Rapidly moving up the coast towards Cairns, much like the rain storm I seem to be caught up in. Queensland has had a bit of a Summer, with floods at Christmas, Cyclone Yasi last month and now more flooding in the tropical North. I had a small taste of it today with lashing rain driving into your body. Grief knows what it would be like up here in a Cyclone. It hasn’t all been wet, Dropped into Bunderburg yesterday, home of aviator, Bert Hinkler. They are very proud of him in the town with a whole museum dedicated to the man who flew from the UK to Australia in small byplane in the 1920’s. When he returned to his home town, he landed in the main park in Bunderburg and taxied up the street to his parents house. Not that’s how to make a return home. The park has many mementoes including his old house, shipped brick by brick from Southampton. Not many detached properties from suburban Southampton end up in the Queensland Rainforest. In the museum there is also a sliver of wood from one of his first planes in a glass case. A piece of wood that has an amazing history as besides being part of one of the first machines to fly, it was also due to go into space as part of the ill fated Challenger Space Shuttle mission in 1986. After the shuttle exploded, debris was found all along the Florida coast, including the container containing the piece of the plane, completely unscathed.

Yesterday stayed in Rockhampton, which is bang on the tropic of Capricorn, so am now officially in the tropics.