Yes, we are still here!

Well where do I begin??????????? We have been without the laptop for quite a while now, that there is an almost impossible amount to catch up on. We are now just North of Cooktown at a spot called Endeavour Falls on the Endeavour River. It is a lovely spot.Set amongst lots of trees filled with birdlife and lovely green grass - which is just as well, as we are in our tent and some of the dusty , stony spots we have stopped in wouldn't be much fun to set up a tent. Poor old Bessie is up for rather a lot of work (which means a huge bill for us!!) and is back in Cairns now getting repaired - at the bus doctor as we have explained to Jarra. We feel sure she is in great hands, but it is a funny thing to give your home to someone to work on! Jarra insists on calling the tent the "bus tent". He found it hard foe the first couple of days. Announcing now and then that he wanted to "go back to the bus now" and not being very happy that we didn't. He is settling in now to our new life under canvas, as we all are. Last weekend we all had a fantastic time at the Wallaby Creek Festival ( see the website at the side),30kms or so south of Cooktown on the Bloomfield track. It is held in the grounds of Home Rule Rainforest Lodge, three and a half kms down a little track off the main track, next to a beautiful creek and surrounded by the most amazing rainforest. As we approached the festival on Friday afternoon we were all quiet as we gazed out on the thick, almost inpenetrable forest that lay on either side of us. Having spent time in the Daintree along with hundreds of other tourists, this somehow seemed to be the real McCoy. The Daintree is mobbed every day by tourists from Cairns and Port Douglas on their whirlwind 4WD tours to see the World Heritage Listed area of incredible rainforest. Now I know that this is necessary to sustain the local economy and stop these important forest from being chopped down, but it certainly ruined the experience for us when we had to sit in traffic and share every lookout and accessable forest space with so many others. We could tell instantly that we were going to enjoy camping at the festival for the weekend. With great luck? Timing? Coincidence? we had an excellent time. The music was not limited to folk, but showcased an array of local and indigenous music. The poetry was funnny and entertaining. The entertainers amazing and impressive. However the thing that struck us all the most was the wonderfully friendly and warm feeling we experienced everywhere we went over the weekend. We hardly saw Rennie and Tal as they were busy socialising and doing activities. After Andre had played a challenging game of chess with Peter at the Chai tent, his wife Estelle invited us all to pitch our tent on their property up the road for as long as we wanted. How generous! So we took her up on her offer and that has led to a whole other story that I will tell in the next blog entry! H