Our long awaited arrival has come! We have made it to Cairns, for mum it is a  special moment to see the change in her childhood town more than 30 years later.

After  checking in at Lake Placid, we went to dinner at Mum’s old neighbourhood at Trinity Beach. Mum shows us her old house, her old school and the hill of Trinity Beach, pointing along the way old friends houses, where the old post office and bakery  used to be and how everything had changed since she lived there.

The next day we got up early to catch the Skyrail to Kuranda. Unfortunately the Skyrail was having technical issues so we didn’t depart until 10:15am instead of the scheduled 8:45am departure. It was an amazing ride to the top stopping at in the rainforest overlooking Barron Falls along the way. When we arrived in Kuranda it felt like a very touristy market. For lunch we had Lan’s Vietnamese which we thought was delicious. The rest of the day was spent perusing the markets, eating ice cream and watching a man bathing a Mexican parrot in yellow tea which I had never seen anything like in my life.

To get back to Cairns we caught the Kuranda train. It was beautiful watching the rainforest out the window and stopping again to see Barron Falls from the other side of the valley. The steep and winding track was difficult to construct and is considered something of an engineering feat. A couple of minutes before we arrived at Freshwater Station mum saw the park where she used to sit and read books which was very exciting because she had been talking about it the whole time we had been in Cairns!

Our short trip from Cardwell to Cairns was more eventful than our time at Cardwell itself where we swam at the pool and caught up with our clothes washing. In the morning we headed to Mission Beach, a place my mum had visited as a child and Uni student. It was a nice little touristy place and we stopped for some morning tea of chai lattes and raw blueberry cheesecake at a cafe behind the beach. As we were enjoying morning tea a group of skydivers appeared over our heads and landed on the beach just in front of us. Lilah was in awe and said she would love to do that. Thankfully for Mum and Dad there is a minimum age for such pursuits.

After Mission Beach we headed to Paronella Park, apparently Queensland’s number one tourist destination even though none of us had ever heard about it. When we arrived we got a “special offer” because we didn’t want to buy the 2 year pass. As we walked around with the guided tour I noticed how much damage and natural disasters the castles had gone through, but impressive that all of the castles foundations had withstood the pressures and time over the years without collapsing. After the guided tour, we walked down ‘Lovers Lane’ to the river to feed the turtles and fish. There were heaps of turtles piling over each other trying to get a taste of what seemed to be some delicious fish food, even the giant eel was enjoying it. On the way back we walked down a path lined with Kauri pines, they where massive and not even that old in tree terms. After more feeding of the fish at the waterfall it was finally time to head through the sugar cane fields and banana plantations to Cairns.

After a hot, tasty and smelly tour of the local sugar mill at Mackay we headed to the glitz and glamour of the Whitsundays and Airlie Beach, but not before visiting Mr Frosty and the big mango for a scoop of mango ice cream.

Our first day we went on a old yacht to sail around the Whitsunday Islands. Well it was meant to be a sailing cruise but there was no wind all day so the skipper had to rely on the diesel engine. During the cruise we saw numerous pods of whales close to the boat, most of the pods had a calf which was amazing and exciting, especially when eating delicious brownies. The first stop was Whitehaven Beach, said to be the best beach in Australia. Beautiful, the sand a lovely pale shiny white with tourquise waters. After a walk to a lookout of the beach we enjoyed the beautiful swimming conditions.

After a short ride on the yacht with more whales we arrived at another small island to snorkel. It was probably the best and most colourful coral I had seen on this trip yet. The colours where more bright because there was soft coral and there where so many huge beautiful fish swimming around it. It was low tide so I could get right up to the coral without touching it, maybe the best experience yet.

On the cruise the guide was explaining how rare it is to see bottlenose dolphins when a pod appeared on the port side of the yacht and glided behind us to the starboard side, that’s when I thought my day was complete. There was more though – I had delicious pizza and chips at a bar called Sorrentos watching the sunset over the marina. A perfect day.

Back at our caravan park the next morning when we were cooking breakfast, we saw a small green tree snake sliding along the top of a fence, then it did a poo and ate a lizard before disappearing into the grass!

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As you head along the A1 Highway in Queensland, sugar cane farms are a predominant feature. With so much sugar about how could we turn up an offer to visit a sugar mill? Perhaps the sweetest place on earth.

It was fascinating to see how the sugar cane is ground to a pulp, the juice extracted, cleaned, heated and evaporated to produce the raw sugar. The sugar refining process and equipment has changed little over the past 80 years.  The biggest advancement has been a move from manual labour to a fully automated process. The sugar mill we visited in Mackay was still using equipment installed in the 1950s and 60s.

It was also interesting to see how the sugar pulp is used to heat the boilers, much of the steam is cooled and the water recycled, the ash from the boilers and dirt collected during the cleaning process is used to make a mulch which is sold back to the famers. Therefore it is almost an entirely closed loop system with almost no waste. The molasses, a by-product of producing the raw sugar is used in human and animal food products.

Overall, it was a hot, smelly and tasty experience. I especially enjoyed tasting the different grades of molasses which varied from caramel to liquorice flavours.

We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn at Rockhampton and all stood on the “tropic”. We then headed to Mackay.

Our first day was delayed by a flat tyre incident when mum and dad had gone to get petrol really early then got stuck for two hours. After the tyre was sorted we went to Eungella (Yun-Gulla) National Park in the hinterland behind Mackay. For morning tea we stopped at Eungella’s General Store. What surprised us most were the friendly locals –  a cat and a dog called Tully. The dog was huge but was really friendly whereas the cat really didn’t care that we were there at all. During morning tea the cat started grooming itself in a most peculiar way in front of us.

After lunch we went on a walk through the rainforest, it was so much cooler under the huge trees. Eungella is famous for its platypus and is regarded as the best place in Australia to see them in the wild. We were not disappointed. In the late afternoon we walked over the main bridge in the national park and saw several platypus swimming in the river. It was great fun watching them swimming up and down the river and following the air bubbles on the surface whenever they dived. We stayed until it got too dark to see them. It was a really special experience watching these unique animals.

Heading to the mountains

Sugar train

View of Pioneer Valley from Eungella

Moth in the restroom

Rainforest

Bushwalk

Broken River

Turtle

Kingfisher

Platypus

“Sorry everyone reading from Canberra but today I was hot.” – Mia

At Yeppoon, we did the Bluff Point walking track which climbed to the top of a hill and back. The views of the Keppell islands, and turquoise sea water were enticingly cool when watched from above on the hot headland.

After the bush walk we went to a sea shell museum which was very interesting, there were some huge shells from places we had already been but the shells were mainly from Yeppoon and overseas. After the hot bush walk and visit to the museum we went back to our caravan park and swam in the pool and had cold drinks.

The next day we caught a ferry out to Great Keppel Island for the day. We hired kayaks and paddled to Monkey Beach for some snorkelling. We saw at least three different schools of fish and they were everywhere, it was really fun trying to swim with the fish when they kept darting up and down. We had a great beach picnic before Lilah and I tried to kayak together, Lilah kept jumping off when we went far out and when we were going down the beach she jumped off and we had a race back to our spot.

On the way back we stopped at another small beach for more snorkelling. My sunglasses tipped off the kayak and fell onto the reef. We looked for ages before we found them, while dad still couldn’t see them Lilah dived down a couple of metres to get them, she was our saviour! Now we could go back and return the kayaks, get a chocolate milkshake and board the boat. It was a great day with great weather.

One of our stops along the way to 1770 was at the Childers Mammino Ice Creamery, famous for their macadamia based ice creams. It was one of the best ice creams I have ever had, really smooth and creamy.

The town of 1770 gets its name from being the location of Captain James Cook’s second landing when he sailed up the East coast of Australia in 1770. It is a really picturesque town and one of the few places on the east coast you can watch the sunset over the ocean, which we did each night we stayed.

One of our highlights at 1770 was a morning walk through a coastal paperbark forest. At lunch we saw whales in the bay at 1770. We were able to follow them all the way to the headland and out to the open ocean. We decided to stay at the headland to go to the beach and watch the sunset and full moon rise.

The next day we went on a day cruise to Lady Musgrave Island, one of the southern most islands on the Great Barrier Reef. We went snorkelling for the first time on the trip. It was thrilling to see so many fish darting in, out and around the coral. Dad and Lilah swam with a turtle.

After the snorkelling the tour guides took us onto Lady Musgrave Island which is home to some really special migratory birds, one species digs nesting burrows in the ground to lay its eggs because there were no predators to hunt them. There are burrows everywhere. I felt really special to be there and was awed at the beauty.

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After the Gold Coast we visited Mum’s friend at Tinnanbar on the Great Sandy Straights, from where she lived we could look out across the narrow gap of water to the southern part of Fraser Island. When the tide was out we went for a walk along the sand bars. There were thousands of soldier crabs and it looked like the sand was moving, Lilah caught juvenile toad fish, patted them, said goodbye and put them down again. There were other interesting creatures in the sand as well, some of which looked like they had become stranded when the tide went out.

We also visited the Dolphin Centre at Tin Can Bay to view and feed a wild dolphin that visits the Bay each morning.

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For our last night at the Gold Coast we once again packed an overnight bag to go to Alice and Ida’s house. After they picked us up we dropped Alice and Ida off to roller skating training. I had never been to a roller skating arena before and it was impressive to see Alice and Ida skate so easily.

When Alice and Ida returned from roller skating we had dinner. Lilah ate more food than anyone even Karen and Uncle Stuart. When we sat down to watch a movie I had a bet with Alice that she would fall asleep during the movie, I was right, even though Alice insisted she would stay awake for the whole movie, I turned around during a scene and she was asleep.

The next morning Alice and Ida still had to go to school but we played some multiplayer Minecraft before it was time to take them to school. It was sad to say goodbye as we were leaving the Gold Coast later in the morning it was also fun saying Goodbye until they were out of sight.

We visited the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary to feed the Rainbow Lorikeets. At one point I had a number of lorikeets in my bowl, on my arms and one landed on my head.  That was until one of them pooped in my feeding bowl then none of them came to me until the volunteer gave me a clean bowl.

The next day we went back to the Cardamom Pod for lunch and we had a pumpkin cheesecake which was absolutely divine. After lunch we went to the pirate park at Currumbin to meet Alice and Ida for another play together. Afterwards we went back to Alice and Ida’s house to continue playing the afternoon away. Mum and Dad arrived with the salad for dinner just as the pizzas and garlic bread were going in the oven.  Dad and Uncle Stuart started versing each other in a game and got really competitive. Dad won and you should have seen his victory finale (show off 😉). After dinner we played more card games which again Dad won by his own rules which was annoying! Afterwards it was time to go home and to get ready for the sleepover tomorrow.

From the one and only… Lilah:

Lilah loves to play with her Dad, Mia and Mum. Her favourite game to play is sharks and crocodiles 🤗😋😋😁👭💩👨🏽👩🏽👰🏼🤦🏼‍♂️🤦🏼‍♀️🙅🏼‍♂️👩‍❤️‍👩👨‍👩‍👧‍👧🇦🇺🏊🏽‍♀️⚽️🥅🏹🍸🍽🌮🥙🌯🍕🥘🍱🥗🍔🥑🍌🍉🍅🥒🍛🍲🌊🌥💫🌔🌚🌝🌛🌜🌙🌞⭐️🌟✨🔥☁️🌈🌩🔥🔥🌫🌊💧🔥💦🌎🎍🐘🦌🐡🐠🙉🐶🐶🐶🐴🐣🕷🐦👚👕👗👙👒👓🕶.😚