May 6th-13th

I now have a week in Palm Cove which is 20 mins from Cairns on the road to Port Douglas. I am meeting my friend Cec. Mal and Cec were our rear neighbours when we all lived in New Zealand.

We have a "full on" week planned. We were out and about doing fun things every day - not always as early as planned due to over indulgence in wine the night before!

Kuranda was our first trip. We took the sky-rail to Kuranda Village where the World Heritage Markets are. We had amazing views looking down on the rain forest. We stopped a couple of times on the way up to do walks through the rain forest. Kuranda Village was a very pretty place with lots of shops and coffee shops. We took the sky-train back down.

As you will now know by the pictures we went out to the Great Barrier Reef. This truly was amazing, that was once I let go of the platform I was sitting on. It took the guy who was taking us snorkelling about 5 mins to persuade me to let go. I am so glad I did let go as the sights that awaited me were awesome. We spent the whole day out at the reef, getting back about 5.30pm. Too shattered to go out tonight, we spent it in our motel unit with more wine.

Over the next few days we do all the tourist things. We have a day in Cairns, another day we drove to the Atherton Tablelands, stopping at Mareeba for coffee, then on to Atherton where we visited the Crystal Caves, then on to Kurrumburra and then to Lake Barrine for afternoon tea.

Next day we have a leisurely day at Palm Cove.

For me the best day was driving to Cape Tribulation and Daintree. We drove as far as you can without being in a 4x4. This is such a beautiful place - one of the postcards sums it up well "Where the rainforest meets the reef". Would love to came back here but in a 4x4 this time and drive up to Cooktown.

All too soon the week is over and we are on our way back to the airport for our flight to Melbourne.