We're Not Talking About the Football

Wonga Beach

Daintree view
 

The lovely but admittedly slightly unnerving thing asbout Oli being a birdwatcher, is that so many strange older people want to adopt him. He has been showered with hints and advice and encouragement. Frank even showed up unannounced at the caravan in Cairns to give him a tape of Daintree bird sounds that his grown up and gone sons had no interest in. However the bubble of birding love was rudely popped by the manager of the Kingfisher Birdwatching Resort who flatly refused us a campsite because "the children would get bored". Nice of him to think of their welfare. Suggesting that the father might get bored might have been more accurate. We left with Oli almost in tears, and while staying with hard core, militant grey nomads at Wonga Beach filed an aggressively negative review on tripadvisor.com. Deal with that nasty rude bird place man!

Onto the beach at Port Douglas and we could have been in Broome. Victorians everywhere on a massively wide, white beach, with stingers and crocodiles patrolling just offshore. Friends from home, the Neavetts and the previously encountered FannNoonans were there. A quick catch up, then onto more pressing issues like where to eat for dinner sans children. Thai was the answer, followed by burnt toffee icecream.



The next day we drove up to the Daintree, with Oli and Eammon pretty much picking up where they left off nine months ago; subjecting us to the chatter, nonsensical language, dubious music and one upmanship of 11 year old boys. We'd swapped Eammon for Ivy, who happily indulged Gerda, Kev and Imogen with her own non-stop chatter, at least until she fell asleep. The purpose of the drive was to go "Jungle-Surfing". No boards or waves here though, just high flying foxes. Kids loved it, but the overall opinion was that it would have been better if it was higher, faster, and longer. We saw rain for the first time in 5 months too. Torrential stuff but very exciting. A couple more meals out, a breath test, a bbq, a football game Ned and I have since forgotten about, and more ice cream. That'll do for PD.

Oli on the high wire

Arriving in Cairns, the first job was to get the car fixed. Two weeks previously we'd had it assessed, and the news wasn't great. Still, if we were to tackle Cape York, it was necessary. We were staying at Australia's only 5 star caravan park, complete with water park, two pools, mini-golf, movies, two jumping pillows, etc etc. Sara and Oli went birding, the rest of us stayed and played. We did manage to drag ourselves away to explore Cairns a bit. Bumped into Tracey (married to Terry the baker from Lawn Hill) and meant to call but didn't. Saw a movie, shopped, fixed the ringtone on the phone, washed the van. All that normal stuff normal people do. Time to move on, I think things are getting a little too comfortable!

H


Tinkerbell, Cookie Monster, Mad Max, Bugs Bunny, Robin Hood, Dennis the Menace, Catwoman, & Mary Poppins