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Monday 28 July 2008

Tropical Beach


27 July – Sunday

Late yesterday evening we received a text message from Janice Gillard to say she was in Cairns and where were we? Janice and her mother had arrived that day, were staying until Monday and be back Wednesday. I rang Janice this morning for a long chat, and they are travelling with another person and have covered virtually half of Australia in four weeks. Started in Melbourne, along the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide, Coober Pedy, Alice Springs, Karumba and Normanton before heading to Cairns. We have arranged to meet up after they return from Cooktown.

Another glorious day, so decided to head for Palm Cove after stocking up with fruit and vegetables at Rusty’s Market. We were lucky enough to strike one of those very special days at the beach when the wind stays away and the water was glassy – just perfect. The Cairns Surf Life Saving Club was having a training session for their Nippers, and they were all dressed in their black stinger suits. Stinger suits are long sleeved, all-in-one suits that also go under the feet, so that only the head, hands and toes are exposed. Perhaps the black colour helps camouflage them in the water so that the crocodiles can’t see them! There were a few tourists in the water, but the crocodile warning signs are a big deterrent. The Esplanade was planted with the most magnificent melaleucas, or paper barks.

When we returned, we continued on past the caravan park to Crystal Cascades. This was the most beautiful area in the rainforest, with a walkway which followed the small river past large rock pools suitable for swimming (no crocodiles evidently), small and larger cascades. We spotted one tortoise swimming in a pool with a large number of fish, some of them quite a respectable size, and even saw three Ulysses butterflies. Just superb. However, I do think an elastic tapemeasure was used to measure the 1.2 km!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How about some photos of the caravan and caravan park? Pleeeeese