The Cairns Diaries

Star spotting - I was on the same plane has Bob (crotch thruster) Katter last Thursday. Man that's a big hat.

And....

There's an ad on up here, funded by the nationals, that follows this line:


Kevin Rudd has done a preference deal with the greens in QLD.

Bob Brown wants your kids to take heroin (video of little girl holding up a syringe).

Don't let Kevin Rudd get in or the little girl will shoot up.


I guess the Nationals appeal to people who don't understand preference deals at all.

What are you complaining about, hinge?

These guys look like very fine, clean living folk!










Crikey!

Yeah!

What she said!

Good looking bunch. Check their knuckles?

I forgot Selwyn!!!




http://www.johnston-independent.com/

I haven't seen so many bad animated gifs since 1998.

Biggest swing to ALP in the country was in Cairns/Leichardt! 15.1%!

Jesos christos! I think the main thing was that Turnour/Rudd promised an upgrade to the Southern access road - TRUE! (well the southern booth counts seem to support that assumption - although there some big swings in the indigenous communities.

The nationals guy got about half what the greens got - are the nationals a spent force? Can we see the end of Barnaby 'media slut' Choice?

Of course you drive another 10 minutes south and you're in Katter Kountry still.

I forgot to mention that Cairns roads are paved with gold. Mangoes are dropping everywhere, bike riding is a little challenging at times.

Wow!

You don't suppose it had something to do with those fine fellows whose pictures you've posted above?

Oh yum!

You could collect em as you ride along, then take them home & eat yourself silly, hinge!

I was in Cairns in 1947... drove up from Sydney. It took 3 weeks, northern NSW had ferries over the large rivers bridges over the others... Queensland on the other hand, had mostly single lane wooden bridges and only over major rivers the rest of em you drove down the bank one side and across the river itself, we were lucky as we missed the flooding, dunno what they did then. Only seemed to have bitumen couple miles before you entered towns and when you left... otherwise it was dirt, the corrugation of the dirt was horrific had to drive at a certain speed for the corrugation not to shake your car to bits... cornering was fun.
Cairns was the pits, built on the edge of a mangrove swamps and the mossies were unbearable it was really a hicks town, only stayed one night.

Olgs - the mango trees are huge - the fruit splat big time, you really don't want to eat them off the pavement.

Anton s'funny, there are ex-locals (not from as far back as 1947) who can't bring themselves to visit Cairns any more because it's changed so much 'I remember when Trinity Beach was just a caravan park'.

To me its a nice modern town, with a lot (but not all) services. Within minutes of bushland and coast, with hippy commune on its outskirts, a wildly eclectic mix of nationalities (lots of French, Germans, Pacific Islanders, Chinese, Japanese) and a much higher percentage of first Australians than most urban centres. Cairns prides itself on being laid back, I don't know if that's as true as it once was, but it is a friendly place, and most of the DHs you come across are just visiting.

Sometimes I'm walking the dog at dawn and there's a whisp of low cloud rolling down the mountains, and the verdancy, clear air and stillness gives you pause. We have a huge balcony overlooks Walsh's pyramid. We have a spot down by a local river where the dogs swim and you plonk your chair and esky in it watch the sky through the trees. You can sometimes forget how pretty the place where you live is, but sometimes it just slaps you in the face again.

Things could be a lot worse.

The mozzies are still a pain, but manageable.

Ya did well with that shift, hinge!

Good for you!

I can recognise the the sound of a contented person when I hear one!

I was told by someone last night that there was a local tv news story that report that Jim Turnour (our new ALP member) was overlooked for the front bench. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. No offence to Jim, but I don't think anyone was shocked.

I was asked last night what I missed about Canberra. Mostly it's being able to walk to Dickson's chinatown restaurants (and Carlo's @ Watson for a late breakfast on Sundays), being able to ride my bike to and from work, and all the great sport facilities I could use for free at work). Maybe the occasional beautiful spring or autumn day, Electric Shadows, the odd magic lecture at ANU (I talked to Jared Diamond once! And the Shoemaker/Levy comet people), and some dear friends.

But really, in terms of the non-personal, not much.

Still in the words of the Eagles, 'You call some place paradise, kiss it goodbye.'

Hey hinge, did you cop any of those storms & flooding that others along the coast experienced?

Roof still on your house?

Actually we didn't get any of the stormy weather/floods that the south east got.

We've been having really tropical weather for the last couple of weeks: hot and steamy/sunny during the day, rain all night. But today it's bucketing a bit as we get the fringes of TC Helen who's just hit the cape below Weipa.


Copperlode dam is down to 86.25 % !!!!

Oh no! Panic stations! A crisis!

I can't believe you missed out on all the (weather) drama, hinge! But pleased that you did, though!

Crazy weather this summer:

I'm convinced that Melbourne is experiencing Sydney's weather, by mistake. (Though whose weather did Sydney get? )

Looks lot you did quite nicely out of this, hey? I wonder how all this will impact on your "wet season"?

The Wet doesn't usually get going until late Jan/early Feb here, so we'll wait and see, but early signs are that it won't be a dry one.

The Cairns Water site mustn't have been updated since Xmas - Copperlode is overflowing and we had 144.0mm yesterday. The Barron is getting closer to the bridge.

If only water was easily transplanted across Oz, from (wet) place to (dry) place! Sigh.

We're still on level 3 water restrictions, so we couldn't spare any anyway.