G'Day Guys

Here it is Blog No 104. There are plenty of things to do from Cairns as you can tell and today was no exception with our trip to Tjapukai (pronnounced Jabaky) the cultural heritage centre. It is just on the outskirts of the city and once inside you are firstly shown a video on how the culture has been lost down the years due to the white man colonising the country, it is a sad story but ends on a happy note with stories of future generations and their skills.

Its then onto the creation theatre to learn how the people came about from a giant egg that came to Earth (like Mork.) They also believe that you are either from the fire side or the wet side and you must marry your opposite. It was all very interesting and really informative.

After a pause to look at the fish and turtles that they have we moved on to watch some real tribal dancing depicting hunting for kangaroos and the dance of the cassowary along with some fantastic didge playing.

Once we had eaten our picnic lunch it was a didgeridoo workshop followed by a look at different plants and fruits used for medicines. Then the serious stuff started it was time to have a go at throwing a spear at a kangaroo target, we both had a go with mixed results and neither of us hit the kangaroo so we will have probably gone hungry!!!!

Then no sooner had we finished that it was time to have a go at throwing a boomerang while everybody had to stand in a protective mesh cage as they were flying in all directions!!!! I am glad to say that mine did fly off and come back again without taking anyones head off!!!! Mel's did go forward but did not quite have enough power to make it back but it was a great experience.

Our adrenalin was now flowing and we needed to calm down so we decided to join the boomerang painting workshop and paint our own boomerang which seemed to take forever,while they are not masterpieces they are unique!!!!

Tomorrow is our final full day in Cairns and another early start 5.45am so we can be ready for our day trip to the Great Barrier Reef for swimming and snorkelling. Unfortunately no diving as we have still got lingering colds.

Will report back tomorrow, See Ya

Lots of Love

M & M

xx