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Sunday 2 August 2009

Book Hunt Continues




2nd August – Sunday

A much nicer morning with clear blue skies, although still quite windy. It did cloud over during the afternoon, but the temperature was still around the 26 degrees mark.

As we are still on the great book hunt, this morning we headed for the Smithfield Community Market, which was held at the Smithfield Shopping Centre. It was quite a pleasant morning as the market stalls were actually inside the shopping complex and a nice assortment of goods, not just plants and bead jewellery! There were a few book stalls and we managed to find a few books to add to the collection. We also met a couple who were parked behind us at Karumba and spent a fair amount of time catching up on news. Also spent some time talking to a lovely guy who had an antique type of stall – he did have a couple of pieces I would have been quite happy to buy if transport hadn’t been a problem, fortunately!

Les has been looking for some new fragrance (men’s, of course), so consequently we have been testing various brands whenever we come across some. This morning we were lucky to find a shop at Smithfield with a good range, Les was duly sprayed in a number of different places along his arms and was certainly very pleasant to be near for the remainder of the day.

After lunch we decided to have a walk along the Cairns Esplanade and view the scenery. The tide is still out!!! At least it makes crocodile spotting much easier. The Scouts were having a fun day, as well, at the northern end away from the Lagoon area. This whole area is a lovely place to have a picnic with children as there is an amazing playground full of very imaginative equipment, water spouts and pool. Unfortunately, one does now feel very uncomfortable taking photos of children playing, which is a rather sad reflection of our times. We walked right along the Esplanade, past the mosaic shell, beach volleyball courts, skateboard park, emergency helipad and RSL monuments, to the centre of the town, bought an ice cream at Baskin Robbins (which probably undid all the good of the walk) and walked all the way back.

There has been a lot of publicity lately about “backpackers” in beat up vans free camping on vacant beachfront blocks at Machens Beach. The general feeling among the public seems to be that these freeloaders shouldn’t be allowed to camp in prime residential areas. Fair enough, we pay our camping fees. So we decided to check out this “prime residential absolute beachfront area.” The best way to describe the area would be a few good houses among a beachside suburb that had a definite “gone troppo” look to it! Backpackers in vans are a real problem in Cairns, though, as they just seem to set up camp in car parks, streets or anyway they can pull up.

Cat is starting to suffer from cabin fever as he hasn’t been out in the car for a while. This afternoon we found him attempting to pick green bananas from the tree across the road!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The Cat certainly looks like it needs a good feed. You will get reported to the RSPCA is you aren't careful!! Ha Ha wouldn't that be a good joke. Don't tempt me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!