Ruben's birthday

Ruben's birthday is actually on Monday, but we celebrated it today. He has been planning it for months, a trip on the Kuranda Scenic railway. The trip is an hour an a half from Cairns to Kuranda in the rainforest, winding it's way up the Barron gorge through tunnels, over bridges and past waterfalls.

It was finished in 1891 and has 15 hand-made tunnels and 37 bridges to climb from sea level to 328 metres. Daniel went up with the boys and I drove up to meet them and then after a picnic we swapped for the journey home. Ruben got to go both ways as he was free! Unfortunately he fell asleep half way into the second journey and only woke up when we were back at the station. Still he loved it and had a great day.

Cutting the cake.

Just a photo of Ruben with the Bishop cutting the cake to celebrate 55 years of the Good Shepherd Church!

Bramston Beach MAF Camping weekend

This weekend was the first combined MAF Cairns and Mareeba camping weekend at Bramston Beach - about an hour south of Cairns. We arrived Friday - Daniel went first with Ruben to put up the tents and I picked up the older ones from school and drove down separately. We were planning to take two cars anyway as we couldn't get all the camping gear and us in one car! It had been raining most of last week and the camp was almost called off  but at the last minute it was decided to go ahead. I drove down there in pouring rain, but amazingly when we got there the rain had stopped and it held off 'til most of us got our tents up. After a BBQ dinner we went to sleep to the sound of curlews crying and waves crashing on the beach. Just in case you're jealous, the sound of Curlews is like a high pitched baby wail and the waves crashing on the beach was very loud and it was hard to shake off the feeling that a tsumani was headed your way. Added to that, one of the tents leaked and we had to abandon it and move into a different one. To round it off  I was sharing an air bed with Ruben which does not aid the sleeping process! Feeling better now? :)

We woke the next day to the raucous laughter of kookaburras in the trees above us, who both mornings decided to wake the campsite up at 6am. Ruben beat then to it and woke me up at 5:30am! Saturday dawned with mostly fine weather and we walked, swam, dug holes in the sand, played games, drank coffee at the café and watched our children jump the waves whilst praying they didn't get eaten by crocodiles. All part of the Australian experience! (The lady at the front desk said not to let the children swim too far out as there were crocodiles in the sea) After another joint evening meal we had a  bonfire on the beach toasted marshmallows and the kids had fun waving sparklers around. Again just to paint the picture more accurately, it's not that relaxing having a sparkler spun round really near your head by a 2 year old!!

We started Sunday with communion on the beach at sunrise before packing up and returning home.

Sorry, not that many photos as we spent most of the weekend chasing Ruben round the camp-site!!! If you can spot him, that's Ruben in the middle of the top picture and Joshua and Caleb swimming with other kids in the bottom one.

Dad & Daughter

Last weekend Bethany and I (Daniel) went down to Magnetic Island for our 'Dad & Daughter' adventure. Regular readers will remember I did something similar with Joshua - and this was Bethany's turn.

This will finally fulfil a promise to take her on a trip, 5 years after Joshua went on a bus trip with me from Dodoma to Dar back in the day.

It was even more exhausting than last time - I had a rough night before we left on the Friday (Ruben woke in the early hours and then I couldn't get back to sleep). The four-hour drive wasn't so bad, but on arrival it is a ferry ride, then straight to dinner, into a session and  then a movie night. We actually skipped the move (we have it at home) and got to bed about 10. I slept fine until about 3am, and then woke up with an allergic reaction to something (probably a mouldy mattress) and then spent the rest of the night sneezing and 'streaming'. Not a great start,,,

Anyway, it was uphill from there.

We played a bit of tennis and table tennis in the morning and then got a lift to the beach and had a nice morning building sandcastles on the beach. After a picnic lunch we went sea-kayaking. I didn't expect Bethany to contribute greatly to the rowing effort - but I did her a disservice, as she went great guns :)

After dinner it another session and then another movie night, I made the mistake of telling Bethany she could eat as many sweets as she wanted while we watched - bad plan...she ended up being sick just before going to be, and feeling sick for most of the following morning.

She managed to hold on until we got the the ferry terminal for the return trip - and then was fairly violently sick in a well-placed bush. After which she perked up no end, and was well-ready to chow down on her McDonalds on the trip back :) We had a pleasant drive back to Cairns, and got home just before dinner on Sunday afternoon - happy but extremely tired!

Here are a few photos.

Tank museum

Daniel went away with Bethany this weekend, so we had a 'boys' weekend. I took the boys to the Cairns tank museum. I'm glad I didn't take Bethany, there was absolutely nothing there she would have liked, not even a cafe! To be honest, for me too, it was very boring, but the boys loved it. Caleb gave it 10/10 in his ratings. Their favourite thing was playing with the toy tanks and soldiers and dressing up. Ruben was so excited he wet himself whilst wearing his battle gear. Fortunately the concrete floor was quite forgiving to the odd puddle.The lady at the front desk said it was OK for them to get into one of the tanks. Unfortunately Ruben managed to start it and nearly drove it down a ramp!!  Clearly this was not supposed to happen but did make the experience more exciting! I left a suggestion that they get a fake tank for children to climb in and out of and not a real one that could be started by a 2 year old!!