WE MADE IT!

We have reached the halfway point of the trip on the day we walked on the tip of Cape York. What a day. We flew from Cairns to the aboriginal community of Barmaga up on the Cape. The flight was amazing. The rain forest covers the land like a lush green carpet. It is as if the carpet was laid and they forgot to take out all the lumps and bumps. These majestic mountains of rain forest fall right down to the coast. All you can see along the coast are hundreds of miles of pristine beaches. It would have taken us three days to drive up to the tip of the Cape but we would never have been able to appreciate the majesty of the land. Huge rivers such as the Wenlock and the Jardine wend their way through the thick rainforest. It is also possible to see the dry river beds just waiting for the wet season to come. Just when you think you have seen enough rainforest the plane flies over these amazing craters of silica sand in the middle of the rain forest. I hope it is clear enough in the photo.

Once we arrived at Barmaga we were driven for about 45 minutes in a 4-wheel drive to a beautiful beach looking out onto some of the smaller islands in the Torres Strait. From there we hiked through bushland until we reached the tip of the Cape. It was almost impossible to believe that we had finally made it to the very top end of Australia and during the journey had experienced so much of the country. On the way back to Cairns we flew out over the Outer Barrier Reef. The photos show how incredibly beautiful it is from the air. You can clearly see from the air why it is called the Barrier Reef as it really does act as a barrier for the coast. Photo of the barrier reef is not as clear as the rainforesr as we were up much higher because of the storms on the way back to Cairns, but I'm sure you get the idea.

We when arrived at Barmaga an extra person joined out group, He is flying around Australia in his own home-built plane.

It rained very heavily in Cairns yesterday but the weather on the Cape was beautiful. Because of the heavy rain in Cairns the plane had to land at Cooktown to refuel to ensure it had enough fuel in case it was put into a holding pattern over Cairns because of the weather.

When we were travelling in the Outback just as we began to get a little bit bored with all the scrub, rocks and termite mounds we got closer to Cairns and the rainforests opened up.
It has been an amazing trip and on the journey south we plan to explore more fascinating places,
But this has also been a journey of discovery in other ways. Recently I was contacted by an old neighbour through Friends Reunited. Robert Sutherland used to live down the street from us in Webb Street and moved up here in 1984. What I didn’t know was that he had married a girl I went to High School with, Anne McKellar. We had a wonderful time catching up.

Today we are just lazing around and tonight we will take a dinner cruise out onto the harbour at Cairns. Tomorrow we head south and will be in Mackay where we will catch up with old air force friends, the Bensons

.
Hope you enjoy the photos of us up north.