It’s silly how much fun we have in these little towns! We meet the most interesting people, see the
most interesting things, and just have fun!
In Cardwell this morning we took a sunrise walk along the beach. Well, it started out as a sunrise walk, but
we kept walking for an hour and a half.
See, this is a town that would make Taylor Dosey cry. It was perfectly manicured down to the fact
that they have a beach comber come and make the sand all perfect each night. They have plaques all over the boardwalk explaining
things about their town.
Our favorite was the shining tree.
The original tree was uprooted by a cyclone so they built a metal
one. Only another cyclone came through
and broke the metal one so they called a town meeting. In the end they decided to leave the bent
metal tree as a symbol of the towns’ ability to endure whatever comes.
Only they couldn’t keep the bent part of the tree from completely
breaking off! So they built a box around
the metal tree trunk and left it there.
I’m still laughing at the absurdity of it all.
It was a beautiful boardwalk though and we had a great time. We decided to walk back to the car past all
the shops which meant that now leaving town was going to take so much longer
because π wanted to stop into several of them once he saw them.
When we were almost back to the car we saw a bunch of coconuts at the
bottom of a palm tree. X has wanted a
‘real coconut’ since Fiji so we picked one up and carried it back to him. All the kids went wild! We spent the next half an hour trying to get
into them before I finally broke up the party and tried to get us on the
road. π stopped at the butcher and got
some ham and cheese and we were walking to the bakery to get some bread when we
saw a little shop back behind the rest advertising fresh seafood. An hour later we walked over to the bakery
but not until we had eaten some Morton Bay Bugs and gotten instructions on
where to go to buy supplies for the last crab boil of the summer.
We’d gotten up at 6 but it was 11:30 before we got out of town. We were only 2 hours from Cairns and check in
wasn’t till 3:30 so we had time for one more stop. Innesfail was the town that the seafood guy
sent us to—to a little shop called Timmsey’s Seafood. We left the kids outside with some rocks to
hit their coconuts on while we went inside to talk to Rodney Timms. He was super helpful but informed us that his
boat was stuck out in the bay because of the weather and that we should go to
Innersfail Seafood and get the fresh
stuff they’d have there.
Capitalism is certainly not alive and well in Australia. Twice we went into seafood shops to buy
seafood and were sent to different stores to buy products that they had, but
that weren’t ‘good enough’. We’re glad
they did, but it was just so weird! We
went outside to head over to the third seafood place when we were greeted by a
great sight. Timmsey’s wife was sitting
on the bay of the warehouse up to her thighs in coconut hair. She looked totally happy to be doing it
too. She helped every one of the kids
get the husk off and poke holes in the eyes to be able to drink the milk. It only took about an hour and a half!
We’re amazed in each new place by wonderful people who are not only
willing to share their knowledge but to go out of their way to sacrifice and
help and teach and just make this the most amazing trip ever! I was feeling incredibly blessed and was near
tears by Cassandra Timms’ kindness as we drove away to go buy fish.
The next blokes shop was right
on the river. He taught us all about how
the fishermen now-a-days have the ability to flash freeze their catches almost
as quickly as they pull them on to the boat so that buy the time they come to
you, they’re as fresh as possible. We
bought some prawns that they’d cooked up right there in the shop. Learned about those too! Tiger prawns are the prettiest so they’re the
ones most sought after by restaurants.
King prawns are gigantic and thus sought after for their size and the
artsy things chef’s can do with them.
The endeavor prawns are the ugly ones but they’re the sweetest and in
blind taste tests, they’re the ones that everyone likes best. Lucky for us because they’re also the cheapest!!!
We left his shop with an arm load of fish excited more than ever to get
to Cairns. As I went to pull away from
the street, I checked my blind spot and was so startled that I almost dumped a
kid or two on the floor because I braked so hard. Two missionaries were riding their bikes past
us at just that moment. Elder Huntington
from St George and Elder Whitfield from Price.
I don’t know who was more excited, us or them. We probably visited with them for a good 20 –
30 minutes. They asked if there was
anything they could do for us and I let them know I hadn’t been able to get
LDS.org to open the map to where the chapel in Cairns is. They gave me the address, directions on how
to get there, and let me know what time church starts. They were great!
We were finally heading out of town when the inevitable ‘I need to pee’
cheer rang out from the back seat. Yet
another stop! We pulled into the park at
the end of the street—awesome park right on the river with a great view!-- and
everyone piled out of the cars. As they
slowly piled back in the next cheer in the ‘reasons to not travel with
children’ handbook rang out, ‘I’m hungry!’
Granted, it was 1:30 and we’d only had ham and cheese on bread for
breakfast. Lucky for us there was a fish
‘n chips bus right in the parking lot.
We loved how close and easy everything was! Innersfail was definitely a town we could
have spent a lot more time in.
Food in hand, we finally hit the road!
We pulled in to Wanguulay Too, In the Treetops at 3:15!! We were early!!
The yard was beautiful and the house itself is divine. It’s literally the perfect ‘tree house’.
We hadn’t been here 20 minutes before Cath and crew rocked up. We dumped our stuff and headed up to
Mossman’s Gorge in the Daintree Rainforest to go for a hike. Jordane only gets to be with us for two days
and she has two things she wants to see, Mossman’s and Cassowary Falls.
We got all the way there only to find that the shuttle bus to take us
up the road had finished for the day. We
decided we’d return another day and headed to the beach. It was past sunset but not quite dark when we
got there and we played just for a bit, really just enjoying being together.
This is going to be an incredible week!
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