Cairns- figs and gillies

Friday morning proved to be crisp, clear, and sunny. 

I walked from "my house" to the Whittons for a delicious breakfast and coffee. After relaxing and chatting, Jo took me into town (and by town, I mean one street of shops...toto, this isn't LA! :) ). It was fun to walk around and see the old cinema which still had wooden benches as seats, an antique gas pump which only charged a few cents per liter (unfortunately it doesn't work anymore), and a few shops which sold your typical necessities alongside a few locals' merchandise (local beef, fruit, or crafty items).

We drove back to the house, picked up the kids and began a last minute, whirlwind tour before I had to leave for the airport. We started at a lake where we saw a red belly black snake (extremely deadly) sunning.

We also visited a massive curtain fig tree. It's really, really beautiful and has an interesting trait. The Curtain Fig Tree is part of the strangler fig species Ficus virens (I know you were dying to know that!) but the interesting part is that the fig tree starts by growing on a different tree and tries to grow roots in the ground. Once this is completed, the fig tree will grow vigorously, finally killing the host tree. In this particular case, the host tree began leaning on another tree and as the fig tree grew around that one too it left a curtain of aerial roots. This particular fig tree is one of the largest in North Queensland. I took several pictures with my fancy camera but since I don't have a computer at present, I'll show an example from the Internet.

We rushed back home, grabbed a meat pie for lunch:

Then I said my goodbyes and set off for Cairns Airport. The route I took was no ordinary route. It is called the Gillies Range and consists of 263 corners, and 800 meters elevation change in only 19km of road. In other words, you are constantly turning the steering wheel while breaking into yet another turn. It was quite the experience!! The views were incredible...when I dared to glance away from the windy road...but I started getting really nervous when I glanced at my fuel gauge and realized I was nearing on empty! There certainly weren't any gas stations along the Gillies road so I took advantage of my neutral gear and hoped that my little manual had really good gas mileage so as to make it to the bottom. 

My sweet Hyundai made it just fine and I had the pleasure of experiencing a fuel station in a different country. First off, you don't pay at the beginning. That was an odd feeling. Then I was surprised at how little fuel my car took. I had no idea as to how many liters it might require so 30 seconds later when my pump stopped and I was only at $50 (I had driven a LOT), I figured it had stopped prematurely so I put in more fuel only to have it stop right away! I knew I definitely had enough to get to Cairns so I paid for my fuel, opened the wrong door to get back into my car, laughed, entered through the right door and sure enough my tank was full! I probably shouldn't be so surprised, but for some reason, knowing that fuel prices are so much more expensive, I expected to pay twice as much. A pleasant surprise. :)

The rest of the afternoon went smoothly. When I arrived in Cairns, I put $2 more into the tank (the guy at the register thought that was funny and called me a "big spender"), returned to my car, found my flight, arrived safely in Brisbane, and took the train to a different station since the Wetherstons had moved while I was away. A slight hiccup came when I took the first train one station too far. Had to hop on a train going back to central, then took the correct train to my new station. 

The new house is amazing!! It's an old Queenslander which has been raised to become two stories. The bottom floor is new, but was built to match the upstairs. My favorite room is a sun room in which windows surround the room and can be opened during the day to let in fresh air while still being sheltered by a roof. Perfect for reading. 

After receiving the grand tour, it was fun to catch up with Liz and Lyle before crashing for the night.