Our man overseas...

---

Leaving our Darwin hostel bleary-eyed at 4.30AM we were given a drunken farewell from a bunch of backpackers who hadn’t gone to bed yet….not what you need when you have just woken up. We then enjoyed an hour long tour of the town, as the bus visited every hotel and motel before finally heading to the airport for our flight to Cairns. Due to availability we had ended up on a route via Gove, the most northerly point that we and probably anyone else gets to in Oz, just take a look on the map it really is remote…

Arriving at Cairns, Jo picked us up from the airport and we went from being two carefree travelers out on the road, to life with the Vartan family, where the kids quickly taught us the routine - “no Geoff, you’ve forgotten the face washing”, “now teeth cleaning” and “come on, it’s story time!”. To be honest it was great, to be in a real bed, a real house, see some familiar friendly faces and feel a bit like we were at home. We entertained the kids, messed around in the slightly chilly pool and were fed well by Jo. Mark took some time off work and leaving Jo to an unusually peaceful house, we went for a few walks, one to a lookout over Cairns airport and another to the large dam behind the town.

For those that don’t know, Geoff went to school with Mark and used to work with both him and Jo down at Sandbanks beach at Poole, so they go back a long way. Mark is an officer in the Royal Navy and is on a 2 year exchange on an Australian hydrographic ship. They are coming to the end of their time abroad and are due to return to the UK in July, so we got out to see them just in time.

We took at trip to Cairns zoo and fed the rather reluctant kangaroos, that had obviously already seen a few too many bags of roo-food. The crocs were great, most being monster sized and complete with stories of why they had been caught and who/what they had eaten. During the keeper’s talk we had the luck of being about a meter away from the mouth of one whilst it devoured a complete chicken, the kids didn’t bat and eyelid! Lexa had an exciting moment herself when she plucked up the courage to touch a very large snake… One of her major fears, she took a little encouragement, but managed to do it without bursting into tears and amazingly didn’t have any nightmares afterwards!

Following a month or so of sleepy mining towns and quiet beach resorts, Cairns had much more of a busy American feel to it with plenty of shopping malls and traffic. Geoff is Godfather to Bethany, the eldest girl and it was her and Daniels birthday party whilst we were there. A riotous afternoon was had by all at the local ‘Playzone’, where Lexa was enlisted to accompany the kids around the giant padded climbing frame, ball-pits and slides - she didn’t appear to need much encouragement…

After a week with the family it was time to squeeze everything back in the packs and head to the airport, although thanks to Mark and Jo’s imminent return to England, we were able to leave some surplus possessions with them which made packing a lot easier.

---