a million things and nothing

Just on the veranda again with a little breeze with some chill in it. The weather is toying with us we are expecting warmth and summer, or at least spring and it gets cold again. Yesterday woke to tropical downpour. Such heavy rain, today all shiny and bright at first and now looks like a storm coming again. We are not the tropics but some times in the year we get rain like it. I guess thats why we have temperate rainforests here.
Have had my 2 days at work not too bad except for the usual mad new idea. They want us to walk around with hand cleaning stuff in a bottle attached by a carabiner to our pants nutty nutty. Most people are not wearing them. I gave mine away to one of the nurses who go out to the community because I like to use soap and water rather than the alcohol solutions and the charge sister took it off her. I'm laughing now at the thought of all this craziness that is humanity. We are deranged and there is no hope for us so we laugh. oh i forgot one of the girls said she attached it to one of those stretchy pens so it feel to the floor and trailed after her.
Oh another emotional mess about his family. I want a pig farm in Tasmania I want to be down a long road far from everyone talking to my pigs growing veg and flowers. I want to forget about age and death and humans. My husband says remember Monty Pythons hermits all in a row coming out of their caves greeting each other.

watching

We have some new shows which is good, "Breaking Bad" which is great season 3 or 4. "Getting on" which is the funniest show ever at least to nurses. I just googled it and it is described as a satirical British comedy based on a National Health Service hospital. Downton Abbey which is wonderful with Maggie Smith, great writing and a great cast. Dr Who of course, the new series wonderful and a great doctor. The Misfits is so funny and the In-Betweeners. Its nice to have some good shows to watch. we record them or buy the videos so we dont have to watch ads which have become ridiculously intrusive. Sometimes I forget which show I'm watching plus they repeat the same ad so many times in a night you begin to hate the product.
We have just finished watching the first season of THE GAME OF THRONES (HBO), I put this in big letters because I think this is up there with Harry Potter and Lord Of The Rings. It is stunning. I am reading the books up to the 3rd one and they are very good.
Dexter is back next month too. And of course the Champions League is back in full swing with all its talking points. Cheers!

Day 5 last day

We returned the car to our friends so we went by bus into Cairns and looked through the art gallery which is in a beautiful old building and had an interesting exhibition of clothing hippie era, and a pottery exhibit. We had a lovely breakfast at our new favourite cafe next to the art gallery and the walked around the sea front. Somehow, when we were there on friday, we hadnt seen the giant swimming pool with the beach like edges, people were sun baking on the grass around it. It was a lovely idea seeing the bay at Cairns is crap for swimming, a tidal mangrove swamp originally. Then we went to get a taxi back to the motel and wait for the airport bus and wait and wait and wait. We were getting worried but finally a taxi came and we made it to Sydney. Only part of the trip which was a pain, connecting taxis etc. We'd paid a lot for airport connection to home, they were late and wedged us 3 across the back of the limo very uncomfortable. Next time we are going to get those little hand luggage bags and go by train to the airport, more comfortable and quicker trip home. All up lovely holiday.

Day 4 to the daintree

Ready for some more driving. Normally when close to the Barrier Reef would never miss a trip to the outer reef, it is really a great wonder of the world moment when the tide drops and you can walk on beautiful reef in the middle of the ocean or snorkle or dive the side walls, its up there with the Grand canyon but I love it the best because I love to be in the ocean.
Having a car and the cold weather and rough sea and only 5 days we thought we will give the outer reef a miss and drive up the coast and see all the beaches like Port Douglas and up to the edge of the Daintree. Good decision as that coast was amazing the road goes mostly along the sea and it is a wonderful trip. Just that word Daintree evokes for my generation a magical place that was battled over between loggers and conservationists. I think the conservation people won, sort of but it looks like there are people carving out farms and houses on its edges. It is the largest rainforest in Australia. You feel its vastness and its life even at its edges. Next time we will stay at the lodge and walk in it more. They have an absailing run along the tree tops that would be great to go on. Where I live we have pockets of temperate rainforest and our suburb is on the foothills of the mountain so if we were aboringal we would be somewhere between salt water people and rainforest people. There are places that are more like home to you than other places. I can see why our friends feel at home in Cairns it is like a bigger bolder wilder version of our coast.
We drove as far as Daintree Village which is where the road ended at a river. You have to go up to Cape Tribulation to go up further. I would like to see Cooktown and Cape York but I think you need a four wheel drive for that. Must mention the cows they are Brahman cows and look a bit like Clem from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So I kind of thought of them as being able to have a chat to. I went to take some pictures of them and they came over to visit at the fence, they look very smart cows. You can see why dairy farmers love their cows.

Day 3 cairns botanical gardens

Our friends loaned us their second car which was really nice of them so on the 3rd day we went to the Botanical gardens which was awesome, I kept going around a corner and going ahh as all the plants you see as indoor down south  grow outside and huge. It is a bit bashed about from the cyclone but that is interesting to see the force it takes to snap off huge trees and then they form open areas and new areas of growth. It is a bit the feeling you get in rainforests but with labels and more variety so nice when you go into a rainforest you know what you are looking at. I wish we were there when the guided tour was on. Lastly we hobbled down to the bamboo as bamboos are my favourite plants. I think they are just establishing this area as not that many varieties. The cafe in the gardens was very good and they have made a gallery in an old water tank which was a great space so we looked at an exhibit of high school work. We meant to go to the Art gallery but by the time we got there nearlly closed so had a lovely coffee and banana bread at the cafe next to the gallery. Best banana bread ever more like sticky banana pudding. Walked around the town a bit got some food for dinner and back to hotel.

Day 2

Our friends who had moved up there from Sydney kindly drove us on a big circle around the hinterland of Cairns through lovely old towns full of Queenslanders yeah the people but also the name they give to the lovely old houses built on stumps with big verandas all around and steep corrugated iron roofs, built mostly for coolness and sometimes to protect from floods. We had lunch at a dairy where they made chocolates and cheese. We had the cheese platter but I was a bit cheesed off by the end of it (lucky no one reads this, bad bad joke). The country looked very rich volcanic soil and lots of farming. Then we came down a long pass down the mountains and rainforest  to Cairns. It was a bit drizzly and grey but not too hot. I would like to go back and stay in the hinterland at one of the old hotels and wander around the towns.

Holidays are good

We flew to Cairns it was much more interesting than I thought. The first day we went out to Green Is which was the freebie with the trip. It was nice through the snorkeling is a waste of time the reef looked dead mostly and the water cold and murky. I saw a green turtle which was nice but unfortunately I hadnt got used to snorkeling when I saw it. It takes a little while before you manage the mouth breathing and not flooding yourself. Also I'd swam into the no snorkeling area which was funny because it was the only place with a bit of coral. Gave up on that and walked around the Island reading the history, it was a place they harvested sea cucumbers which are about the most revolting eatables ever. Then we looked at the crocodile enclosure. I'm sure there are much better maintained places to see them but this place was obviously the product of a life long obsessive collector which is always fascinating. He had a bunch of Pacific Is and New Guinea objects dusty badly lit unexplained, worth millions or worthless who knows, but so interesting. He has the biggest croc in captivity (or did till the Cairns paper reported a bigger one captured in the Philippines with comments from our croc world that Dad (obsessed collector) would want to go see it but it wouldn't survive as it looked like they had it tried up over its nostrils).
We watched the feeding which the big show as they leap out of the water. They also had some barramundi which are a beautiful fish, we used to catch them in Darwin, well I stood next to people who caught them. I love fishing but I'm very unsuccessful at it. We had a very nice lunch and pottered about till the boat came back.