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Published: September 5th 2013
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The Blessed Trinity (Brian Wayne and me)Cairns has really grown up and flourished in a really gradual way since I was here last -28 years ago. Wayne has never had a look at this Coral Sea jewel that sits on Trinity Bay, other than to step out into the streets of the city after a conference. So he has never had the chance to experience the people and see the spread of this town and the way the residences hug the luscious tropical valleys of the huge mountains that tower over her like a silent sentinel.Its not an obnoxious town, full of new Hollywood glitz despite the obvious boom of population and development everywhere you look, she is gracious and sprawling. The esplanade has lovely hotels. The use of open space is friendly and useful to everyone, mostly families as there is " kid space"
everywhere. There are a myriad of lovely cafes and restaurants all over looking over the esplanade and harbour.Cairns breathes in the hot warm air of the tropics and exhales a warmth over her people that you don't see in such abundance elsewhere. Her people are funny and cocky and open, they are not pretentious they are cosmopolitan and friendly and open their hearts to you. Brian took us for a leisurely drive around Cairns, although the weather has not favoured us so far here, we have managed to see a fair chunk of town.We visited this amazing place called The Tanks which was a series of four huge oil tanks used during WWII by the Americans.
Its close by the Botanical Gardens. They have been drained, cleaned and turned into music and arts Venues. My nephew Mikey plays there with his band Emma Louise. (Proud Aunty promotes nephew at every opportunity). The big tank has a real black moodiness to it.We visited the chic suburb of Edge Hill where my niece Sarah lives in the RAD Pad above the shops.The valleys and gorges are lovely, Lake Placid is .... Well ... Placid. Brian picks up a stick, breaks it into pieces and throws it on to the surface of the lake and a whole bunch of fish pop up from under the water thinking it's food. "They reckon there is a croc
in there" he says in a fashion like crocs are just a fact of life, an annoyance like a mosquito bite in this neck of the woods. Like most things in Brian's household, crocs are treated with humour. At dinner the night before, he mentioned to Paddy, who had been fishing in a local waterway, that he saw a croc trap in that creek. Paddy said in the cairns drawl "oh yeh I saw that when I went fishing there the other day". If I had seen that I would have spun around like a whirling-dervish and headed straight back out of there. For the amount of times father and sons fish, it's like they have a sixth sense about crocs - an internal lizard detection system. But I don't detect any complacency, more like a healthy respect for these prehistoric creatures. They are about to build a massive new casino development on the flood plain near where Brian lives. we had a drive around the streets near the mangroves to try to imagine 27 storeys of casino rising up out of the swampiness. Home to Brian's for the afternoon and sitting on his lovely deck before heading off to dinner at the Trinity beach pub. Then back for the last sleep in a decent bed until we return home in three weeks.
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