Davies Creek

In the holidays, we went swimming at Davies Creek National Park near Mareeba where Daniel works. Little waterfalls and rapids, endless fun for children who love water. On the way home we nearly hit a huge kangaroo and had to swerve the car to avoid it. Apparently they wait until dusk to play chicken  on the straighter stretches of road!

Lake Morris

This weekend we decided to explore the hill behind our house. Our house is on the left of the first picture. The road winds up to Lake Morris and Copperlode Dam, which is where much of Cairns' water comes from. 

Sunday morning hike

Daniel and Caleb's early Sunday morning hike. (7:30am) It's getting too hot to hike much later.

Of course Caleb ended up swimming.

Joshua

Josh had an exciting trip this week. He was one of the winners in the G20 art competition and was able to meet the Australian treasurer and see the room where the G20 finance ministers will meet this weekend in Cairns.

Last week was his 13th birthday which he chose to spend with a friend zip wiring over crocodiles!!

Fathering...

Yesterday was Australian Fathers' Day, and I was spoiled with a 'big breakfast' and various presents (almost exclusively edible). We also went out for pizza on the Esplanade - it is slowly starting to warm up, but not to hot to be out and about yet.

Speaking of Fathering, Joshua and I went on a 'Fathering Adventure' a few weekends ago (see here for more). It was a good opportunity to have some good one-to-one quality time - something that has been pretty rare since Bethany was born.

We had some fairly serious physical activity (including about 7km of dual sea kayaking - fairly sore by the next day!) and a hike up to the 'forts' (during which we saw koalas in the wild for the first time - it is such a pity that you aren't allowed them as pets!)

We stayed on Magnetic Island (off the coast of Queensland, about 4 hours south of Cairns) which was a WWII outpost.

Here are a few photos:

Collages

One of the features I like about Picasa is the 'collage' creator. It was this that I had in mind when I took specific photos on our trip to Green Island.

I like the result :)

Libby was not so impressed ('too brown'), so I did her a more colourful one...

Result!

It was a good day for Ruben recently - as for reasons unknown someone parked their digger just over the road from our house. This meant he could get up closer than he ever has before.