the rain starts to come down again. Luckily he manages to undo it and has sweet talked Mick, the main fitter man, to solder the new aerial fitting for us. Result, with this new aerial we are truly back on the airwaves! With that sorted we rang Dave at the caravan fix it place but the van won’t be done til about 3.30 so we’ve got some time to explore Cairns that little bit more.
We find our way back to the Esplanade and take a walk along the sea front, well, it’s where the sea would be if the tide wasn’t so far out! No wonder they introduced a salt water lagoon here, it’s no just to avoid the stingers but to ensure there’s always water for people to swim and relax in! Good idea! We grab a
pizza, which we watched being made from scratch (!) and sit on the front overlooking the birds scrabble around in the sand. And there in front of our eyes is a bloody huge snake making its way out from the grassy banking on to the sand! It’s black and about 6 ft long, no kidding! It’s really quick and it’s gone in a flash but it served as a good reminder for what might be lurking around! We’re not sure what make or model it was, probably harmless but it’s another snake to add to our list nevertheless - it’s our third! We followed pizza with a superb ice cream, actually no it was a sensational ice cream! Really gorgeous! By now the sky was a brilliant blue and the sun was out. So many people were relaxing around the lagoon, chilling on the grass, wandering along the esplanade, it’s a very slow pace in Cairns! They’re starting to set up for the market stalls this evening and also for some bands providing entertainment tonight. They’re all connected with the local indigenous communities and it looks like it will be a good night, we’ll come back once we’ve set up
the caravan!
We picked up our beloved mobile home from Dave and the team at Cairns Caravan Repairs, the broken leaf spring has been sorted and we’re ready to rock n roll again. We’ve been really lucky, the spring could have broken at any point but we were on bitumen, with a mobile signal, close to a repair point who could help us almost immediately and we were in an area with a nice empty resort room for the night. A good way to break down all in all! The bill was $180 for the spring which we were quite pleased with considering the effort Dave went to in order to get it specially made (nobody keeps 75mm springs anymore it seems). Fingers crossed it’s the last time for a long time that we find ourselves in a breakdown scenario.
The campsite is only 20 minutes away from where we are so it’s not long before we’re checked in to the Big 4 Crystal Cascades site and Phillip, the groundsman, insists on seeing us on to the site! Dar hates it when people interfere with our routine and especially hates it when people tell him how to park
the caravan. ‘Right hand down, bit more, a lot more’ says the well meaning Phillip. ‘Honestly mate, we’ll be fine’ says Darryl just wishing he’d leave us alone to get on with it!! Phillip perseveres so Darryl politely ignores his instructions and just gets on with it!! I laugh a lot at all of these antics but then I’m only just learning to stand in the right places for the reversing without having to be prompted!
Back into Cairns we go and straight back to the Esplanade where things are in full swing now and a series of bands are entertaining the crowd. It’s great and the group that we catch are very good. They’ve got a ‘Webby’ (our friend from Tradeteam) lookalike on guitar too! We explore the well known Night Markets in the centre and find a much wanted item for a certain Charlie Brown! It’s an authentic didgeridoo and we’re really pleased with it. The lady who runs the ‘stall’ is fantastic and we chat to her for ages about the Australian shop in Broadway back home, about how these didgeridoos are created and by whom, about the indigenous culture festivals held every 3 years in
Laura and about the dreamtime stories. I’m totally fascinated and really look forward to learning more. Chuffed with our purchase and the fact that we managed to have Fish and Chips for tonight’s tea we rush back to the car in case our ticket has run out!
Back at camp we catch up with Ed and finally talk to him over Skype which is great. Fingers crossed we’ll arrange a group Skype call on Sunday when the race team get together to celebrate Gos’s 39th birthday. It will mean that we’ve got to set the alarm and get up at around 2am but hey, it will be worth it to speak to them all.
We were flicking through the TV channels when we caught a glimpse of the cricket score. We rubbed our eyes and checked again, the Ozzies are 203 for 8?! No that can’t be right, surely?! And with that the mobile rang, it was Grant in Melbourne! Now we really couldn’t believe that we’d seen the score right, surely he wouldn’t be ringing if they were losing?! Good on ya Grant and we’re glad that you’ve got your new big TV screen to watch the
proceedings in all their glory!! Good to speak to you, thanks for ringing.
We’re off to Karanda tomorrow so fingers crossed for the weather, we need a clear day with no mist so we can get a good view from the train and the sky rail!
Night all from two very happy people back in their little caravan!
Dar and Sar
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Jan Kettle
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Snake Alert!
Could this snake have been a 'red bellied black snake' I wonder? It's poisonous but victims usually live! PS - Grant just might have the last laugh with the cricket!