The Great Barrier Reef is one of our seven natural wonders, the only living thing on Earth that’s visible from space. Not surprisingly, people the world over feel connected to it, and that means its well-being and future are routinely the subject of public discussion […]
It takes just 90 minutes to drive from Cairns city to the heart of the world’s oldest rainforest. It’s Australia’s largest area of continuous rainforest, running right down to the sea between Mossman Gorge and the Bloomfield River. It’s the Daintree, long and still one […]
This year the Red Cross marks 100 years of service to the communities of Australia. This morning I sat down for a yarn with a group women in Cairns who, between them, have given almost 150 years of service as Red Cross volunteers in far […]
It’s hard to conjure during a stroll along the Cairns waterfront these days, but this stretch of our northern town was once a place seething with a potent mix of live music, rorty characters, smoky pubs – and a nightlife that routinely lasted well past […]
Thursday is International Volunteer Day – when we recognise the vital contribution volunteers make to our communities, and hopefully encourage a few more people to consider giving their time and energy for good causes. By way of inspiration, let me introduce you to Julie Martin. […]
My favourite Cairns music venue is the Tanks Arts Centre There’s plenty of history and atmosphere in what was a series of concrete fuel tanks built during World War Two. They contained crude oil that was pumped through underground pipes to fuel Navy ships on […]
In early December 1983 far north Queensland was the lead story on the news just about every night. The Douglas Shire Council, with the support of the Queensland Government, began to push a road through pristine rainforest in the Daintree, north of Cairns. The road […]
My last blog post was all about the sea journey from Cairns, through the Coral Sea to the Torres Strait islands and northern Cape York Peninsula. The MV Trinity Bay is the only working cargo ship in Australia that also carries passengers, and it takes […]
Everyone should see Cape York Peninsula and the Torres Strait islands at least once. I’ve been lucky – I’ve been to both several times, by road and air. But last week I did the journey by sea. Wow! I’d run out of adjectives within a […]
You’re looking at a pretty typical wet season weather chart. That blue line of dots and dashes across the top of Australia represents the monsoon. It’s a line of unstable weather that shifts, with the seasons, north and south of the equator. During the Australian […]