A slightly depressing day around Cairns

PHIL: Day 37/23 March

A disastrous day. We discover that our rental car – with a $2700 insurance ‘excess’ – has been ‘grazed’ by an anonymous green vehicle whilst parked in Port Douglas. Then I notice that our new digital camera, only bought in Hong Kong as a replacement for the one stolen in Namibia, has a deep crease in its casing. 

Neither of us can remember it being dropped or squashed, so I conclude that I must have inadvertently stumbled on it in its case in the darkened bedroom last night, with understandable consequences from the application of an unexpected 80kg.

 

A day as spiky as those mangroves!

To cap it all one of our camera batteries appears to be missing. I am seething with anger and railing against the injustice of our collective misfortunes, a mood shared by Allie and only marginally assuaged by the subsequent discovery of the absent battery in one of our suitcases. 

We soothe the pain with lots of red wine over barbecued chicken at John’s.

ALLIE: DAY 37: Friday, 23nd of March

A day around Cairns and some disappointments

We don’t go ballooning this morning. What a pity. I had been looking forward to it. But the weather forecast wasn’t too good, so John recommended us to try tomorrow.

This is today's first disappointment. The second was to find a dent in our newly bought camera. We both don’t have a clue how that happened. The third annoyance is a scratch in our car – again, not done by us. The fourth thing is, that none of Phil’s favourite aeroplanes that he wanted to fly in, are operating right now, and the last annoying thing is, that someone has corrupted an article that I had written.

 

best not to try and swim here!

So we do our usual morning emails and then set off to Cairns to explore the city. Its surprisingly low-rise and quite traditional in many ways. We find a lot of wooden houses and historical looking buildings with nice brass balconies and roofs. 

A walk around the botanical gardens through some jungle area gives us an insight in the countryside of Queensland.

 A bit frightening is the poster that says “Crocodiles have been spotted here. Beware of them. Don’t go to near the water!” Hm, we are just walking on this boardwalk which doesn’t have a fence and is only about 50cm above the marsh waters. In a way I’d love to see one of these reptiles, but maybe not right here!

that part of the coast looks better for it!

A visit to the Flying Doctors Museum proves to be quite interesting. In 1928, John Flynn (now honored by residing on the front of a 20 Dollar Note!) invented this service that nowadays is the major source of medical aid in the out backs. 

The base in Cairns is the largest outfit in the whole of Australia and every settlement that is more then 100 years out from Cairns has to rely on their help for medical treatment. A very impressive service and all for free!

Back past the Cairns airport for Phil to take some more aeroplane pics. He is iffing and blinding about the fences and restrictions to get decent shots. 

I try to stay calm and remind him, that that’s the case now all over the world, and nobody will get much better pictures of aircrafts then him.

I need decent swim in the sea. The waves are not as strong as yesterday. Feels good.  Walk back and start on my pile of emails again.

John cooks us a nice dinner and we stay at home preparing for an early morning start.