The land the Queen's not sure about

My work under the musician's witness protection scheme ensures regular traversing of Terra Australis. Jaunts to Tasmania, Western Australia and the Northern Territory mean I really can say 'the length and breadth' of this GCOO* capped off with a sizeable swathe of Queensland. 


Normal people say 'Cairns' but Queenslanders call it 'Cans'. It has seemingly ever been thus. Nobody knows why. 

When I first visited Cairns as a ten-year-old my little diary detailed our adventures with found coconuts. I wrote: "I made a coconut cup and ashtray" (no doubt from the same coconut) "while my sister began to make a coconut teapot." Ever the ambitious crafter, little sis, eclipsing my tame effort of having managed to cut a coconut into (uneven) 'halves'. But did she finish the teapot? Probably not, but this is a woman who recently made a Rubik's Cube birthday cake with movable parts!


More from my first visit to Cairns. Simpler times. Now, you tell that to the kids of today... 


There's no problem getting one's ready supply of Sydney postcards - in Cairns.


Packing heat, with every European accent possible on the streets. 


They're welcome to the local jobs. Don't Google 'banana humpers'. I didn't, it's just a hunch that one shouldn't. Meanwhile I'll stick to...


...Secret Spinster Business.


Weather updates at The 'Gabba. I'll give you a pitch report when I'm back home tuning pianos.


"I can't spell until I've ingested said ingredient."

"Talk to us about our errant pluralisation."


AirBnB breakfast battalion.


Around the corner from the free-range layers, a banana humper's dream.
  

Mild irritation is induced by the senseless invention of inefficient abbreviations, where perfectly legitimate, literate metric nomenclature already exist. The other oft-sighted one is 'MTRS' when a simple lower-case m would do. SQR MTRS is reserved exclusively for advertising sheds for sale.


The invisible proofreader.


I love perusing others' bookshelves. This tome is prescient, since I'm sharing an editing task when not called to duty far from home.


Rockhampton. Speaking of bananas, not entirely crazy, just a little overwhelming.


 Not your average shop front. He's out with the paint as we speak weaving Turnbull in somehow.


Wanted - Old farts from caravan parks.

Pain tins for sale.


The crab art is just beginning today. Here's my snap of nearby Mission Beach many years ago.


I've used a toe as a measure of thumb. It's all reminiscent of world maps for the geographically confused.


Getting crabby.


Love letters in the sand.


Copious little footprints - the legacy of crafting copperplate with a bloody big stick, all the while endeavouring not to deposit one's iPhones in the sandy brine.


Love's labours lost.


Who's Timmy? Timmy knows who Timmy is.


Spare blanket, pillows, and teddy. Who's Teddy? Teddy knows who Teddy is.


First World Problems. I can't be trusted with teaspoons.


Oddly, I never tire of YO in this form.


The largest wishbone I've witnessed. The Muttaburrasaurus steps out at the Brisbane Museum.


More museum mayhem?


No, it's The Big Cane toad in Sarina. Did you know that the cane toad's genus was revised from Bufo to Rhinella to attempt to make it sound more like a scourge, a disease, or possibly a delicious antipasto? Rhinella Marinus.


Alas, the Horny Brassosaurus was not part of Brisbane Museum's exhibition.

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