Been in Cairns for a few days now and very surprised at the size of the town, its much bigger than I thought. We’ve managed to do a bit of shopping and caught up with Janine and Earl, who we haven’t seen in nearly 3 years after they shifted to Kuranda from Emerald in the Dandenongs.

Also done a bit of sight seeing. Cairns seems to be surrounded by mountains, everywhere we look you can see the hills and we’re looking forward to doing the train trip up to Kuranda in the hills, then back down on the Skyrail. Skyrail is basically closed in gondolas and it should be good fun.

We enjoyed walking around the CBD. Cairns has a rather unique mall, its more like a park. The Tank museum was also very interesting even for this “flyboy”. It’s amazing the number of WW2 Tanks and vehicles they have. I’ve never a seen a German Tiger or Panzer before but I have now.

I had a very pleasant surprise from my girls tonight, with a Father’s Day eve cake and balloons. The cake was very nice and of course it would not be a celebration without the Black and Yellow ballons!

We have a few activities planned over the next 4 days before we leave the vans and cars behind and head over to Fitzroy Island for 3 days of R & R. Looking forward to the snorkelling and “serenity”!