Has it really been over six months since wheels down in Brisbane back in early August 2023 after a wonderful 10 weeks in Europe? This gave the opportunity for Streak and Storm to stretch their legs/wheels while we visited friends and family. So what has happened since then?

Anne barely had time to unpack and get over jet lag before she headed to Cairns to start managing a software project implementation for Queensland Health Torres and Cape Hospital and Health Services (TCHHS). Based in Cairns Anne would be spending approximately six months working returning every two weeks to Brisbane.  The intervening weeks would see me in Cairns enjoying time beside the pool and exploring the various delicious restaurant menus while Anne worked.

This has worked out well for me, although Anne had to cancel a few return flights as they clashed with key project dates. We did however make the most of the weekends hiring cars to visit some of the regional attractions around Cairns.

We started with Port Douglas.  The road up the coast is spectacular, the green forest covered mountains on the left and the deep blues of the Coral Sea on the other.   The road winds along the coast and is a must for motorcyclists.  Stop for coffee at the Thala Beach Lodge, the view is spectacular, the beach worth the walk and if we did not have accomodation back in Cairns a place to stay. Port Douglas has great restaurants, a great clifftop walking track.

Mosman Gorge is a short drive north of Port Douglas, difficult to see until your are close up, the rainforest hugs the banks of the river and since the summer rains have not not arrived fairly placid, It must be stunning in the wet, although probably too difficult to approach. 

If one takes the inland route south from Mosman George you pass through countryside that was once the centre of Tobacco growing around Mareeba. The industry declined as the number of people smoking fell and imported tobacco was cheaper. Fruit farming is now the major agricultural production and the town of Mareeba is the gateway to Cape York for adventurous travellers. Various beautiful waterfalls abound in tablelands and we hope to visit more later in the year.

For those not familiar with travel from Cairns to the the hinterland each of the two main routes, the Kennedy Highway and Gilles Range Road, twist and turn as you ascend the mountainside. There are few overtaking places and a slow truck or caravan can add significantly to the journey time.

The Undara lava tubes had been on my travel radar for some time, we just needed to be in the area, which with Anne’s job we now were. With the Undara Volcanic National Park some three and a half hours each way from Cairns by road, an early start is needed.  We decide to take the Gilles Range Road and light traffic sees us move quickly from expansive sugar cane farms through temperate forrest into rain forrest. Emerging at the top the range we are greeted by lush green farmland which gradually turns to brown as we move away from the coastal influences.  Within a couple of hours we are in dry Australian outback The Undara Lava Tubes are only open of part of the year, the extreme summer temperatures would make visiting very unpleasant. October is the last month of the season.

Going from the hot dry outback to the cool lava tunnels is spectacular. They are huge. Tree roots snake in from the entrances and you realise how close the roof is to the surface of the ground above.  Driving is not permitted off road in the park area to avoid vehicles breaking through the roof of undiscovered lava tubes, of which there could be many.

José Paronella arrived in Australia from Spain in 1913 and worked developing land for sugar cane farming which he then sold to raise money to one day build a life for him and his fiancee still back in Spain.  When he returned to Spain some 13 years later financially sound and ready to marry, his fiancee Matilda had married another.  Undaunted he married her younger sister Margarita.  They both returned to Australia where he set about developing Paronella Park. Mostly with his own hands he built a castle with a ballroom that had a mirrored globe imported from the USA. José planted thousands of trees including an avenue of Kauri trees that some 90 years later are a magnificent sight to behold.

I think he was also an astute businessman building a hydro electric generator in 1933 bringing electricity to the area some 30 years before the state transmission network arrived! This powered not only a movie theatre in the castle ballroom but an ice-cream parlour as well. Where else would locals head on at hot weekend in summer.  The hydro plant fell into disrepair but was restored by volunteers in 2009 and not only supplies the park but exports to the national grid. Amazing for 90 year old equipment.

José died in 1948 and his wife Margarita and their children ran the park until their deaths in the 1960’s and 70’s.  Various floods over the years damaged parts of the property but a fire in 1979 destroyed the castle leaving only the walls and a turrets. 

The current owners Mark and Judy Evans who have owned Paronella Park since 1993 have created a beautiful place to visit.  Well worth the time to see one mans vision some 90 years later and still going strong.

We have also spent time visiting some of the extensive number of restaurants in Cairns. Because of the numbers of tourists visiting Cairns as a base for the Great Barrier Reef and Tropical Rainforest there are many more restaurants that a city of Cairns size would normally support.  One of our favourites is Tha Fish on the Broadwalk overlooking the harbour where we have eaten many times.  

I had not been back to Cairns since Cyclone Jasper and the subsequent rainstorm that has devastated the region.  Many of the locations and attractions that we had visited in the last few months have been affected just ahead of the Christmas summer holiday season.  Recovery will be slow with so much damage to roads and infrastructure. Having been back to Cairns, the city centre seems unaffected but I still have to visit the surround area in the future.

During Anne’s brief visits home every other week end or so, we have tried to make the most of her time home to catch up with friends in Brisbane. If we have missed you so far it is only because of lack of time.

I have been dabbling with Chat GPT as probably many of you have. It can certainly help take ideas and flesh them out and would probably do a better job of writing the blog than I do.  But for now this is all hand typed with all its imperfections although I hope that using ChatGPT may help increase my vocabulary and improve my grammar.

On a sadder note we have lost four good friends recently, In late November, Ric from Melbourne better know as the “Wiz” was killed in a motorcycle accident. We only learnt of his passing at Christmas. We met the Wiz on an organised motorcycle tour back in 2009 from Siliguri via Darjeeling, across Bhutan finishing in Guwahati, a town that we revisited in 2014 on our way to Burma/Myanmar. 

In early January my second uncle Michael passed away after a very short illness. I had known him since childhood, he was a close to my father and he gave me my first job in Durban in 1973 working for his firm of architects. We had planned to see him in May in the UK.

Around the same time we also lost Jimmy, a friend from Texas who I first met during a long running legal dispute the firm I worked for had in the Texas courts back in 2003. He and Candace had been great friends to Anne when she held art exhibitions there.

Then out of the blue, our dear friend Greg passed suddenly a week ago. Greg had the biggest heart, always so generous and helping people. We will miss Greg and his amazing stories and antics and are heartbroken for Nola.

All will be sorely missed and our thoughts are with their respective partners Jane, Jill, Candace, Nola and their families.

So as we approach the 10th Anniversary of the first tentative entry in this blog; so what next? We have a short trip to Europe planned to see family from mid April till early May before Anne starts a second Queensland Health project for the Cairns and Hinterland Hospital and Health Services (CHHHS). Same implementation, different region which will run through until mid October. 

With the cooler winter weather ahead we are considering taking both Australian bikes the “Bird” and the “Bee” to Cairns to explore the hinterland region more fully.  I am not sure if we will ship the bikes or just for fun ride them up. We know people in Banana, Sapphire, Mackay and Airlie Beach so the route will not be in a straight line. I will travel twice monthly to Cairns from June onwards to see Anne so there will be lots of opportunities to explore the region further.

After October who knows, with the coffers plumped up I think that the open road will beckon again.  We shall see.

– Anthony