The Great New ZOzLand Road Trip

Lovely brekkie and chat and posed for photos for Tina. Drove to the signposted WWII bomb site outside Mossman only to drive past it and then find a slightly underwhelming statue of a bomb commemorating the only injured civilian in Queensland during the war! We then drove to Mossman gorge and got a shuttle bus (very easily accessible) up to the gorge rather than walk - more as that's what the local community request rather than shirking the exercise. The boardwalk there gets you to a nice view of the river and gorge and I did the short loop walk alone to the next bridge - a great bouncy suspension bridge. I waited til everyone had crossed it to get a great panoramic photo but shortly into it found I was bouncing all over the chop as a family stomped across the bridge. Finally managed to get a shot after they'd crossed and the bridge stopped moving! We headed back in the bus to the car and bought a micro SD card for the Go Pro and some provisions at Woolies before the drive to Po...

Nice brekkie on veranda again, bacon and eggs for adrian, chia seeds and coconut pudding with fresh fruit and some homemade bread got me. Got going over Daintree towards Cape trib again and stopped in at the Daintree discovery centre - aerial walkway is wheelchair accessible - 11m up into the rainforest and quite a lovely view. I left adrian in the discovery centre and climbed up the 23m tower for a view out over the top of the canopy. Much warmer up there with beautiful view over the forest. Sadly no cassowaries to b seen. Watched a video about archerFish - cool fish that essentially use their mouths like a water pistol to knock there pray off over hanging branches into the water, very nifty! I did a quick low level walk (three of them but all sadly have stairs)  on the cassowary corridor but again no birds seen. We jumped in the car and about 500m down the track was the Jindalba track partly accessible walk into the rainforest and then I walked the rest, not very far, but far eno...

Showered brekkie on veranda- homemade bread, fresh fruit and yoghurt, declined a fry up - already 30 degrees at 8am. I grabbed the Go Pro to take on our croc cruise only to discover the micro SD card is sitting somewhere back at home - awesome to have carried it around for 5 weeks for no good reason!! Drove to cape trib across on Daintree river ferry, stopped at Alexandra Range look out on the way. Beautiful views. Stopped on cape trib beach and then had picnic there - joined by an orange forte scrub fowl  and lots of biting insects (including the dreaded sand fly!!) and then did the short walk to the look out - adrian struggled with his chair so I had to push halfway but the views were worth it. Took a long time to do 700m so didn't stop on way back to ferry except to get a drink and some sour squirms out of the boot as felt my energy zapped and felt I might crash the car. Got to the car park for the croc cruise with plenty of time. Leisurely drive down the river and up a few cree...

I woke up and repacked, said goodbye to Jack before he went to school, paced a bit, lay on floor in cool room and General stressed about as usual for me pre-travelling. Said goodbye to Rach and Damo after they bought home Jacks MRI- bone bruising and talo-navicular ganglion - awaiting specialist opinion. Drove to airport and handed in the hire car. Got to gate and then remembered clicker for Rachael's garage was in the front consul of said hire car and had to ring Avis - strangely enough the UK one was shut and so had to find number for and ring Aussie one - then had to be put through to Brisbane branch. Hopefully they will be able to pick it up when they pick Jan back up post op from Townsville on Sunday, although the girl on the phone sounded one sandwich short of a picnic! Easy flight to Cairns, we sat next to a chap from Geelong visiting friends in Cairns for a holiday after his wife died from ovarian cancer earlier in the year and some health concerns of his own (colectomy). H...

A relaxing day shopping at DFO (Direct Factory Outlook) at Jindalee. Adrian and I  stopped off at Mount Cootha (one tree hill - they have them everywhere) on the way for great views out over Brisbane. I have fond memories of it back in the day being a cool place to hang out and listen to jazz in the sun in a Sunday. Sadly on a Thursday it was nice view but little less chillaxing with the tourists and some local politician about to do a TV interview. We got to DFO and spotted a disabled spot but at the near end of a one way row (wrong way as was no entry so we turned down the next row), as we got to the spot about 45 secs later I was irritated to see someone had taken our spot by driving straight in through the no entry as I got closer I recognised Stuart's Ute and had a quick chuckle to myself! We soon found a park at the opposite end of the car park. We met Rachael and Stuart inside and laughed as I told them about having stolen our park! We mooches around  all the shops and ...

Very wet lost time driving around to find a park. We finally are in the Queen Street Car Park belie Myers - very expensive, cos more to Karl there got an hour than it does o park in Southbank for a day!! Once we finally found our bearings an looking like we'd had a bah fully clothed, we reached Treasury Casino and stood being dropped on heavily by the disabled entrance while we waited for a security guard to let us in. Treasury casino has changed a little, I couldn't find the usual restaurant we used to frequent for our 5am, sober up breakfasts of the Fizz and Strawberries that Ness and I used to treat ourselves with! I fact it was a disappointingly crap brekkie. Time was of the essence as we had to get over to Southbank in time for the 1pm show and the we weather and paling conundrum had cost a good hour, meaning we arrived at the Casino just after 11am. Having finished our drinks by 11:20 with still no sign of food a different waitress to the one who took our orders double ch...

Left after 9 after chatting with a Rachael and hanging out he washing. Drove to Chermside Westfield. Returned Adrian's trousers to Target, quick mooch in H&M before getting to Hermosa for brunch with Art. Was lovely to catch up after too many years! Haircut for Adrian, cycle shorts for me, quickly picked up some WD40 and a hammer for some wheelchair maintenance. I had to make a quick run to the toilet as I got a dodgy tummy after 3 coffees. Met adrian after his crew cut, back to H&M for joggers for Adrian and a Christmas party dress for me. Had a quick soft drink at the Bavarian pub and then paid and left the car park. We drove to south bank and had another mooch along. Popped into QPAC on off chance they would have tickets for tomorrow's matinee performance and we were in luck so Cultural Brissie once again came up trumps! Met shanti from work just before six and had tapas at Olé followed by ice cream at gelateria next door. Again it was nice to catch up with an old fr...