An early start this morning when the Cairns Adventure Tours bus picked us up at 7:30 a.m. (we are failing the “get lots of sleep” part of retirement since we got to Oz!) and drove a group of about 25 of us out to the Little Mulgrave River for a tubing adventure! The river access point was about 30 minutes away from Cairns through lots of sugarcane fields and into the rainforest. Our guides got us all geared up, did a safety briefing, and plopped us down in our tubes on the Little Mulgrave River, which is a freshwater river and has no crocodiles that anyone knows of. Our guide did point out the (bigger) Mulgrave River, DOES, in fact, have crocs but that usually “only locals swim there.” What?! 😂🐊

We had a really nice roughly 1.5 hour float down the Little Mulgrave River. There hasn’t been much rain here lately so the water was low and the river was rocky, so some gymnastics were required at times to get unstuck. But, it was very relaxing overall and lots of fun. There were a few parts of the river with some easy rapids, which made it even more fun. We love tubing, and this whole tour was very “us.”

The tour ended around lunch time, so we walked into downtown again and had lunch at a fun little place called “Muddy’s” right in the park and on the water. They have their own playground with water features for kids, so it was packed with families Sunday brunching. Most all the restaurants here are open air and require walk up to order and pay at a counter, and then sit down with a buzzer to come pick up your food (i.e. little or no table service). It’s lovely when it is cool and the breeze is blowing, but to be frank, that’s only been about 10% of our time here. Most of the time it has been hot, humid, and buggy, which is not really my ideal “Lets eat outside!” weather. I think the universe is just trying to prep us for our eventual return to Florida, but man… today I had a pang of homesickness for Atlanta’s lovely, cool air conditioned restaurants (among other things). I know lots of people love al fresco dining, but I love bug-free, air conditioned dining 😂😂. Anyone else with me on that? To each their own, right?!

After lunch we did some walking and shopping in the stores along the wharf, and then headed back to our condo for showers and clean up. Tonight we went back into the wharf area (it is a really happening part of town) and had dinner at a place our condo owner recommended called The Prawn Star. The Prawn Star restaurant is actually four separate boats docked in the marina. You walk up to the first boat where the hostess is and she assigns you seats at a large table on one of the four boats (dining al fresco on the deck, of course 😂). Tables are shared by about 12 people per boat. It is an all seafood, small menu, and all freshly caught and boiled on the first ship, where you can watch them cook. It’s a cute concept, and the food was really good.

Australian word of the day: “bugs”. In this case, it means the small slipper lobsters that live around here! So weird to see “bugs” on the menu at every restaurant around here, but they are quite yummy! After dinner I caved to my cravings and we went back to that same amazing churros place we tried last night for dessert. Tonight I tried a dulce de leche filled churro, while Rob has cookies and cream. Heavenly!!

As we were headed home, we heard this crazy noise that almost sounded like a child screaming in pain- very disturbing! There are SO many birds here and they are so noisy and cool (to us) because they are generally very different from our birds back home. We were able to spot the birds making the noise and get a video (below). These birds were bush stone-curlew. They are carnivores and hunt at night. Such a creepy call!

Thanks for adventuring with us!