Sydney with a (Y) from Cairns arrives in Darwin

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DAY 313

The Three States

Another day in paradise dawns with a cup of tea on the agenda.

We don’t have a lot to report today, after breakfast we popped down to the Mail Delivery Centre in Cairns to pick up a parcel for Andy then we popped into Woolworths for some grocery necessities.

Basically we are now planning our trip up to Cape York, so we are going to cook some food ready to freeze and then will transfer into our fridge freezer for the journey, it just makes things a little bit more convenient for those days when you have been driving all day and just want something easy to do for dinner.

Of course we will do our best to use the camp oven where possible, however there is another obstacle here, which is why cooking and freezing will help us, there is quarantine for fruit and vegetables at Coen. Mangos will be confiscated along with any fruit and vegetable that shows signs of insect damage or disease.

So we need to ensure that when we do our grocery shop before leaving that we should buy good quality fruit and vegetable and hope that we will not have to surrender anything part way up to the Cape.

It has been raining this morning, but it is quite humid and it does not really feel like rain, we are both glad that we walked yesterday and not today, the rain first thing was quite heavy and not particularly a shower that I would like to be stuck outside in.

With the grocery shopping done, we were soon back at Bayview Heights. We put the shopping away and really apart from a bit of relaxing, reading the newspapers etc. we had a nice quiet afternoon.

Well, ok we did a bit of reading up on the QPWS information that Anne gave us to help with our Cape York trip, so really we are using this time to make sure that we have everything we need to get up there safely.

Our journey to Cape York is going to be toward the end of the season, we should be back before the heavy rains, we hope otherwise we will be stuck up there until next May! So we need to do some journey planning, potential overnight stops etc., working out fuel and water requirements etc.

Actually perhaps the afternoon was not as quiet and relaxing as I remember, I did some housework, dusting, sweeping and a couple of loads in the washing machine, it all still needs doing.

At 6.00 we decided to do our walk up to the top of the road, although we walked yesterday, it is still nice to do the short walk to the top of the road, we feel it in our calf muscles on the way up, but I have to say this short walk is a whole lot easier now than it was when we first arrived here. We have not done it every day like we said we would but that is because we have been doing some major hikes and it is no fun to do that on the same day.

Andy cooked up a big chicken curry, we allowed it to cool and then split it down into portions to put into the freezer, to form one of our meals for Cape York. Andy also cooked up a nice tea of grilled chicken in a carbonara sauce on a bed of fettuccine with some garlic bread.

We ate dinner washed down with a cup of tea and later on we risked the mosquitoes and sat outside on the veranda to play cards, we have not played for a while. Unfortunately for Andy the cards were well against him tonight, I beat him hands down.

Just before bed we checked our emails, however we see the Wallaby Wanderers were online so we Skyped them for a chat, we find out that today our Cassowary friend Sydney with a “Y” from Cairns has now turned up in Darwin to join the Wallaby Wanderers on their onward adventure.
Sarah and Darryl went in to the Post officein Cavanagh Street in Darwin for the 2nd time to see if the parcel Containg SDydney had turnd up and it had, Andy Had written in a big black pen "To the devoted Parents of Sydney on the box, which I think made Sarah wince.

So if you want to see how Sydney gets on with the Wallaby Wanderers you will have to read their blog, which can be found at

So until tomorrow bloggers should we be spared.

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