Cairns catch ups, cavorting hippies and fast friendships

Blissing out on post-eclipse ecstasy we happily packed up our gear, said goodbye to the biker dude and headed to Cairns. The road wound scenically and precariously down from the mountains to the coast. We were excited to be meeting up with Bill’s aunt and uncle, Prue and Graham, who had travelled up to Cairns from Melbourne to view the total eclipse. They had cleverly found a café in the middle of a great playground called Muddies, which greatly enhanced the likelihood of the adults actually having a conversation. But of course, the kids were so thrilled to see Prue and Graham that they just wanted to be sitting on their laps or having them push the swings the whole time! We all really enjoyed seeing them and catching up on some news from home. The kids were a bit sad to say goodbye after lunch but cheered up a bit when we told them they would see Prue and Graham again in a few weeks at Christmas in Melbourne!

The other consoling factor was the imminent arrival of a bunch of wonderful friends from Melbourne - Liz, Dave, Ada and baby Henry. We were all hanging out to see them and to spend a week together in a rainforest getaway. But we had a few days yet to wait and so made our way North, over the Daintree River on a barge and then up to beautiful Cape Tribulation – where the rainforest comes all the way down to perfect beaches and where gangs of red-eyed hippies cavort naked on the beach, twirl fire-sticks and earnestly discuss the perils of the world. We spent the first night in a safari tent due to the crowds of lingering eclipse watchers, then moved into a beach-side campsite the next morning. 

The beach was just beautiful but the possibility of lurking box jellyfish and crocs was a bit off-putting. Mind you the naked hippies didn’t seem remotely fazed and the friendly staff told us they swam each morning with only a blue-bottle sting every now and again… In the end, we did duck in every now again taking care to enter the water carefully and spending very little time in. But there were hammocks and rope swings to play on, palm trees to shimmy up and endless coconuts to throw so our days were busy! 

A friendly family from Melbourne were camping next to us and it didn’t take long for the kids to find each other. Their kids were really lovely – polite, fun and friendly. And if all 13 year boys could be like their son Kaiko – I reckon the world would be a less surly place. He spent hours giving Zara piggy-backs (we could see first love gleaming in her big brown eyes!) and wrestling and playing chess with Sash. Before they left, they took Zara and Sash on a rainforest walk, leaving us to blog and read. We were sad to see them go. However, the kids hardly skipped a beat and soon joined up with some more kids from Melbourne – Merri (named after Merri Creek) and Banjo. Merri and Zara had a fast and furious friendship – going from strangers to inseparable in just a few minutes. We set up the little tent for the girls to whisper in all night, whilst Banjo and Sash slept in our trailer – talking about chess and Tintin for about 5 minutes before passing out. As usual we felt like we we said goodbye immediately after we said hello - but that's the way of this traveling life... let's hope we can stay in touch with some of the cool people we have met along the way...