Day 43: Back to the Crystal Cascades in Cairns (14/07/12)

We drove on our dead 10 cent pieces (as the Dutch say) back to Cairns.

No hurry to get away, no hurry at all!

We turned off at Port Douglas to see how everybody was getting on there. It’s a different world among all the resorts and golf clubs and upmarket boutiques. Not at all like our more cosy and natural caravanning world! But I might be biased.

The beach at Port Douglas

Then we stopped at the Rex Lookout where the hang gliders hang out. I tried to get Renske to take a flight, but she declined. Dashed unsporting, ay?

Unsporting Renske and her mum. Hang gliding man venting his grief just out of sight.

Disappointed photographer unable to take unique shots of Renske being airsick while hang-gliding.

Today was going to be our third stop at the Crystal Cascades park. Alwyn, our friend from Wynyard who works in the park, greeted us like prodigal sons. He backed us into a corner grassed site, apologising all the time that it was the furthest from everything in the park. He needn’t have bothered, it was also the biggest site in the park, and Renske had a choice of 4 or 5 spots where she could set up her tent.

Largest site in the park in the back corner

About all that happened after we set up was Renske’s hilarious attack on a coconut, using a hammer and a screwdriver. With great effort she separated the husk from the nut, then punctured the nut and poured out the coconut milk, then broke open the nut and cut out some of the flesh. She decided that the lesson learnt (my lady folk are always quick to find the pedagogical application...) was that the result was not worth the effort. The coconut milk tasted like slightly salty water, the flesh was not as sweet as the stuff you buy in the supermarket, and the effort required to get at both of them left her quite exhausted.

Renske reaping the rewards - cutting out the coconut meat.

"Milk" is a description every self-respecting cow would sneer at!

Any ideas Renske might have had of becoming a grass-skirted Pacific Islander chopping up coconuts for a living have now officially been declared dead. It's just not worth the effort.