halfway through already!!

well we have been here for nearly a week now. seen lots of family and friends and even squeezed in some sight seeing. and still lots more to do.

Today we went back out to our old house. a little part of me wishes i hadn't. The tenants are looking after it well enough, but they don't love it how we did. it was just the little things, and it definitely didn't feel like home anymore, plus the wet season is never a good time to go :) We also discovered the day before when Jamie called to confirm we were going out there with the tenant, he told us that he had been away and came home to discover one of the shipping containers wide open and some of our stuff in the paddock. it all sounded a bit suss, but i would like to think they are not like that. Thankfully nothing was missing, well, what was missing would seem ridiculous and useless to steal, so we think maybe it was just misplaced.

Enough of that, and on to the fun stuff.

On Friday after a late start to the day, we headed off to Atherton to go to the Crystal Caves

driving up the Kuranda Range always brings back childhood memories...

always so green and fresh, so different to what we have in Perth driving up to the hills where we are now.

Unfortunately for Sophie, it also brought back her breakfast, she is not always the best car traveller, but we think the fact that she was "reading" also wouldn't have helped.

So she did start the morning as "wellow girl"

we had to do a stop in Mareeba to do a clean up. We were a little sad, we could not stop by Grandma's work as when we were due past she had been called out to head office.

So we got her cleaned up, got some "new to us" clothes from the wonderful people of the Salvation Army stores, and had some lunch before making our way to Atherton for some "spelunking" hardharts and headlights included :)

As you can see Sophie has a new outfit, she was very upset after messing her yellow dress, I tried my best to get her some more "wellow girl" clothes..

My camera does not take the best photos, without the flash the "caves" were much more realistic, but with out the flash, i could not show you anything :)

they had embedded all the different types of stones and crystals etc. on the walls and added little plaques with the name and location of the gem.   

this is more what it looked like. very dimly lit with little highlights.

this one they all decided looked like a brain scan...

...and this one like a deep sea fish.

the  rose quartz crystal "love fountain"

"the Empress of Uraguay"

to finish off we 'cracked a geode' or two.

 

opening it up to see the "magic" inside, that has been hidden for "millions and millions" of years ;)

the little girls, having a 'crack'    haha boom boom ;-)

The treasures within :)

Lily my truest treasure, decided that, because she already had a piece of amythest that i had given her from when i was a teenager, she would miss out, (we were going to crack 3 geodes until we saw how expensive they were! yikes) we chose the "buy one get another free" option, and we also let Lily chose something for herself. she chose the agate slice in the middle.

after a nice time we ducked out and saw my aunty down the road and ended up near my mum's house where we had a beautiful dinner down at the local tavern.

A big day but a great day

next time, going to the 'wetting'...

OXOXoxoxoxoxox
BJslkcs

we're baaaaaaa-aaack :)

We are back home in Cairns for 10 days, to catch up with family, attend a wedding, and to do maintenance on our property.

we've rented a lovely holiday house, close to town.

so for your viewing pleasure, how about a tour??

that's our 2nd hire car..... oh my! the first one :-/

we booked a car from "rent a bomb" and i wish, wish, WISH I'd gotten a photo of it, it was almost literally a BOMB! the seats were ripped, there was rust all over it, it was filthy. and to top it off the anchor points weren't installed :/

so we changed companies to the awesome imax, if we ever got rid of the truck (HA, as if. lol) i would get an imax :)
or maybe a ford territory...you know, to keep it in the "(ford)family"

from the back fence.

from the front porch.

just so i don't forget....

Samuel, Lily and Sophie's room.

from the front door,

from the back door

Kaytie and Claire's room.

and the main. you know for a kid who doesn't like getting his photo taken, he sure was in a few of these :)

so that was our house for the next few days :)

so until next time.

OXOXoxoxoxoxox
BJslkcs