mortiz044

The Dirt n Dust Festival 2017 is now done and dusted for another year.  This was Philip's 20th year competing in the Triathlon and I am pleased to let everyone know that he came second in his age group (61-65 year olds) so I am very proud of him. HERE are his splits if anybody is interested. It was a gruelling race with a water temperature of 11 degrees celsius for the swim leg, a 40 knot headwind for the bike ride and just to top it all nicely, a temperature of 36 degrees celsius for the run leg! We took ten friends with us to Julia Creek and for four of them it was their second Dirt n Dust.  It really is a great weekend but it is a long way to travel so I thank those that made the effort.  You know who you are! We arrived into Julia Creek the day before the triathlon after spending the previous week at Innot Hot Springs, Undara Lava Tubes, Cobbold Gorge and Karumba.  (I will post about these places over the coming days).  We checked into the Julia Creek Carav...

We've been married for 39 years. Holy Molly.  Where did those years go.  It seems like yesterday that I was a nervous bride walking down the aisle towards the man that I promised to love "till death do us part", and you know what, I love that man as much today as I did then.  Sure, the love changes over the years from being passionate love to companionable love....kids will do that to a marriage.  My husband is my very best friend.  I listen carefully to his advice and he mine.  Certainly we have our arguments but I think that is part of a healthy relationship.  We never sleep on an argument and that has seen us, on occasions, still awake at 2 in the morning! We've had good times and bad times and losing our eldest son was the lowest point any parent (or marriage) can go.  If we were not as close as we are we may not have survived as a couple. So, how did we celebrate 39 years of marriage.  Well, we had lunch in our favourite restaurant in Po...

Since we have become retirees, our weeks seem to blend from one to the other.  Not that it is a bad thing but Philip will often ask me what day of the week it is.  I usually know, but if he were to ask me the date I would have to go and look it up on the calendar.  One thing that we have to do more often is treat our weekends more like week days, and by that I mean a work day, and treat mid-week, for example Tuesday and Wednesday like a weekend.  A good example was today......Sunday.  We had talked earlier in the week about taking the kayak to Lake Eucham. We rose bright eyed and bushy tailed after an early night and made the hour long journey to Yungaburra and then on to Lake Eucham. It is a lovely place and perfect for a picnic lunch.  We should have not been surprised that at least fifty other people thought the same thing!  It is a smallish picnic area and it was packed.  If we had come here in the middle of the week we would have probably had...

Months ago my two younger sisters and I planned a trip for them to come and visit us.  My youngest sister had not seen our new home that has been built for 10 years and my middle sister had not visited for about 5 years so it was certainly time for a visit!  The date was set and flights were booked.  Neither of my sisters can be away from home for long so it was going to be a four day break.  It was not long so I had to plan carefully.  Both of my sisters work in high paced environments so it was important that they also had some rest.  So, with that in mind I decided that we would spend the first couple of days at home and then on Friday I booked us into Sea Temple at Port Douglas and dinner in the evening at 2Fish Restaurant.  Breakfast on Saturday morning would be at Lure Restaurant on the Marina at Port Douglas and then on to Cairns to board their flight for home.  It was perfect. It was lovely to spend time with them and what a talk-fest!! ...

It was announced last week that Cairns would be hosting two huge events this year.  Midnight Oil will be re-uniting and kicking off their Australian tour at Kuranda where they started their musical journey and the even bigger news that Sir Elton John will be performing in Cairns!  What a huge feather in the cap for North Queensland!  It seems like Queensland is the place to tour with Adele playing two concerts in Brisbane this weekend (Adele, if you're reading this how about coming to North Queensland too!). On Thursday night we went along to Suzi Quatro's Leather Forever  concert at the Entertainment Centre in Cairns.  What a legend this woman is and she proves that age is just a number.  Her voice is just as strong as ever and she certainly worked the audience.  No one stayed in their seats (except maybe, my husband😗) as we danced to "48 crash", "can the can" and "devil gate drive" to name just a few.  Suzi started her show with her new band - ...

The tandem kayak that we purchased for a joint Christmas present has not been used all that much.  Not because we haven't wanted to, but because it has been so wet and rainy and not the sort of weather you want to be sitting in. Someone asked me how much rain we have had this year and even we were surprised that to date we have had over a metre of rain.  That is 1040 mm or almost 42 inches on the old scale.  It has been very wet and I just wish that we could send it south to the ones - including our son - who need it the most. But, getting back to the kayak, last weekend was sunny and warm so we packed up the cruiser and headed over to Tinaroo Falls Dam for a paddle.  I had printed out the National Parks map of Danbulla National Park that encompasses Tinaroo.  There are numerous campsites that are very well maintained with clean toilets, mowed grassed campsites, and more than a hundred fire pits have recently been placed strategically around the campsites. ...