On our last day in Cairns, we were able to meet up with our eldest grandchildren Josh and Ellie. We met them at the waterpark in Cairns and had a good few hours with them. They were obviously having a great time with their other grandparents and were full of what they had been up to. It was great to catch up with both them and Ray and Viv, none of whom we see often enough. After the kids had tired themselves out in the pool and we had caught up with all Ray and V...

With our Cape York trip now behind us but not forgotten, we head to the Atherton Tablelands, inland from Cairns. We spend a few days at the small caravan park at Milla Milla and begin to explore the area. We are still having mixed weather with rain and being of a higher altitude it’s cooler overnight than we had expected. We first went to the visitor centre at Malanda to see what was around the area. We were very impressed with this centre as not only were the...

Driving out to Cape Tribulation, our weather is now beginning to change. Where we have had a few small rain showers this trip, it’s been mostly dry with temperatures that were suited to our trip. No really high temperatures or humidity which I was grateful for. This day is really overcast and we are dodging the rain and our walk on the beach was a bit of a disappointment in as much that we didn’t see the beautiful colours of the sky, sea and beach with the ra...

We are now up to day six of our tour and our two groups are all getting along famously. We have been swapping positions in the car every day so no one can hog the best position. You’d think that would be the front passenger seat but when I was in front I found as I could see what was coming up on the road I tended to tense my body more and by the end of the day I was feeling pretty tender. To be fair all the seats were more comfortable than I had expected. As ...

We arrived at Horn Island with beautiful warm, sunny weather and were greeted by our two tour guides, Darryl and Laurence. They introduced themselves, took our luggage and directed us to a bus that would take us on a tour of the island. Our lady bus driver (I can’t remember her name) took us on a tour of Horn Island, showing us all the points of historical interest and telling stories of the war. Horn Island was used as a base for both the Australians and the ...