Tuesday 1st July Cairns - Julie

Today we are taking it easy and getting a few chores done including the Blob. Cairns is a lovely place the weather has been very kind to us too. We had a great day when we visited Kurunda. We caught the train up the mountain to the village and spent the day eating and shopping. We then braved the skyrail down. It was fantastic. The view was spectacular.

Another day we drove up to Port Douglas and the Daintree to see what that was like. Again we were not disappointed.

Andrea and I have adopted a couple of orphans. Here is mine, it is a day away from cracking out of it's shell. I will keep you posted.

Overlooking beach at Port Douglas.

St Mary's by the Sea! A quaint little church right on the water front at Port Douglas. The alter opens out to a view of the sea. It is non denominational and can be booked for weddings and batisms etc.

Strolling along Port Douglas.

We thought we might bring this home for Dave.

Cairns marina.

Learning all about coffee processing.

Brian attracts all the birds.

Our guide at the coffee plantation. His mate is called Sqawky.

I'll keep you warm.

Casual Andrea enjoying the skyrail. Brian and I were hanging on for our lives at the other end.

Air crash investigators - Kurunda

All aboard.

On our way up to Kurunda. We were in carriage number one.

Brian and I took the 2.5 k's walk along Crystal Cascades. It was a beatiful meandering creek with lots of little water falls and swimming holes. It is very safe to swim here.

Lake Placis Caravan Park Cairns

Thoroughly enjoying our stop off in Cairns, had a couple of dramas this morning. I threw my tuggy Jillian gave me as a going away present into the Lake and it promptly sunk!!!

Have a great photo of Brian fishing it out for me. There is also a photo of Brian getting his tuggy out of the tree (Brians throwing not mine this time)

We have been asked to give the local's a few agility tips this afternoon down at the Show Grounds.

Training was good on Thursday night, did LOT'S of contacts.

Enjoy the pictures enclosed, hugs Andrea

June 26th Cairns - Julie

Sue,

This cafe was in Mt Isa.

An Oscar moment.
Mum, this photo is for you.

This is how our set up works. We sleep up the back in the trailer box area and the dogs sleep in the living area below. We always seem to spread our gear around where ever we go!

This is where we are staying in Cairns it doesnt even look like a caravan park. It is at the base of a lush rain forrest and a stones throw away from beautiful running water.

As Andrea said we are staying in Lake Placid on the edge of the rain forrest in Cairns. One word to describe this whole area is GREEN.

Some locals sunning themselve by the lake.

My shell collection so far!

"If you build it they will come"

We stumbled across a place called Black River Rodeo Stadium for a couple of nights while we were in Townsville getting the van serviced. It was virtually in a farm's backyard.

It was very quiet and peaceful and had excellent amenites we pratically had the whole place to ourselves. Except for some crazy bird that had been hand reared and was mentally unstable. Unfortunatley it took a liking to me. We were told later it had attacked some campers. Naturally I was very brave (not) after that.

We are hoping to see a rodeo on our travels and some real live "cowboys".

Maybe when we come back to townsville on the 5th July for the dog trials.

We caught up with a good friend of ours Tony Ash. This would have to be smallest, cutest trailer I have ever seen

Tony has done 20,000 miles in his Healey pulling the trailer.

Tony and you know WHO!!!!!!

Oh what big teeth you have, where's Syllus??

Two well trained working dog's for sale, what offers!!!!!!

26th June Cairn's

Hi there back in Perth and also our NZ friends.

We are nicely settled into Lake Placid Caravan Park. It is a nice park, very tropical and lush.

Early this morning Brian and I walked the 4 dogs to a huge dog park 1 klm down the road, Smudge and Spice had several swims in the lake.

Tonight we are going training with the locals, I am having contact withdrawls!!!!
That would be the only down side of this trip,lack of contact training, Sue suggested I buy a second hand ironing board (good idea)

Tomorrow we are doing the Kuranda Scenic train & skyrail adventure.

Great weather, still in shorts but without the humidity in Darwin.

Talk to you soon.


HUGS
Andrea

Richmond Qld - Julie 22nd June

We have crossed the border and are now in sunny Queensland. It has been blowing a gale since and the nights are very chilly. The crosswinds makes fuel comsumption very high. Speaking of fuel we paid $2.24 per litre for diesel in Barkly NT. We just stayed just overnight at Mt Isa typical mining town. Although the scenery either side was beautiful. Blue hills on the horizon, red rocky outcrops and dry creek beds scattered with white gums. I went to the Flynn Museum in Cloncurry where the flying doctors first started. It was very interesting and it had a great art gallery.
Tonight we are staying by at a very pretty country town called Richmond.

Droving the cattle to better pastures. We had to stop to let them cross of course.

Glem we always said you were an old dinosaur!

Just one of the dust storms we had to pass through.

Goodnight.

PS Hope you all saw the game last night!

Go the CATS!

Andrea's latest news

We found this very interesting little place by accident.Stopped and had breaky while on our way to Banka Banka.

This is of course a caravan with many uses!!!!

My kind of parking.

Smudge and Spice trying to read the rather rude signs on the caravan!!!!!


Adelaide River, I managed to do some girl shopping at the local markets

( gorgeous place)

Florence Falls Lichfield National Park

We swam here in the warm clear water, great place.

June 20th Barkly Homestead NT - Julie

This is our last night in the Northern Territory. Out next stop is Mt Isa Queensland. We havent been able to blog for a while as no reception since Darwin. We spent two lovely days in Litchfield National Park. Florence falls was a beautiful place to have a cooling dip. On the road south we have stayed at two remarkable stopovers. One remarkably awful and the other remarkably nice. You really needed to see the abulution block at (name witheld for fear of litigation) for your self to believe it. I still had a shower though. We then stayed over at Banka Banka Station. It was a lovely oasis before the turnoff to east. We had a silde show and talk of cattle station life in the NT. It was very interesting and entertaining. The days are getting cooler and the cross winds driving out this way are incredible.
Keith was having withdrawals from not being able to use his moble phone. Notice the cow pat!After a hasty exit from our previous nights lodgings we had breakfast at Daly Waters Pub. Great place to have a wonder through full of lots of quirky items.

Gee we were lucky we were guest. We didn't have to pay to have a shower here!

Just stand very still and dont touch anything.

Wasn't that nice of our humans to provide lounge chairs.

The termites are big in the NT.

Florence Falls. The current was strong but I managed to make it to the waterfall. Then some brave but stupid young man decided to jump off it. It was exciting to watch though but scary.

This is some of the NT agility gang. Thanks guys for your hospitality!

Warning up before the second night of trials at Darwin.