Town is full of caravans and campervans, because this is the time of year that folks leave cold southern locations for the sunshine and tropical heat of Far North Queensland. You can recognise tourists. They're the ones in rain-soaked Aloha shirts and Bermuda shorts and blue skin that clashes horribly with the brightly printed fabric. The hardware shop is doing a roaring trade in space blankets.
It is show season too, so the roads are crowded with semi-trailers loaded with Heath Robinson contraptions that look like gaudy instruments of torture and very probably are. Malanda Show kicks off first, followed by Atherton and then Cairns. There are others. Lots of others. Agricultural shows are serious business up here. And after the ag shows, the rodeos. And then the ceremonial de-icing of the tourists, which is a bit like releasing Han Solo from the carbonite, but less epic.
Anyway, obviously I haven't got much news to share, so instead here's a picture of a grey-headed robin, a species endemic to the uplands of the Wet Tropics. Isn't it cute? I hope your days are going well. And so does the robin.
