Cairns and Ellis Beach

Cairns was an opportunity to spend some time in one place and Ellis Beach was the pick. We set up only meters from the beach and didn’t have to pack up for 6 nights. After spending weeks of one-nighters and endless hours of travel this was a welcome luxury and opportunity to rest and recharge.

We spent time watching sunsets, catching up with emails and even a bit of sight seeing in Port Douglass and Palm Cove.

This break also allowed us some time to do some prep work on Rex and Birdie before tackling Cape York. We did some much needed laundry, stocked up with supplies while supermarkets were still handy and last preps before our rendezvous with The Friends and tackling The Cape.

The kids could play happily on the beach, and since they knew that stingers, crocs and box jellyfish were lurking, they stayed away from the water, so we didn’t have to worry about them venturing too far!

One of the prep tasks was to try seal the gaps in the caravan that were letting dust in. On our trek from Winton to Richmond we had taken on some dust and in anticipation of the notorious dusty roads on the Cape, I thought a bit of silicone might be the thing. So I promptly went about squishing the stuff into any gaps I found in wheel arches and pipe inlets. I reckoned I got it all covered, or so I thought…….

We also got to tick some things off Jonah’s bucket list…

The much anticipated “Jurassic World – Fallen Kingdom” movie had just been released (in 3d!) and was a perfect fit after the Dino trail of Winton, and worked nicely into the home schooling program … ?.

And of course a snorkelling trip to the outer Great Barrier Reef was a highlight, and even though Ahvie didn’t quite get into the snorkelling, he still enjoyed the boat experience. And I got to sneak in a couple of scuba dives too, just because I can.

 

We finally met up with our good friends The Friends and the kids were stoked to see the familiar faces of their buddies from home.

Together we then set off for an adventure on the Cape…..