As we prepare to depart the Cairns region, and head west there are a few things that I have learnt and many things that I will miss. While on the other hand there are some things that I am very much looking forward too… actually quite a few things.
We’ve been living in the sun in Far North Queensland, hiding from the chill weather fronts of winter passing over southern Aus. these last weeks and it has worked well. The tropic is a great place to be in an Aus. winter and there is a heap of things to keep us busy. It is tourist season up here and people abound everywhere you go. I know over the humid Christmas of Aus. this place is largely left to the locals, not many can deal with the high humidity and the strong cast of the sun. We too will be outa here by then but in the mean time it has been a lot of fun. Continue reading
Touring up the Bloomfield Track is becoming more and more accessible every day. I’m not so sure I like that idea but it is bringing a touch of prosperity to the region which is perhaps the upside but the history… the remote beauty of the Daintree and old Cedar forests… the challenge that it once was draws so many. I can only hope that we will not see these things slip away as more and more people can reach out into this region.
We’ve been enjoying Cairns these last few days, and will be here for a month to get our fill of Tropic North Queensland. As I look around I see a bustling and growing tropical metropolis that is now a tourist mecca, I see so much that has changed. I first set foot in this region 30 years ago on our first adventure north of the Capricorn. We had two vegemiters in tow and I was barely pregnant with number three.
The mysteries of the Min Min lights in Outback Queensland have been around since the Dreamtime. When Australia was first colonized two hundred years ago and as the whitefella’s moved into the Outback the notoriety of the Min Min became legend.
But what are these strange orbs of light that bring portend to those who they menace? The jury is still out, but Aboriginal Lore will tell of their legend and their power.
I’m basking under the sunshine in Cairns in Far North Queensland, Australia, at the moment enjoying a delusional early return to Spring. When I get back down south I will be back there in the close of the Aussie winter months but for now I can pretend it really is Spring.
They gazetted Cairns 1876, so it isn’t very old in Northern Hemisphere terms but that has an upside. Not many have tramped the escarpment on the lookout for golden dust or even the stray nugget, aside from our brief goldrush days of course. This city, for it is a prosperous city now, was named after some bloke who was then Governor of Queensland. It was to serve as a centre for those headed to the Hodgkinson River Gold fields tracking up through the beautiful Barron Gorge. But the Hodgkinson River gold field served the old miners badly as it was not the alluvial gold they sought but a quartz-reefing field where gold was hard won.
Jan Hawkins Author 