John and Marion at last

Thursday 7 August

We woke to a chorus of birds, a rooster and a dog barking. Once up and showered we had breakfast on the house verandah watching the many visitors to the bird feeders.

We then packed and headed back to the Visitor Centre very early for our 11:30am boat tour on the wetlands. This gave us time to chat again with Margaret and Greg and the Dutch guests, charge camera battery and catch up on diary.

It was peaceful on the water but the sprinkle of rain made it a little cool.

After our tour I drove south to the Tolga Woodworks where we had fresh spanacopita for lunch (delicious) and I bought two of Marion's paintings (I've no idea how I'll get them home).

On then to the caravan park to settle in and do two loads of washing. Unfortunately we had to use the drier as well as it is still raining on and off.

After updating the blog and catching up on emails I rang Mum's cousin Ivy who lives nearby and she was thrilled to hear from us. She drove into town to visit us then took us to visit her daughter, grandaughter and 3 great grand children. Then we followed her to her home to share soup and toast for dinner.

Back to our cabin in the bitter cold and wet and even turned on the heater so we could stop shivering.

Friday 8 August

Up and packed then off to get the windscreen replaced. We strolled around town, had a coffee, bought a new thermos and did some grocery shopping for John and Marion as they would be arriving home to an empty house after three weeks away.

Once the car was done, we drove out to Herberton and really enjoyed a stroll around the Herberton Heritage Village. It has such an array of things on display in old buildings that have been moved to the site from surrounding areas.

We had a delicious lunch in the tea rooms, just excellent plain cooking.

Rain was intermittent all day and drove us to the car soon after lunch. We drove a little way west to see if we could find the Herberton acacia, the only known purple acacia. However, there was none in flower so we could not even tell if we'd found it.

Back to Atherton then a drive east to see the two big figs – the curtain fig and the cathedral fig that actually has a walkway into it.

Back again into Atherton but still no reply from messages we'd left for John and Marion so we drove on to Mareeba where it was quite dry and free from the drizzle we'd had for the last two days.

We found a camping ground that would allow us to camp (all other cabins etc in town were full). It happened to be in John and Marion's street. Just after we'd pitched our tent we heard that they were just leaving Cairns on their way home.

When they arrived we shared the wine, cheese and tomato we'd bought for them and enjoyed a long exchange of stories about our respective three weeks.

They left for home and we settled in for the night hoping that the fine weather will hold through the night.