Cairns

A very laid back day today.

It is hard to lie in here as we tend to go to bed early at night as it gets dark at 6. The restaurants are all pretty busy by 5:30 and I think in general people begin their days early and finish early to enjoy what is left of the day and also because it is just so hot.

So after breakfast at a little cafe across the road we walked along the seaside promenade into the heart of the city. It was very relaxing and there were hundreds of others like us and joggers, a few cyclists and scooterists.

Lots of trees with a cacophany of bird song to cheer us along.

There was a serious looking beach volleyball game happening with an official umpire and scorekeeper.

It is Fathers day so all the cafes look to be doing well.

The seaside is mudflat at low tide and there are numerous wading birds looking for breakfast also.

The official sign along the walkway warned us not to swim and indeed not to get too close to the water at all lest we become breakfast ourselves!

By now it was 9:30 and already getting quite warm so we had a coffee while we waited for an art gallery to open. There were 3 levels to this gallery with the lower level being the feature visiting exhibition. Absolutely amazing, it was a photographic exhibition of spiders like nothing I have seen before. The images were vivid in colour and the spiders seemed totally unreal. The pictures were about 1.5m square so they looked particularly fearsome. Then there was a little plaque with the actual spider specimans which measured 3-5mm across. Phew, I thought I might have nightmares about these creatures.

The other 2 levels were given over to local and aboriginal art, some old and some new and boy there are some clever people out there.

Too hot now so back to our aircon for a siesta.

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