Thurs, 29th Feb, 2024 Jon & Annalise’s place, Cairns, Qld

Happy birthday to all the Leap Year babies.

More heavy rain during the night. Got up to water around the toilet. Water coming in through the outside cupboard and travelling along the conduit for the cables! Another job to fix for Stephen. At least he has a shed to sort things out in.

The kookaburras are here for their breakfast.

Steve helped Lynda with the gurneying of the back concrete area. Steve’s cousin Kaye and her husband Rob are in town on the P&O Arcadia so we arranged to meet them for lunch.

Had a cuppa then changed clothes to go out to Cairns Crematorium for Steve Foster’s father’s funeral. It was a lovely service but just as they were taking the coffin around to the grave more heavy rain fell. We couldn’t stay as we had to get into town to meet Kaye and Rob. We picked them up and we around to Dundees at the Aquarium for lunch. Great seat right beside the huge aquarium. We thought this chap was going to feed the fish but he was cleaning the glass.

They joined the ship part way on its world trip. They will travel on it now to Southampton, England. They were hoping to go through the Suez Canal but things are still bad over that way with fighting that the ship will now go around Cape Horn. Sounds like a fabulous trip.

After lunch we drove around to Brian’s office/showroom to see if he was there as he didn’t reply to my text. He was so we chatted for a while about the ‘coffee’ world. Kaye’s selfie was better than mine!

The cousins.

The sun is out again and it is hot and humid. We took them for a drive out to Kamerunga to check out the Barron River which had swollen with all the rain from the cyclone and gouged another strip. We can see all the major damage to the trees etc as we know what it looked like before. I only had my phone camera - will have to come back to get better photos with my camera.

Up to Jon and Annalise’s place to show them the house, view and the waterfall. Back to the ship ready for their departure. Hope the weather is great for the rest of the trip as there is storm building here.

We didn’t get to see them leave as the storm arrived giving them a light show for their departure - lightning! We sat on the patio with Annalise watching the storm and all the flying foxes flying across Cairns to where they will roost for the night. There are a couple heading into the trees in the creek here!

We had dinner in the camper and the rain kept coming down.