Snorkling

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

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According to one of the guide books, if it had been a clear day and if we had looked carefully, then it would have been just about possible to see The Barrier Reef from our Skyline gondola as we came to the last half mile onto the flat ground that surrounds Cairns. All that we could see was mountains and water.

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As it happened it didn’t matter too much as we had a much closer look at The Barrier Reef today.

This meant an early morning start to get our boat out of Cairns harbour. We were warned that it would be bumpy as we pulled out into the open sea so we forced fed ourselves sea-sickness pills which seemed to do the trick.

It took a good hour of our bouncing over the swell for us to get to our first stop. There was then a rush to pull on wet and clingy black stinger suits, wet shoes, snorkel and mask before our feet were pushed hard into a pair flippers and we were in the water.

On the surface there was a strong wind and choppy sea but as soon as we put our faces under the water all that went away and we were left with the sound of our breathing through the plastic pipe of the snorkel and a slowly unfolding world beneath of made up of myriad fish and corals that seemed to take on colours that no one had thought of before.

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24 hours in Cairns

Posted on April 3, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

First day in Cairns and we went for a walk down near the sea and watched some of the boats coming in from The Barrier Reef.

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Second day in we took the scenic railway up into the mountains. This needed an early start outside Cairns’ railway station. We all managed to resist the temptation to pull the emergency cord.

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In Kuranda we took on more leathery skin and some of us tried to resist the temptation to buy a leather hat. We then managed to find ourselves a good lunch in a place called Frogs.

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In order to get back home we had to take a cable-car over the rain forest. There were times we loomed two or three hundred feet off the ground. The kids talked on our likelihood of survival if we were to fall and I kept to the back of my mind all thoughts of Where Eagles Dare.

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Places to eat on Enmore Road

Posted on April 1, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

So this morning we went for a walk up the road round the corner from where are staying and I tried to take a picture of all the different places selling food. I think I may have missed a few?

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And then there were some more.

Tara Guesthouse

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Ralph Bullivant

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You know you are in safe hands if you spot on the shelves in the kitchen of the guesthouse you are staying a copy of Fergus Henderson’s Nose to Tail cooking, the first two Moro cookbooks, Ottolenghi’s first two books and a Penguin edition of more or less everything that Elizabeth David wrote. You are in even safer hands if the first Moro book is opened up to the recipe for chicken braised with sherry and garlic and the page is spattered with grease.