Tregoning has only moved a few hundred meters from the Marlin Marina to the nearby anchorage in Trinity Inlet, but in the last two weeks, Randall and I have covered at least 1,000 km (625 miles) on land by foot, bike, and car. We are thoroughly enjoying life in and around Cairns and are sorry that we will have to leave as soon as the northerly winds (or, at least, not strong southeast trade-winds) develop. Of course, it gets very hot and humid here by the end of the year so even if we did not have to depart from the cyclone zone, we would probably want to be further south by mid-summer.

In addition to various walking and biking expeditions within Cairns (the Botanic Gardens being a particularly favored destination), we rented a car for a week and took a “vacation” from the boat. As anticipated, we stayed at the Kingfisher Park Birdwatchers Lodge for four nights, then visited the Daintree National Park, followed by couple of days exploring the Atherton Tablelands and parts of the coast south of Cairns. In all, it was a spectacular trip with amazing scenery, wonderful people, and the most incredible array of wildlife. Since we arrived in Cairns, we have added 52 bird species to our life-lists.

We drove up steep mountainsides covered in rainforest to the cooler, drier tablelands, then continued further up Mount Lewis as part of a full-day guided bird-tour. We made our way through coastal rainforest to Cape Tribulation and took an early-morning bird-watching tour on the Daintree River. In the southern tablelands, in gloriously sunny weather, we admired four waterfalls were flush with water from the previous week’s rain. And throughout it all, we searched for certain iconic species of the area. Not just the 15 wet tropic bird species that are endemic to this, relatively small, part of Australia including various birds that build bowers. We also looked for saltwater crocodiles (from a respectable distance), tree kangaroos, platypus, displaying Australian bustards (a large bird...not obnoxious or illegitimate people), the long-tailed buff-breasted paradise-kingfisher, emu, and the endangered cassowary.

The question is, did we see any of them?

To find out, keep watching this blog...

I have much to write about and many pictures from which to select but I will do my best to get the blog up-to-date again soon. While we are sitting here off the vibrant city of Cairns and so close to the Great Barrier Reef, there are many other tempting distractions. However, our week inland from here was such a marvelous experience that I am keen to document it while it is fresh in our minds. As we keep adding to our global experiences...and as we get older, the photographs and written recollections become increasingly important to us. Hopefully, we can also enable family and friends who are not as fortuitously located, to vicariously enjoy our travels during the upheavals of the pandemic.