Cairns Qld Monday 15 August 2022

 Cairns Qld Monday 15 August 2022

Up early, fed and ready to hit the tour at 7am, we all trooped don to the wharf to wait for the big ferry to take us to Horn Island. Horn Island was offering a guided tour of WWII gun emplacements and slit trenches and a museum. All the handiwork of Vanessa over a 27 year period. Horn Island is also where the airport is and a big bird to take us to Cairns, which as the day wore on, beckoned ever so strongly.

And so we waited and waited. Word finally came that the big ferry hadn’t even left and didn’t look like it was ever going to anytime soon. This is Monday and a pile of people need to get to and from TI and Horn island, but hey, who cares? Fortunately the Outback Spirit credit card ruled the day and that Yellow School bus was hired to take us and anyone else who could cram on.

At Horn, Vanessa and her bus finally turned up and took us to a hotel, which also houses her museum. After she fiddled about a bit we were off on our tour. We saw a small beach, we walked around the gun emplacements which she and her husband were restoring (including a huge anti-aircraft gun that was donated), oohed and aahed at the wooden replica of a shell, and then back on the bus to a ... Slit Trench. The excitement never stopped. From there to a site where an aeroplane had crashed with no survivors, and precious little of the plane left either. And so in less than 40 minutes we are back to the hotel at 10 am for morning tea and a visit to the museum. But first a video. And then the museum, and then, you can all just wait here for 2 hours until they take us to lunch at some other hotel, because this one currently doesn’t have a chef due to staff shortages.

Welcome to Horn Island Qld

WWII Antiaircraft pit. Horn Island Qld

WWII Antiaircraft pit. Horn Island Qld

WWII Antiaircraft pit. Horn Island Qld

Aeroplane Bis. Horn Island Qld

WWII Slit Trench. Horn Island Qld

WWII Slit Trench. Horn Island Qld

Squeezing us into her busy tour schedule, Vanessa finally appears and took us to lunch at the other hotel. Lunch was just fine, again pre-ordered at some distant time in the past. But then, wait, you have to watch another film to fill in the two hours until you can be taken to the airport. The film which went for almost that long featured a snippet of Vanessa about 27 years ago, and the funny little fellow from the pearl farm. Talk about 15 seconds of fame. I fell asleep sitting bolt upright in the hard straight backed chair. When it finally finished and Vanessa and Bus turned up again, we were at last taken to the airport. Frankly, the time in the Torres Strait was so much of an anticlimax I was near ready to scream. Fortunately the Qantas plane was on time and before you know it we have been ferried to civilisation and our last night stay at the ShangriLa hotel.

Marina. Cairns Qld

We got our key and walked and walked and walked. The place must have 10,000 rooms. Finally we burst into our room and our jaws dropped. Where’s the bedroom? Where’s the bathroom? And what’s that view out the front from the full width balcony? We had lucked into a luxury suite and it was perfect. As was dinner downstairs later that night, which is where we said our farewells.

Sunset. Cairns Qld