Caro Comes to Cairns!

If there's one thing we've realised living overseas it's that good friends are precious indeed.

I've always enjoyed reading the book of Sirach or Ecclesiasticus. It's a book that gives lots of great advice around ethics in public and private life. Loaded with advice and direction on how to live a good life, humility, responsible use of wealth, self control, the joy of a good wife (Ryan can tell you all about that! - yes for once I'm giving this blogging thing a go. Ryan has dominated lately so I thought I'd better put my two cents in) and friendship ...

Chapter 6 vs 14-17

Faithful friends are a sturdy shelter: whoever finds one has found a treasure.

Faithful friends are beyond price; no amount can balance their worth.

Faithful friends are life-saving medicine; and those who fear the Lord will find them

those who fear the Lord direct their friendship aright, for as they are, so are their neighbours also.

This weekend we had Caroline come and stay. She is a faithful friend and in her we have found a treasure. We had a short time with her but it was absolutely wonderful and we were reminded once again how blessed we are to have the support and friendship of so many back in NZ.

Caro arrived on Friday morning from PNG. We must take a moment to thank her sponsors NZAID who paid for her flights via Cairns on her way back to NZ. Ryan had managed to get the day off so he picked her up while Abbey and I danced, jived and climbed at Gymbaroo - kiddie classes. From there we did a run of Rusty's Market - the vege market open fri-sun in the city and from there it was home for a relaxing afternoon followed by a BBQ that evening with Mikaela, John and lil John over aswell.

Saturday we went exploring, this weekend first stop was the Babinda Boulders. They're found 58km south of Cairns funnily enough in the little town of Babinda. It's a gorgeous spot surrounded by rainforest. The water is apparently quite cool all year round as it flows down from Mt Bartle Frere, Queensland's tallest mountain.

The area holds great significance for local Aboriginal people.

"According to legend a beautiful girl named Oolana, from the Yidinji people, married a respected elder from her tribe named Waroonoo. Shortly after their union another tribe moved into the area and a handsome young man came into her life. His name was Dyga and the pair soon fell in love. Realising the adulterous crime they were committing, the young lovers escaped their tribes and fled into the valleys. The elders captured them, but Oolana broke free from her captors and threw herself into the still waters of what is now known as Babinda Boulders, calling for Dyga to follow her. As Dyga hit the waters, her anguished cries for her lost lover turned the still waters into a rushing torrent and the land shook with sorrow. Huge boulders were scattered around the creek and the crying Oolana disappeared among them."

Aboriginal legend says her spirit still guards the boulders and that her calls for her lost lover can still be heard. The day we visited she was obviously taking a break but you could certainly see how dangerous it must and hence the name Devils Pool.

As you can see Caro brings out the best in Ryan and convinced him to take this photo! Actually he didn't take much convincing! A sense of humour certainly keeps us sane and enjoying life. Go on..have a chuckle...you know you want to!

Ryan found a great swimming hole after our walk and braved the cool but refreshing waters with Caro. I opted to watch over Abbey as she enjoyed a splash and a kick in the clear waters.

From there we went on to show her Josephine falls and the Golden Hole a new discovery for us which looked like an amazing swimming hole which we'll have to go back to.

All in all it was a wonderful weekend with wonderful company. We hope to see a few more visitors and are now counting down till my parents arrive next week to meet there new Grandson and to see Abbey again. No doubt there will be a blog all about it!

First Fruits

I'm not sure if it's significant or not, but just the other day I picked the first fruits of my gardening binge... It's customary to offer one's first fruits to God in remembrance of the fact that He provides all. The question is: Does God like Chilli? If so, how would he like it cooked? At any rate, it's a delicious looking Chilli. So I think we'll just thank God for it and add it to a stirfry or something. So here's Abbey offering up the first fruits! Well done to Mez for the capturing of such shots! Lucky for Abbey she's grown out of the habit of putting absolutely everything in her mouth - may have been in for a nasty surprise otherwise! Bring on more fruit I say...

Davies Creek Camping

We figured that after two years in the UK and a grand total of just three nights in the tent we lugged all the way over there and back, that we had better get a bit more value out of the Aussie camping experience. So this weekend we decided to head off to Davies Creek at the recommendation of both patients and staff here at my work...



True to Australian sightseeing form, it didn't disappoint. Saturday morning we loaded up the car (and I mean loaded!) and headed northish and then inland to the west to Kuranda. Kuranda is a bit of a must see I think, for people who come to Cairns. There is a vintage railway that heads up there through a spectacular gorge (for about $80) or a gondola that winds its way up through the rainforest (for a similar price). We just took the car - which probably only cost us $3. I reckon we won there!!! Kuranda is home to Birdworld, a butterfly sanctuary and numerous different markets, new-agers abound, as do hippies, people hawking (expensive) aboriginal art, and actually any other art for that matter. Then there's the usual abundance of kitch souveneirs and local crafty bits and bobs. There's plenty of nice places to eat, or grab a juice or a coffee, depending on your persuasion. So we enjoyed our afternoon just lazily wandering around and drinking smoothies and feasting our eyes on some of the stunning art. (There is a fantastic photography gallery with amazing nature shots... made me want a flash camera and a cool panoramic lens... I'm sure I can get shots as such...)



The photo's of the lookouts here are looking towards Cairns from the north (both the larger one with no people in it and the smaller one with Mez in it). Both are accessable either by long walks, or (for us) by car. I never really appreciate a great view when i've got there by car. Or at least I don't appreciate it as much anyway. There needs to be sweat and striving involved. Perhaps there's a lesson there... Anyway the photo's of Mez and Abbey beside the deep gorge are the Barron falls which (this time of year) are a mere trickle. The scale of these is just massive though. I'm not too sure of the drop on them but it's a long long way. That hole that you look out over is a HUGE hole. Nice little walk down to it, complete with the oversized bugs in the photo's above!



Apparrently the Barron Gorge was carved out by a giant carpet snake back in the dreamtime. Must have been one MASSIVE carpet snake. Needless to say I don't think i'd like to meet him face to face if he can do that with a swish of his tail. Perhaps it's just that the idea of a creator and a serpent being the same thing conflicts with my understanding of the universe. Interesting story anyway...



So after Kuranda and the Barron gorge, we went for a wander in to Davies creek for the night. Beaut wee spot set 21km inland from Kuranda and 6km along a metal road from the highway (hence no electricity, and no road noise). Friendly little critters there called the northern bettong, which are kinda like a cross between a rat and a wallaby and which usually feed on truffles, unless other critters such as the Abbeynastrasaurous has been around dropping bits of chicken and beans and such like... The bettong only come out after dark but are not especially fazed by torchlights shining down on them. Or at least our one wasn't! In fact i'm sure the look on his face was as if to say "you come to MY forest, and set up camp beside MY creek and then have the nerve to point your flashlight in MY eyes. What are you thinking?!!" Needless to say we left him to his snuffling and hopping around. Few big lizards around too (30cmish) which don't pause long enough for photo's, diving instead for the nearest rock to cover up or the nearest bit of scrub. Poor things. They just can't help their reflexes eh? I swear you'd probably never even see them if they stayed still, but they get startled by you stepping beside them and make a mad dash for the nearest cover. Gives you almost as much of a fright as i'm sure you give them!



After some star gazing, bat spotting and then a pleasantly early night and a not so pleasantly comfortable sleep, Sunday morning arrived and we decided then we decided to go for a bit of a wander up to the falls. The guidebook says it's a bit of a rock hop for 2km up to the 75m falls. Bit of a rock hop was something of an understatement. The early part was fairly easy, but the last few hundred metres was borderline dodgy. Well dodgy with an infant on your back. Judging by the screams, Abbey concurred, but by that stage we were too close to turn back.



Fortunately the cliff next to the falls was more climbable than the guidebook had suggested, and led to a nice gentle track back down the hill to the campsite. Definately scored more points for adventure. Probably not quite as dodgy as our escapade a few weeks back up the side of the hill at crystal cascades, but definately more fun and a more picturesque option. It also had the real outbacky flavour to it which means it rates more highly. That and I got to have a nudie wash in a pristine mountain location, which is always excellent. Notably also, i've had sore calves now for the past couple of days so it must have been fairly steep! I'm not sure the view back down the creek and out onto the flat quite did the walk justice so i've not bothered to upload that one. The view back down the falls was much more spectacular. Definately created by someone creative.



And so begins a new phase of the Australian journey really. Camping in wonderful spots... The real value of living in Queensland is that you can bet on the weather being great... every weekend. (At least you can in the dry season... will let you know when we get to the wet season!) Needless to say I have already been recommended a few more (even more spectacular) spots by a couple of patients, so there are plans currently being hatched for further adventures and explorations of the Aussie wilds. Will keep you posted!

These Feet Were Made For Walking

It was July the 28th at one year and two weeks old when Abbey worked out that one step at a time is all it takes to be walking!

We were at a local play group and she had a biscuit is both hands and obviously somewhat distracted by this and wanting to be closer to me she just did it!

one.... two... three.... flop

then up again, this time

one... two... three... four.... five...six!! and we're walking!

I was such a proud mum and it was a very special moment which I was grateful to be present for. Even more grateful was I that Abbey then repeated the act for her Daddy that night when he got home.

Since then she's not done a heck of a lot more but there's plenty of time for perfecting such things.

Another milestone and cause for celebration. As you can see she's pretty chuffed.

Tablelands

It's a wonderful thing to have stuff to do to occupy one's time. In the absence of the normal socialisation one would expect of the average 28 year old, one reverts to something of a recluse pottering (and potting!) about in the garden for many hours at a time. To be honest even if I had any friends (locally) i'm not so sure i'd have time to spend with them anymore! Truth be told I actually quite enjoy it (the pottering!) especially after the successful tomato growth in the UK last year. I also figure that if I could grow tomatoes in a UK spring/summer witha relative absence of much sunlight, then the possibilities are endless here in Cairns with an almost endless supply of the aforementioned sunny stuff. What you see above is the fruit of a few weekends chopping out cluster palms for use as trellis (and to give us some more light and less clutter in the backyard) and planting what just a few weeks ago were seedlings. This growth process is great to watch, and gives me something to do in the mornings and when I come home from work (watering) and on weekends (tying up new shoots to trellis...) Will hopefully get into some fruit and veges at some stage in the not too distant future. In fact my chilli already has one gigantic chilli on it which probably ought to be picked in the not too distant future... Shows me (I guess) that i've got to that stage of actually enjoying delayed gratification! The hoard should include Cherry tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, capsicums, french (green) beans, yellow and green courgettes, spring onions, chilli's, parsely, basil, thyme, and both red and purple passionfruit!





Am still ummm-ing and aaah-ing about whether to play with a lime tree, which are most excellent for summer beverages, but cost more than my wife will allow me to spend. (Fair enough, it would be cheaper just to keep buying limes!) In other exciting news we've managed to build ourselves a wee compost pile too in a far corner of the back yard, which is kinda cool. We've been wanting a compost for a while. Just cos compost is cool and greenie and hippy and stuff. So yay, now we have a compost heap. And about a million gazillion fruit flies to go with it! Of course I have absolutely no idea how long compost takes to mature so it may or may not be of any use to us (depending I guess on how long we stay in the house... needless to say if we leave, we won't be taking it with us!!!)

On the left is Mez's birthday present - a chair hammock we picked up in Airlie beach on our way up here (the cushions being as expensive as the hammock!) We saw them on our honeymoon and sure enough three years later, the same shop was still there (though in a new and bigger shop) and still selling them. Clearly there's a good market selling hammock chairs to travellers!
This weekend, having exhausted ourselves of any possible jobs to do in the garden, we decided to venture to the tablelands which surround Cairns. For those that don't know much of the Geography of Cairns (probably most), Cairns is a coastal town surrounded by very big hills (in England they'd call them mountains) If you go up into these mountains (which are mostly covered in fairly dense rainforest) you get to the tablelands. I guess an equivalent of the highlands of Scotland. Except higher! As the name suggests, you don't drive up and over the hills, just up them and then there is the undulating land at the top of the hills.


Interestingly enough it is also an exceedingly clever way to escape the heat of Cairns (both because the car is air conditioned, and because the elevation is such that you lose a few degrees when you step out of it at the top). The photo above is looking back down what we had driven up. Needless to say it is a slow and exceedingly windy road. A bit like the Paekakariki hill road or the rimutaka incline but about two or three times as long (well the really windy section of it anyway!) Beautiful country up there - mainly farmland and looks a lot like the waikato in NZ - rolling green hills. Few lakes up there too which are attractions in their own rights... but perhaps not quite with the same pulling power as the magnificent trees...


What you've got here is the Cathedral fig at the top - So named cos it is just so huge... coming from a seed the size of a sesame seed, the tree is now a staggering 44m in girth, 48 metres tall, with about 1000kg of leaves on it, a 'crown' the size of a couple of olympic swimming pools (2000 square metres!), and has been around for an estimated 500 years. Very cool tree. Though I couldn't help but wonder if all the other trees along the way watch all the cars full of people driving past and wonder just what is so special about the tree up the road, cos really they're all quite pretty and huggable.





The waterfall in the pics is 'vision' falls. The 15 minute walk to get there was more interesting than the waterfall to be fair, but the real drawcard was the possibility of seeing platypus. True to their supposed shy nature they stayed away - or it could be that they were scared away but the 6 or 8 girls ahead of us on the track. We did get to see some though in Yungaburra at a wee viewing platform... not close enough for pics unfortunately so you miss out. They were there though... I swear.





After a few little wanderings we went and had a look at lake Barrine which has a family owned and run tea shop which, though delightful, didn't entice us this time (due largely to the fact that it was still only about 11am!) we'll be back there some day though for the scones... Curtain fig tree came after lunch at another nice wee diner place overlooking more rolling hills. Apologies for the lack of scintillating facts about the curtain fig. Though I can tell you how it came to be there... It grew over to the far left alongside a host tree and eventually strangled the host, which fell on the tree to the right of the pics... the roots then grew down forming a curtain! Very cool to see though! After that we just drove back through the Gillies range home again and had a lazy afternoon sleeping on the couch. Great way to spend a saturday. Hope you're enjoying life, whatever you're up to...