Queensland

Queensland, as hot as chip fat.

Brisbane
We flew north to visit Glenys and her boys Zak and Adam. We generally hung out for a week basking in the sunshine and relaxing. We helped Glenys celebrate her ?? birthday on the 6th March and received some wonderful news from home where our niece Leah had given birth to Sarah Louise in the same day, making Mags a Great Auntie – but don’t tell anyone.

Fliss travelled up from Sydney by train and the two of us visited the all new Queensland museum of modern art, housing all the works post 1970 that had previously been housed in the nearby state art gallery. We travelled there along the river using the wonderfully convenient citycat service. There was a very interesting exhibition of Asia Pacific art that we both enjoyed before meeting up with Mags for a spot of lunch – it’s a hard life.

We spend an afternoon having a barbeque by the pool shared by the residents of Glenys’ apartments. Alcohol was “not allowed” so we were drinking plenty of “apple juice”.

Cairns
We continued north to Caaaaairns, near Cairns to catch up with our friends Lynette and Rudy who have spent the last year living on a Catamaran cruising the Queeensland coast. They’re holed up in the Cairns marina for the duration of the cyclone season. You can learn all about their unbelievably idyllic life by visiting Lynette’s wonderful blog - click on the link to the right of this page.

We spent a memorable day with them on their boat where we cruised to Fitzroy Island, approximately 2 hours away. We anchored about 100 metres from the shore with half a dozen other boats to idle away the afternoon. We jumped into the 28 degree C sea with flippers and goggles for a gentle swim over the nearby reef, and met up with a friendly turtle amongst the rainbow coloured reef fish and coral.

Back on board, I asked Rudy how far further north we would need to travel before we encountered any of the scary, man eating salt water Crocodiles. “Oh, we have them here”, he casually replied as the colour drained from my cheeks. Actually, they like to hang out in the rivers and creeks and, although they do venture out to sea, they generally stick to the outlets of the rivers on the mainland. On the islands, where there are no rivers, it would be very rare to see one. Well, that’s what he told me anyway.

Rudy cooked up a rack of lamb on the barbeque for lunch accompanied by his legendary potato salad, and the afternoon slipped quietly away under the southern sun. Quite a day, and they do this all the time – we’re not jealous at all.

We also had a trip out with them to Mossman in the Daintree Rainforest where we walked round a short 2km circular track. Typically, we find this irresistible. A path that leads nowhere, we couldn’t help ourselves. I went off ahead, as I wanted to get some exercise as Mags was moving like a united nations resolution. I left her limping behind chatting away to Lynette where they managed somehow to get lost before eventually regaining the car park two hours later.