Going bananas

How can you not love a state where the main crops are sugar, pineapples, mangoes and macadamia nuts? Oh, and rum. And that has the nickname The Sunshine State? And the tagline, Beautiful one day, perfect the next?

When it rains, that's how. And is windy, and your trip out to the Great Barrier Reef is cancelled because although the lagoon surrounding the coral cay you were going to spend the day on is still as turquoise and, well, still, as ever, the 90-minute trip out is a bit bumpy, so the cruise people can the whole expedition. Wusses.

We did do some snorkelling on Lady Elliot Island a bit further south, though, and it was excellent, fish everywhere, some of the prettiest literally in-your-face jobs - but all of them too quick for the digital display on the new underwater camera, so I have many tantalising photos of tails exiting the frame. (Rather like the photo I took of our daughter as a littlie posing with Goofy at Disneyland where she lost her nerve at the crucial moment, leaving us with a portrait of the figure (dog? hippo? who ever knew?) and, bottom right, the First Born's heel.)

So, today's reef substitute will be a roo-spotting tour on a mini-chopper, easy riding through the bush and finishing with wedges (so much more appealing than wedgies) and the sunset at 1770, which besides being the date of Cook's first landing in Queensland, is the name of a very lovely little settlement on a north-west-facing beach here on the east coast - hence the sunset over the water selling point.

Photos to come later, because wifi is hard to find and graspingly, greedily expensive when located, and this is coming to you from an internet cafe bustling with backpackers asking about surfing and cheap lodging and what to do about the Icelandic eruption. Small world.