Sitting with the Z generation in Cairns

Calling them kids makes me seem old. Apparently the X generation is over and done with, so I assume the young people surrounding us in this internet cafe as Generation Z. Whatever. As I look around this dark, narrow store on the main street of Cairns I see young faces totally concentrating on the computer screens in front of them. I also see, three or four occupied chairs from me, the gray hair, glasses and headphones of my husband. I have no idea what he is listening to down there, but he is sitting with headphones like the young folks. we are sitting along the two outside walls of this narrow little storefront in library like carrels with divider between us so that you can barely see the screens of your neighbors. By leaning back and putting the keyboard on my lap I can rest my wrists and watch the kid next to me work on a computer game that looks much more like an animated movie than a computer game. The girl on my right is reviewing a Sizzler restaurant menu. I have no idea why that would be worth spending your internet time, but that is what she is doing.

We got to Cairns on Sunday afternoon. Mike is so happy to have a rental car. He is like a teenager with his first set of wheels. We are staying in a Cairns suburb called Trinity Beach. Our studio apartment is a block from the beach, so we wandered down for a walk along the beach on our first afternoon. Trinity Beach is a sleepy little area that reminds us both of a small Hawaiian town. The climate here is virtually the same tropical weather that Hawaii has, and combined with the similar look to the vegetation and housing if you did not notice that the cars were on the opposite side of the road you would think you were in Hawaii.

Our apartment has a washing machine- a true luxury that we availed ourselves of the first day. Our second day here we went for a long drive up to the Daintree National Park. We took a small hike out to see the Mossman Gorge (think Olympic National Park type rain forest in a warmer climate combined with a small river bed/gorge. It was nice but no grand canyon. The Daintree River was impressive, though. We took a one hour boat trip (Bruce Belcher's crocodile tours) and saw lots of tropical birds and bats and one 2 year old crocodile that splashed in the water and swam away as soon as we got near enough to see it. They threw in a free four dollar meat pie with the $20 admission price, so Mike has eaten his first (and probably last) Australian meat pie. If they had paid us to eat it I may have been tempted but at free for the taking it was an easy decision.

Now that we have our own kitchen we are back to eating home cooked oatmeal every morning for breakfast and picinic lunch or dinner. We have one meal out most days. It is cheaper this way and we enjoy the leisurely meals in our apartment or on our deck overlooking the pool.

Today it was raining much more vigorously than the past two days so we waited an hour to take our drive in to Cairns. We had never been to this town before, so we spent the rainy morning in a movie (Robert Redford and Meryl Streep's new movie which we liked for its plea to get people thinking and doing something about what is going on), then lunch in a health food store and now the internet cafe. We will probably walk around a bit more then head back to Trinity beach (about half an hour away) for our leisurely afternoon.

I have lots more photos that I will send when I get on my computer.

Love you all,
Deanne