Hours spent in a wonderful little café and
the local bookshop had me in raptures and I had mentally moved to Yungaburra
before lunchtime. It was a bit drizzly and cool which was a relief to our
sun-beaten bodies but did not bode well for the next morning’s solar eclipse.
Our mission for the afternoon was to find somewhere to camp from which we could
view the eclipse. Word on the street was that although thousands of people had
flocked to Cairns from around Australia and the world, the forecast was that
the best viewing would be from inland. How nice for us. So we set up in a
caravan park in Mareeba and made plans to drive up a nearby hill in the hope of
a clear view. It was 5pm before we remembered that we needed special solar
eclipse viewing glasses and although Bill and the kids made a mad dash into
town while I set up the tent, everywhere was sold out. The organised people had
bought up all the eclipse glasses! Happily Bill was able to locate a friendly
eclipse fanatic biker dude in the caravan park who very kindly gave us his
spare pair of glasses. So we we were set and getting excited about the next
morning.
At 5am we dragged ourselves out of bed and
popped the kids into the car in their PJs. We drove up to our designated hill
but discovered it was surrounded by trees too tall for good viewing. So we quickly
drove back down the hill and found a spot where quite a few people were waiting
by the side of the road. We knew we had found a good location because we
spotted the biker dude as well as a gang of Japanese men with incredibly fancy
equipment – telescopes and special cameras and the like - pointing at the
rising sun. So we settled ourselves on the bonnet of the car and wished for
some coffee. At 5.45am it all began. Taking in turns to watch through the
glasses we saw the moon gradually eating away at the sun until, sometime after
6pm it started getting darker and colder and then the sun was hidden
completely. It was an awesome, beautiful and inspiring sight. The small crowd cheered
and clapped in excitement - and around town that day everyone smiled at each other and compared eclipse viewing stories and generally revelled in total eclipse camaraderie... We were all thrilled and felt so grateful for the
brilliant view, for the borrowed glasses and for the opportunity to wake up at
the crack of dawn in lovely Mareeba for the total eclipse of the sun.
Photos here
Photos here