Cairns...

Well we finally reached journeys end yesterday (2nd). It was a mere four hours up the road from Townsville. We had phoned ahead to the caravan park asking if we could check in early - and once we explained the situation they were falling over themselves to help us.
We dumped our stuff in the cabin and headed off up the road to Yorkeys Knob to get our first views of our new home before going to see the childrens new school at 2.30pm and signing the house lease at 4pm.
It was very easy to find and only about 20 mins up the road - in fact when we did a trial run for Tish her commute to work will be approx 20 mins but we think we can reduce that to 15 mins by ducking off the main road and going along the esplanade and missing all the traffic lights.
We were too early for the school so we checked out the beach - great location for viewing the total eclipse on 14th Nov [although apparently 20000 people expected so may be a bit crowded!]..

...the water was a nice temperature and the beach has both a Surf Lifeguard Station and a stinger net [to be erected in the next week or so] which means that we can use the beach rather than just gaze at it as was the case in Darwin. After a paddle we stopped at the local cafe for a drink - the owner Bella has only just moved into the village as well and was very friendly, I suspect we will be visiting frequently!
We then went off to meet Mr Kettle the childrens new headmaster. Both he and the school seem very nice - approx 200 children so a bit smaller than Wulagi [where our three were 219, 220 &221 on the role] and slightly larger than New Pitsligo. The staff team seem great and were very friendly as were the Parent and Citizen committee members we met [the Oz equivalent of PTA]. Both Hamish and Xanthe were a bit unsure but that is to be expected as they are having to settle in to yet another school but they did both agree that it looked fine and they were sure they would enjoy it!
Having wandered round the school we continued exploring the village until it was time to sign the lease. L J Hookers is in the middle of Yorkeys little shopping centre, it has hair dresser, bottle shop, several takeaways and a market type grocery shop - our nearest bigger shopping centre is in Smithfields about 5 mins drive away so all very convenient.
Once all the paper work was signed we got the keys and headed round to the house.
It is quite large and a massive improvement on Wulagi.
Dining room through to master bedroom

En-suite in master bedroom [also has a shower round the corner]

Deck accessible from our bedroom and the lounge and corridor

Master bedroom back to dining room [on left side] and lounge [on right side]

There is a second bathroom for the children and three additional bedrooms, all of which are the same size and are probably the same size as the upstairs bedrooms in Bonnykelly were [if not larger].
There is also a huge double garage sized shed and undercover parking adjacent to the house, large covered outside deck with fans plus a "lawn" for the trampoline. The only odd thing is there are no curtain rails!!!
It looks great, can't wait for the furniture to arrive on Wednesday.
After all that we bought some food and went back to the cabin where we collapsed - hence no blog yesterday.
Today [3rd]we went back to the house to drop some things off and to time Tish's commute etc. It all looks even better today as we aren't so tired!
Having done what we needed to we came back via the Esplanade at Cairns

not a bad stretch of beach.
The airport is just to the north so you can watch the plans bank over the line of hills before coming to join you on the beach

..there were too many trees to get a shot of it coming in but if you were in an open area you would have been able to see the colours of the passengers eyes!

The children were able to have a run around and play on a play park....

...I of course bought my bins as the esplanade is a world famous roost for passage waders and offers some great birding.
It was high tide but there were still lots of birds around

Tomorrow is Tish's last day of holiday so we are going to do the Skyrail over the rainforest before everyone settles back into routine!