THE HONEYMOON

After a hectic week pre-wedding, we took a relaxing break in North Queensland. Our destination was Cairns. We stayed the first 2 nights in Palm Cove (just north of Cairns).

The mozzie net was a new experience. Thankfully one that wasn't needed.

It was obvious that our hire car was a Hire Car, can you tell from the following picture....We nicknamed it Kermi....

Port Douglas - a stopover for lunch on the way north.

After the fantastic time in Palm Cove, we headed 100k north to our rainforest hideaway in the Daintree.
Room including outdoor spa = lots of $$.

Champagne and chocolate on arrival, Priceless.

After the amazing Walbul Walbul treatment in the day spa. Robes and slippers were compulsory, and comfy!

This little fella was outside our door.

We took what we thought was a croc spotting cruise. 'Albert' wasn't playing the game and the cruise turned into a birdwatchers paradise.

We can now identify this as a Kingfisher!

And these are Papuan Owls. We are told this is the only area outside of Papua New Guinea they are found.
Cattle Egrets flying home to roost for the night.

Sunset over the Daintree

For our final day we drove to Cape Tribulation. This also happened to be the day with the most sunshine we had.

Some slightly unusual road signs. We didn't see any so it didn't really matter. Maybe the wildlife was scared off by the colour of our car.
The clouds didn't lift any higher over the mountains.
Getting close to the mangroves
A beach, blue sky and still we can't swim!

Random LONDON update

We realised that is has been over 12months since we have posted some random shot things we have been up to. So this should get us up to date.

First up we have a trip of Steve's to the Zoo as part of a photography course.

One of the local meerkats!!

On the day we moved out of Surrey Quays in Sth East London, the London Marathon was on. Not good for catching the tube with many bags & clothes lines etc. but good to prolong the cleaning for a bit.

Leading females

Unfortunately a motor cycle got in the way of the auto-focus with this one.

Liz Yelling, England's great hope

Elite Men

On what should have been a sunny summer's day, we headed to Kew Garden's. Unfortunately we were greeted with quite a cold breeze instead.

One exhausted dad......

Yes I am listening to the trees. The sound is like little drum taps, which according to the sign is the water moving past air pockets in the branches. Yes we don't know whether to believe it or not either!

Claire went to her work's summer event at Lingfield Racecourse. Very long bus trip, no money was won, but she did get to wear a 'fascinator' and pretend it was Royal Ascot.

Amazed at how sweaty the horse was, it only did one lap and it came second instead of first!

Other Aussies from work.

Bon Jovi at Twickenham. Amazing!

Hard Rock Calling in Hyde Park. A fantastic afternoon listening to a few bands including The Bangles (yes, we walked like an egyptian), KT Tunstall and The Police.
15 rows back for the main event.

Claire made a quick trip back to Oz to attend Kim's wedding in Mackay (and put the finishing touches on our own wedding plans)

Lorraine and Col cutting some moves..

Harbour Beach in Mackay. The flags were out but there was no one anywhere to be found. This just wouldn't happen in England!
The Red Bull Air Race came back to London so this year we headed out with cameras to improve on last years shots. Sadly the tickets were sold out, so we headed up river a bit on the chance that we would still see the planes.

One of the apartment buildings of Canary Wharf.
Nest post THE WEDDING....

NOT QUITE THAILAND

Well a slight change of plan due to the Thai military coup will see us depart directly for London on the 27th, a week later than planned. Phuket will now be on the return journey sometime next year. So what do you do when faced with another week in Oz - we headed to Kingscliff in northern NSW to relax. Not quite as exotic as Thailand but we couldn't be fussy!!

On the trip down to Kingscliff, Claire had to stop halfway to the Gold Coast to get some snacks at the Strawberry farm.


Hired bikes at Kingscliff for some exercise. No gears, pedal brakes, huge tyres and a little kids bell. I want my bike back! Lucky there were no hills on our travels.


Steve getting the speed wobbles on his bike.

Then we thought we might try a nice 4 hour bushwalk up Mount Warning. The last 100m was tough when you need the chain to pull you up the mountain, but the view was worth it.