By the time we arrived at our next camp, John had found someone in Cairns who would squeeze us in to fix our wheel the following week. What a relief. We still have to have our windscreen wipers fixed on 21st June in Cairns (that was booked over a month ago and was the first free day) so we wanted to stay around the Cairns area. We had also decided to stay longer to be able to catch up with Kyran, Vanessa, Tommy and Joey when they visit Cairns early in July. Not only that but we are having some warranty work done on our van on 1st August on the Gold Coast. We are not used to having to plan so far ahead!

Annette answered my ad for a housesitter. They offered us free camping with power and water (plus access to their house if we needed it though all we needed was use of the washing machine and fabulous rainwater shower outside). This was in return for feeding Storm their Great Dane, and Marley their cat on the evenings they had to work away.

They live on “Oasis on Barron”, ten beautiful acres about 16kms out of Mareeba (an hour from Cairns). It is so lovely that they have started hiring out their garden for weddings and other special events. (Barron makes reference to the Barron River that runs through the property).

We were able to use this lovely garden as a base to explore the area. I wasn’t that keen on Mareeba although it was very convenient for us to get medicines, shopping and our flu needles. (We had our fourth covid jags in Babinda). I was really impressed with the town library which had been moved out of town and ended up being a 4km walk. I also had a wander through the book shop and markets while John played golf. We also spent too much time at Coffee Works which serves the best hot chocolate and has a lovely gift shop. The biggest surprise was the Visitors’ Centre which had a great cafe and a wonderful museum with displays about the town’s history. Once again, another little town proud of its past.

We had both been to Kuranda many years ago and looked forward to returning. It was only forty minutes from our camp so we decided to leave the car at Kuranda and take the Skyrail down to Cairns and back. We would have come back on the Kuranda train but the terminus for each were kilometres apart. It was a lovely day and we thoroughly enjoyed wandering around the markets and shops. We both remembered the markets in the rainforest but the shops were new to us.

The skyrail was terrific – the views over the top of the trees, the Barron Falls and then the view of some of Cairns. John commented that we couldn’t see the floor of the rainforest, the trees were so thick.

It has been a delightful two weeks’ stay here at Annette and Dan’s beautiful property and we’ve enjoyed spending time with Storm. Tomorrow we are heading towards Atherton and Yungaburra to have a look around and we are looking forward to that.