About an hour and a half south-east of the Atherton Tablelands is the beautiful Mission Beach area. We started the day at Charley’s Chocolate Factory – one of the only chocolate producers in Australia who make chocolate from the tree to the chocolate bar. We arrived for our 10:30am tour, along with quite a few other people. From the outside, it doesn’t look like much – they just have a big, open shelter that we sit under, and most of…

This evening, we’re enjoying a beautiful time in a treehouse in the town of Tarzali on the Atherton Tablelands. This area is the traditional land of the Dyirbal people, although I also found that the Ngadjon people hold the native title over this area of land as well. So we want to acknowledge the elders of the Dyirbal and Ngadjon peoples past, present and still to come. This morning we packed up everything in our apartment in Cairns. It was…

Today we headed north up into the Daintree National Park, the lands of the Kuku Yalanji people. We acknowledge the Kuku Yalanji elders past, present and still to come. It was wonderful to know that the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people took formal ownership of the Daintree National Park two years ago, and now manage it in partnership with the Queensland Government. Today was always going to be tricky. We initially looked at a couple of day tours up into the…

What an absolutely spectacular day! We spent all day out on a beautiful boat, or snorkelling in the water. And it was something I think we’ll always remember. We headed down to the Reef Terminal at about 7:30 this morning, and were greeted at the check in desk by a really friendly staff member. We headed down along the marina walkways to the Passions of Paradise boat. I honestly can’t remember what made me choose these guys to do our…

Today was a day I’d looked forward to for quite a while – I’d organised a bit of a surprise for Debbie’s birthday (a bit over a week ago) here in Cairns, and the day had finally arrived. We were picked up from near our accomodation a bit before 8:30am, and we made our way to Cairns Airport for a scenic flight over the Great Barrier Reef! We were heading on the Reef Hopper flight with GSL Aviation. Given we…

Today we headed up to Kuranda via both the Scenic Railway and the Skyrail. We headed for the Smithfield Skyrail terminal, only about 15 minutes away, and left our car there a bit after 8am. We were taking the trip over to Kuranda on the Scenic Railway, and so we jumped on a coach transfer across to the Freshwater station – just a short trip away. Shortly before 9am, the train pulled into the station and we all excitedly jumped…

We’re in Gimuy tonight, which is what we now call Cairns (or Cairns City). The Gimuy-Walubarra people of the Yidinji nation are the traditional custodians of the area, and we pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging. We made it to Cairns – and more importantly, the car made it to Cairns with no more dramas! We’re pretty thankful for that. This morning we started with a bush breakfast at Undara. It was a wonderful experience –…

We’re currently in the beautiful Undara National Park, which is the lands of the Ewamian (pronounced ‘Oo-wamin’) people. The Ewamian people have lived on this land for tens of thousands of years, and utilised the lava tubes for many parts of life. We pay our respects to the Ewamian elders past, present and emerging. We headed off from Hughenden pretty early – we managed to make it on the road by 7am, which was my aim. That meant we’d hopefully…

We’re on the lands of the Yirandali people tonight, in the area they knew as Mokana (what is now known as Hughenden). We’d also like to acknowledge the Wunumara people, whose land we travelled through today as we headed east through Cloncurry and Julia Creek. We’d like to pay our respects to the elders of both groups – past, present and those leaders being raised up. It was a fairly long day of driving today – another 500km+ day. After…

Still here. But in good news: the windscreen is all fixed, and the sunroof is patched up properly! 🎉 I received the long awaited phone call at about 10:30am this morning – the windscreen had arrived on the truck and I could bring the car in to have it fitted over the next few hours! They were even able to drop us down into town before they took the car back up to the workshop, which was super handy. We…