Asian food store.

I saw three Asian shops during our Cairns trip, this one was quite a busy one but it's win-win for us, Olivia gets to see some familiar stuff, and I get to eat it.

A mixed marriage has some definite benefits as Jimmy would be quite lost trying to shop here.

Nice day for it.

We spotted a couple of quiet aircraft (the nicest kind) floating about on drive back down the Captain Cook Highway at Rex lookout.

The breeze must flow up the hill at water's edge here and help to to stay aloft in a relaxing manner.

Here I am in what seems my usual stance these days.

Olivia was having fun too.
This little spectacle made for quite a refreshing stop.

I passed.

I was caught in a random breath test when leaving Port Douglas, The Constable muttered a name I didn't take any notice of, and said a speech by rote that meant nothing but not wishing to embarrass myself by asking for a repeat when he pointed a tube near me I just blew into it until he said stop.
Then he asked if I had my licence with me, here I offer it to him.

 It seems I must have also passed the attitude test as my teary tale of not drinking because of bleeding in my gut struck a chord of sympathy.

Port Douglas.

I just wanted to mellow out at the waterside rather than get in the way of the yuppies inhabiting the expensive businesses in town, I think it was a good choice as it was quite calming.

Plenty of money here, this boat would cost more than our house.

That's a mighty big boat in the background.

 Churches are a magnet for photos.

A nice comfortable place to sit.

A good place to mellow out. That's a mine behind the memorial, hopefully disarmed but it'd add a lot of excitement if it wasn't.

A few metres away from the market.

I only had to get a few metres from the stalls to regain my comfort level and see the pretty things that surrounded us. Churches seem to be made for photographs, here we try an arty look.

In the wet tropics things just grow.

A younger Jimmy would never have given more than a cursory glance at flowers, but older Jimmy likes pretty things.

I hope only a minimum amount of taxpayer funds went into this arty thing but in this age that's about as likely as the ABC disagreeing with a greens policy, or conversely agreeing with any statement Tony Abbott makes.

I took this picture because there was a pretty green car but the yellow linkage on the white car puzzles me, if I'd known I would have checked it out.
The young chap on the pushbike would be making sure he keeps safe from ridicule from his peers by not wearing a helmet that the law requires.

Mossman.

The weekend took us as far north as Mossman where we saw a market and managed to find a handy place to park in a very pretty place.

Sadly for me, and I suppose predictably the market stalls were all organic greenie themed ones which by their very nature make me quite uncomfortable. The abundance of dogs and smokers triggered my desire to backtrack out of here but Olivia rightly wanted to check the place out.

Golden Gumboot, Tully.

Olivia and I had a weekend away, here she poses in front of the sign explaining that its 7.9 metre height represents the rainfall of its wettest year on record.
Olivia has been in Australia one year now, and despite walking still being difficult we still have to get out and about sometimes. Hopefully I'll have plenty more pictures soon to post here about our weekend away.

Still OK.

I thought I'd check if the spark plugs I'd fitted months ago were OK, yes I'm happy, I was a little worried about them being a bit hot but things look very good.

I had to expect this.

The doc wanted to do some blood and other stuff testing on me, but with unclear instructions I checked on-line and saw that the wrong containers were supplied, so when I brought empty jars to the pathology (so they can reuse) and pointed out the error their attitude went from Monday morning miserable to frozen.
In cases like mine they must keep a stock of extra blunt needles for removing blood and this looks good compared to how it was when I left the place.
Predictably I've heard there's a diabetes issue, maybe some day I'll take notice of that, but also they spotted anaemia, that would explain why I've been so fatigued and weak for a while, with a bit of luck they might have a reason soon to slice me up and cut out the Meckel's diverticulum that I suspect I have. I've already ordered a staple remover to save them the bother in case they do.

Cleaning a murky Nikon 1 lens.

The unsightly spots here were on the inside of the glass, something I thought would be woe to access to clean.

So I attacked the only screws I could see at the rear of the lens, after disassembling the majority of the lens I reached a dead end, hmmm.
Then I realised the solution was simple, the lens info on the front is just a sticker and removing it and the six screws underneath gains simple access to the front lens for cleaning.
Meanwhile it was quite a long job replacing all the fancy bits at the rear but the lens is functioning again.
Those familiar will note that this is their budget lens but don't poo-poo it because it's the base lens, in reality it's a sharp little beauty.

Shopping.

A main purpose of yesterday's trip was so Olivia could check out the Asian food shop, and she managed to find a few things she's familiar with.
The vinegar looks like it may revive the dead but I'm a bit concerned it may have an opposite effect on the living, however I'm assured it's all good.

A breakage for Daisy.

A pivot hole on one of Daisy's vents broke this morning, I suppose warranty would cover it but I have a loathing of paperwork and the inevitable blame game, so after pricing it in Townsville I decided to attempt repair. The assembly is actually about the $20 mark, or 4 times the price in Malaysia but is still fairly reasonable for a car part, well I was told $18-something but I'm thinking they may have naughtily omitted to include GST.

I decided on my old Jimmy style wire melted into plastic. This was the start as well as the end of the easy part.

 Then bend it a bit and hope for the best.

A miracle is that it actually works........for now.

The vents look normal again now.

At last Daisy has a little drive.

Between Olivia and Jimmy our health has limited us to only clocking 1536 km on Daisy over seven months, today we did our first little trip for a while.

 We went to Townsville but even then I'd forgotten some of the things I wanted to do and was way too tired after a while anyway. Here we had a quick stop at Jezzine Barracks which is now open to the public and looks like it may be well worth our while to give it a good look when we're fit.

From the shore there's a top secret military golf ball at Pallarenda on the left, Bay Rock in centre pic, and West Point of Magnetic Island on the right.

  Here midget Jimmy appears very relaxed checking out this man sized cut-out.

Cyclone Nathan claims a victim.

The few gusts of winds we copped from being on the fringe of Cyclone Nathan blew this palm tree over.

No drama it's been added to our burn pile, soon its carbon will be freed so it can help the growth of new palms.

Window film.

The roll of 15% tint reflective film arrived today and Olivia spurred me into action immediately and did a mighty job of helping and supervising Jimmy so the job wouldn't look too rough.

Apart from blocking 65% of heat rays from the sun it also does a pretty fair job of blocking eyeballs from outside. The sun doesn't get much of a chance to attack the upper part of the window, so naturally I didn't bother with it. That's an Olivia hand above the film.

We had enough to do a front window too and since the job met with our approval we shall order some more to do the other half of the house.

I hate these fancy hard to open bottle caps.

But at least they can be trimmed so they can be opened before the bottle gets hurled out the window.