Camille’s Big Adventure

  This week has been good and restful. Monday and Tuesday were relaxed getting a bunch of work done and puttering around the house a bit. Trying to get some hours in so I could rest for a few days. Which was good.   Tuesday afternoon we cruised around town and looked around the James Cook University Campus. It’s a pretty neat campus, and we saw lots of kangaroos munching in the lawns.  Tuesday evening we got dinner with some of Dean and Jenny’s friends. One of the ladies daughter, was in her 50s, but had spent most of her life backpacking around the world from the sounds of it. She had a lot of stories, and was… a bit of a character. Her interests in traveling were “to go to the most dangerous places cause what’s the point of going somewhere safe”. Pretty much the opposite of my ideology on traveling, but to each their own I suppose. She had lots of stories, that’s for sure.  Wednesday I didn’t really do much cause I had a splitting headache all day, so I mostly ...

I’ve had a good and busy last couple days. My work reports finally got finished for the winter break, which was an absolute relief to be done with. I’m happy for it to all be done and out of the way. It was a stressful and frustrating few days of work, so happy that’s over. But the rainy season has begun and it’s been raining on and off for days now.   Dean, Jenny and I went for a nice big walk along the Ross river on Friday. We saw jabiru (like a giant black and white storks) which was cool! We met some kids along the way who told us all about the crocodiles that are in the river and how tier grandma saw one a few weeks ago. It was pretty funny, they went on an on with the fish tales.  In the evening Jenny taught me to take pavlova. An Australia/New Zealand dessert which is basically a merengue with a marshmallows center and topped with lots of fruit.  Saturday morning started with a wish, I got Dean to take me to the top of castle hill so I could go zip lining. It...

  The last few days have been mostly filled with a combination of work and cyclone preparation, as we waited to see where cyclone jasper would hit. This week is a big week for work with a bunch of reports due at the end of the week, so making sure those are getting done has taken up a large portion of my mental energy.   As for cyclone jasper, Sunday it was looking like it would be a big hurricane hitting Wednesday, projected to be a cat 4. Luckily over the course of the last few days the cyclone de-escalated to a cat 2 and headed North of Cairns. We prepared with getting water, dried foods, batteries and flashlights, luckily none of it was necessary.  Beyond that I’ve been on some nice walks and hikes around town. The pre-hurricane brought in some lovely cool weather and rain and it’s been so nice to get out and about. Gardens are looking happy and the weather is so comfortable. Dean and I walked the strand and the jezzanine one day for a great lookout of the ocean....

Yesterday was a pretty relaxed day. I got a bunch of work done and also went to the bank and got some details figured out. So mostly it was an admin day, not too much to report on.  Today we went to Dean and Jenny’s friends house Lance and Christine for a pre-Christmas Christmas party. We had a nice lunch/dinner of Vietnamese prawn mango salad and lamb chops and sooo many desserts. It was a nice day of chatter and hanging out. 

Today was mostly a work day, but I did take a break in the middle of the day to get a deep tissue massage. It felt really good, and then a bit painful, and now I’m a bit sore, but hopefully it will help to relieve some pain I’ve had for a few months in the side of my neck. Time will tell. I really need to get back to doing regular yoga, but that hasn’t happened yet so… maybe I’ll convince myself to do it soon. In the evening we made pizzas in Dean and Jenny’s Davy little pizza cooker. I really like it I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s a little clam shell cooker with a stone bottom and a coil on top. It cooks pizzas a lot like a pizza over would, and the crust gets really bubbly. I want a little pizza cooker now. 

Monday morning I got up early and met my friend Yvonne at the ferry. Yvonne is the Irish girl who I was traveling around with in Cairns. She and I had been taking and I told her I was going to Maggie island for a few days and she said she was jealous so I told her to just join me, and she did. She took the bus down and met me in Townsville.  It’s a quick ferry ride to Magnetic Island (Maggie), only 20 minutes. It was a beautiful day. As we landed we saw these cute little dinosaurs perked on the dock, which made me smile.  We disembarked and wandered to find brunch, we ended up at this cute pirate themed restaurant which was really delicious. The whole place was decorated with pirate themes. It was shaped like a ship and you had a pirate flag on your food. It was very cute and delicious.  Next we wandered to our hotel, and luckily, our room was ready even though it was only 9am. We settled a bit and had a chat with the lady at the front desk. She recommended resting until ...

Okay, so I’ve been slacking on posting so I’ll just do a bulk couple of days here: the first few days of December were pretty slow, but nice.  Mostly, I was hanging around the house relaxing/working/bird watching. On Thursday, Dean and I went for a walk on the Jezzanine. It’s a look out that was used during the war of the coral sea. It’s a beautiful walking path landscaped with a bunch of native plants and has signs explaining their aboriginal uses. Which was really cool. It also has a really gorgeous view of the sea and we stood at the top of the cliff and looked down on little green sea turtles munching in the sea grasses below us. It was incredibly gorgeous and a really nice walk. I’ll definitely be returning there for some evening strolls.  Friday evening we went to the night markets at the strand. It was a bunch of little craft booths and food carts. Dean and Jenny said they had never been so I made them take be down. It was really busy, but we had some good food. Paella,...