Cairns

Our trip to Cairns was very welcome. Although Jon had just started a new job, we needed the break.

This trip was booked in December, between Christmas and New Year actually and we managed to fly the 5 of us to Cairns and stay for a week in a 4 star hotel for $16.

We used a voucher for the flights and our Trendwest membership for the accommodation.

The voucher had so many restrictions on it that we never thought we would be able to use it but, for 2 days in December Qantas had a sale and it worked out perfectly for us.

We booked the trip to come after Callum's scholarship and selective high school exams, we didn't know at the time that Jon would be just starting a new job.

Cairns is beautiful.

It was not like I had expected though. The landscape is unbelievable. I knew that Rainforest was up there but I expected it to be a long drive. I never expected Rainforest to meet the beach.

The waterfalls were amazing, even though it hadn't rained for 7 weeks.

There weather was perfect shorts and T-shirt weather.

The water was 23 degrees.

Jon didn't take a work Blackberry.

I didn't have to get up at stupid o'clock.

We could both have a beer at the Tavern next door and not have one of us driving.

We ate fantastic tasting bananas for a reasonable price. ($14.99 in Sydney at the moment.)

We snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef.

We didn't get stung.

We didn't cook.

We could all have to eat whatever we wanted every night.

Not much washing up.

I didn't do any laundry.

We rode the cable car up the mountain.

We came down again on a train.

We had the most amazing fudge from Kuranda markets.

The Sydney airport shuttle bus didn't make us wait.

The ash cloud didn't affect our trip.

The 5 of us had a ball.