The early part of the drive today was excellent. We packed early (for the Dettricks!) and pulled out at about 8am. We drove north and took the main road up to Atherton. The drive up the range was twisty and leafy and fun. I love it when we're driving down a tunnel of trees. On the top of the tablelands, the temperature dropped and the clouds rolled in. We were driving through clouds at one stage! Today being the first day of 'school', Amanda drove for a ...

Cairns Botanic Gardens. My call to go here obviously and the kids were not over-enthusiastic at the idea but it turned out okay. I wanted to show them the tropical plants. Ferns with leaves as big as Claudie! Ferns about 7-8m high. Giant paperbarks. Huge trees absolutely covered in epiphytes that looked just like the tree in Avatar. Giant Bamboo (I could not close my 2 hands around the poles). And so much colour. Jasper dropped his soccer ball in a cre...

Kuranda Railway up and Skyrail down again. We saw a genuine wild crocodile in the Barron River Weir from the Skyrail! Even though it was a long way below. Today was another great day, and largely for a totally unexpected reason. We made some new friends. On the train, we sat next to a family from Melbourne who had children about the same age and we all got on great so we had lunch with them (Shane, Sandy, Georgia and Ryan, I think). The vill...

Swimming, table tennis, beach volleyball, riding around the resort and otherwise veg'ing out today. We have decided to miss Cape Trib in favour of more time here. Picture: J and C at the waterpark in the resort.

This place is fantastic! It's a holiday resort, not a caravan park. At $98 a night, it's the most expensive place we intend to stay at on the whole trip, but can already way, we'd happily come back. The staff are doing everything they can to be helpful, they even gave us a ride around the resort in a buggy to show us everything. Pool, water park, gym, giant jumping pillow, beach volleyball, etc… Oh, on the way up, we stopped of at Murdering Point W...