Now in Cairns staying at the Big 4 for four nights a few km from the city centre. We are staying an extra night here, so now a day behind the schedule but who cares! Getting a bit slow as the years go by and not wanting to rush around. The worrying thing though about this Big 4 is that there is clear evidence of the existence of Big Foot in these parts. Tracks everywhere and I have seen quite a few big feet wandering around this place. So we are a bit wary at night. It seems though that if you follow the Big Feet they all lead to the same place! Yes, the ablutions block! Quite tricky.

Big 4 Cairns

Esplanade Water Park

Big Foot tracks in the caravan park. There were some big feet getting around too.

Have had a wander around the city waterfront and boat harbour, not a lot of people around and many of the boats are in dock rather than out somewhere which would be the normal. Allthego was rather keen to go on a jet ski croc spotting tour, but Homealone was not keen on doing a double with him. This was despite the fact that the jet skis go faster than the crocs! So, we agreed to have some prawns the next day aboard the Prawn Star which consists of three boats moored up beside the wharf. Settled for lunch at the Pier Hotel, plenty of social distancing going on for sure.

Allthego was keen to book one of these tours.

Not content with a 3 by 110g steaks it’s now a Chicken Parmie for lunch!

This is the boat that does prawns and the like for the lunch right on the water.

But guess who is in town?  NED KELLY. Or more correctly the National Gallery has a tour of Sidney Nolan’s series of Ned Kelly paintings on the road. All 26 of them and they are here in Cairns!

Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly series at Cairns Art Gallery

Now, my readers will know that our last trip before this COVID 19 thing was down to north east Victoria for a trip around Kelly country. During that journey we dropped into the National Gallery, where the paintings normally are, to see the series. BUT they had gone off on this national tour. So we missed them and thought we would need to return to Canberra in the future to see them. No, they came to us in Cairns! So, we will need some other reason to return to Canberra and north east Victoria in the future. Not hard to find one.

The exhibition

Kelly’s trial scene

Ned Kelly’s death mask.

Quite an impressive exhibition. The paintings were laid out in a semi historical time sequence and illustrated the Kelly story, overlaid with Nolan’s own interpretations of environment and violence taking place in apparently peaceful and calm settings. Can recommend seeing them.

More to do tomorrow, back to the van for happy hour!