Well, it’s been three short months since our last update and we are pinching ourselves about all that has happened in that time…

In our last installment, we had just left the lush tropical rainforest of the Daintree in north Queensland to make our way to the Salmo River in Canada, via Sydney.

Zeke and Lani had the most amazing time. Visiting family, helping friends in need, having special desserts, learning to knit, playing epic games of hide and seek, visiting Jump Zone, excursions to a submarine, trips to the beach, amazing lollies from the Long Track Pantry, playing with Belle and Molly, snuggles with Aunty Weff and Nan, building stuff with Pop and hanging out in his museum, a trip back to Burnewang to see Aunty Emma and Uncle Aaron, watching a foal being born and riding horses!!! Along with afternoons playing with Libby, Ella and Archie whilst training wild ponies. Wow.

We, on the other hand realised a long-held dream. We made the journey to Shambala, a music and arts festival in Canada with our best mate, Tex. We met gorgeous new friends and submerged ourselves in beautiful expressions of beats and creativity. Just Wow.

Returning to Cairns, Paulie did a dive job with old mates and new, in the Cairns Marina whilst Rach and the kids caught up on school work, fed turtles, shoo-ed tree snakes from the kitchen, visited the Aquarium, swam in the lagoon and brought lunch down to Dad every day. Zeke turned 8 and we all went to an incredible authentic family-run Japanese restaurant for dinner. On Father’s Day we had lunch at a brewery and gin bar (of course) before playing in the fig treehouse playground, splashing in the lagoon (again) and having an ice cream on the foreshore.

Although we could easily have stayed Cairns forever, Pajinka was calling, so it was time to hit the road…Cooktown, the Endeavour Museum and camping on a passionfruit farm before we hit the Wakooka Track on our way up to Cape Melville, which is off the beaten path even by Cape York standards. The usual late afternoon bogging, before setting up camp at Crocodile, aptly named as we had a late night 4m visitor (a good 30m from our beds). We made some lifelong friends whilst exploring the northern most part of our remarkable country – the fabulous ‘Mettler-Morans’ and we captured some of our adventures together in 15 minute video which is on YouTube; Pajinka (Cape York) Adventures

After conquering the Frenchman’s Track and leaving Chilli Beach, we noticed a slight scrub on the camper trailer tyre was beginning to reach epic proportions… pulling up north of Archer River to inspect in detail, we discovered the axle had a rather large crack in it! After a long and eventful day, the RAC recovered our sorry, broken home back to Weipa where, although we didn’t know it at the time, it would spend the next 43 days waiting for parts to arrive.

During those 43 days, we all flew back to Perth where Zeke and Lani had lots of fun, adventures and cuddles with family and friends, whilst we flew to Cyprus to tee up a new home, a new school, a new car and a new life come January 2019, where our adventures will certainly continue….but not quite yet…

Arriving back in Cairns, which now feels a bit like home, we spent more quality time with wonderful friends and Zeke learned to dive on the Great Barrier Reef! Finally, we have made it back to Weipa to get the band back together again. Today, we collected our home (camper trailer) with a brand new shiny underside, ready to tackle the Australian deserts in a (roughly) straight line back to Perth before all the tracks close in about three weeks due to the scorching heat…

“Adventure is worthwhile.” – Aristotle