A change of tack with the blog for Australia, we'll do some weekly updates rather than the daily ones as we're planning on taking things a lot easier for the next couple of months and I'm sure you don't want to hear how each day we get up late, relax on the beach/in the pool/under a palm tree (delete as appropriate) so we'll try and keep things interesting and stick in some more pictures.
In actual fact the days above should really not include Monday as we kind of lost that in flight. We had a brief stopover in Honolulu, airport seemed nice, and then off again on the remainder of the flights to Cairns. As you fly in to Cairns you get great views out over the Barrier Reef as the airport is right on the coast. For these first two weeks we're staying with Zoe and Mark in their very nice house a few miles out of the town centre. They've recently made a very welcome addition to the place as well, a huge swimming pool (well it's bigger than the whole of our back garden so it's huge to us!). You'll be sad to hear though that the first week's weather has not quite been what was promised to us, it's been warm and humid but pretty overcast and breezy with frequent showers. We have thawed out though after our cold Canadian experiences and the novelty of only needing shorts and a t-shirt won't wear off soon.
We've slipped into the relaxing mentality quite nicely and have enjoyed pottering around the local area seeing some of the sights. We spent a day up in Port Douglas, a kind of smaller, more upmarket version of Cairns, and enjoyed the views from the coast road on the way there. The road hugs the coastline pretty tightly for the majority of the way so you get some good photo opportunities.
Zoe and Mark, as well as having a big house and a pool, also own a motor boat and so we headed out to Lake Tinaroo to try out some waterskiing. Tinaroo is up in the tablelands region and that means that only way to get to it is via a winding mountain road, we went up through the Gillies Range. Since we are only at 16°S latitude here we're in the tropics so heading up to the tablelands you go through rainforest before coming out into a landscape that looks something like home with rolling green hills. We got ourselves set up at the lake and both Rach and I had a go at waterskiing. Now Rach is definitely the watersports fanatic of the two of us and was up on the end of the rope skiing away quite nicely. I on the other hand am not what you would call a water baby and as this was my first attempt at waterskiing used the training bar at the side of the boat with limited success. A quick masterclass lesson at lunchtime from Rach and I had some more success afterwards before wiping out quite spectacularly. We also had a good swing around in a ring behind the boat too, but the only skill that requires is to hang on for dear life! All great fun though.
The week was rounded off with a very early start (well for us anyway) at 5am to watch the rugby World Cup final. Shame about the result but amazing that we actually got to the final and means we now have bragging rights over both the Aussies and the Kiwis for the coming months. They could still be in mourning in New Zealand when we get there!
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