The Roaming 5: July 14 - 15 (Day 165 - 166)

Tuesday 14 July

The original plan was to spend two nights at the caravan park in Cairns (i.e. Monday night and Tuesday night), spend Tuesday looking around Cairns, then check out on Wednesday, go to Bek's orthodontist appointment and then move straight up the coast towards Pt Douglas (we later extended by one day).

Lots of 'things to do in Cairns' were actually in the general Cairns area rather than Cairns itself, or activities to do with the Great Barrier Reef which we saw on our last trip. So we decided to visit the Cairns Aquarium as it was a while since the kids had been to one, and it was sort-of reefy!

This ugly brute is a Stonefish! At least we know what to look out for now!

Hello sting ray!

These Emerald Monitors were hilarious! They were so active,
and these two were both wrestling for prime position under the light, when...

...boom! They both lost their footing and tumbled to the (thankfully soft) floor!

It didn't harm this guy's appetite though - a minute later he pounced on a cricket for lunch!

Wednesday 15 July

As mooted earlier, we decided to extend our stay by an extra day. The main reason for this was that I needed to get some more work done. We'd spent the last week or so on 'touristy' things, and things were starting to back up, particularly as we have a new product about to arrive and I had a lot of things to do to get ready for that. So I got a bit of work done in the morning. After a swim and lunch, Mim and the kids went to the orthodontist while I went to a cafe, and then a library, to get some more work done.

The kids were so excited to go to the library, surprisingly so in fact, because of course while they love reading we didn't think they would look forward SO MUCH to a library!'

Anyway I got a good few hours' work done, though needed to do so much more. I worked until the library closed at 5pm.

After this we decided to visit the Cairns night markets! We have always loved markets, the girls in particular, so we drove a little way into the centre of town to where the markets were. In one of the parks nearby there were some long roots hanging from some trees which were great impromptu rope swings for the kids!

The markets had lots of very interesting things!

In the end, Jude and I bought hats, Matt got a hat strap, while Mim and Bek bought a leather bracelet each! Nice little souvenirs from our time in Cairns!