May 10, 2007
Hello from Cairns, which according to my GPS (yes, Sondra, I did bring it!) is at 16 South and 145 East. That means it’s a long way from home–8811 miles as the GPS flies.
It seems longer after the plane ride. I used to think Chicago-LA was a long ride.
That was leg one of our trip, a 3 1/2 hour ride on a cramped domestic plane. We were supposed to leave at 5:20, but got to the airport and discovered we’d missed the 12 o’clock plane they had put us on. Fortunately, we had room on the 420 to LA, which left us with about 4 hours at LAX for the 14 1/2 hour ride to Sydney and the 2-hour layover there, then the 3-hour ride to Cairns. The Pacific is a big place, and so is Australia. Australia fits roughly into the US, but has the population of Shanghai (21 million), which is to say there is room for lots of kangaroos.
Cairns is as far north as we are going–as I mentioned 16 degrees from the Equator. It is tropical forest, or would be if we could see the forest for the construction. We are booked pretty solid here–today at the Great Barrier Reef (a prelude to the Keys?), the only natural object visible from the moon (I’m gonna have to check that out sometime). We are going on a catamaran, which means possibly some sailing. I guess the one thing I keep being reminded of the few times I’ve been in the tropics is that the days are only 12 hours long (of daylight anyway) at most. And since it’s fall here, the daylight is even shorter. It is hot and humid though!
Well, we are about to depart. Hope you have a great weekend, and a great mother’s day to all the mothers reading this.