I feel like I’m living in ground hog day.

Ray went fishing again this morning.

He caught 4 fish. 3 were a tad bigger than tadpoles, one would have made the length limit but he really wanted a big one so he threw it back. It was a Striped Salmon. The Queensland Fisheries Inspectors turned up at the pier just in time for Ray to show them his catch. They said they hadn’t seen a Striped Salmon so big, they were normally much smaller. Ray felt good about the comment but since the 4 hours had passed and he hadn’t snagged a “big one”, he knew it was time to go.

The Inspectors had a measuring device to measure the fish caught and make sure the fishermen weren’t keeping undersize fish. Ray told them they wouldn’t need the device because he was the only one who had caught anything.

“You won’t be needing that here!” he said. They got to talking and Ray scored a Recreational Fishing Book. He also discovered a bit about their job. They travel up and down the coast from Port Douglas to Mission Beach. Visiting beaches and piers and inland rivers. Checking catches, responding to complaints and giving out information. They had a car and were decked out with uniforms, radios and all the gear. What a job. Sounded like the perfect gig for someone like Ray. I think he’ll be searching the SEEK adds on the daily from now on.

While Ray was fishing, The Captain and I had been reorganizing the caravan. We had both been up during the night. Henry has been doing too much and he wasn’t able to jump up onto our bed at 1:30am. He notified us and, as usual, I heard him so I got up to lift him up.

He settled peacefully but then I was awake.

Then I started thinking.

By the time I was able to go back to sleep I had reorganized all the cupboards in the caravan (in my mind) to make functionality better for us all.

So, Henry and I reorganized cupboards (in real life) all morning. Very cathartic. There was a surprising lack of dirt and dust in the cupboards for the roads we had travelled which surprised me but also pleased me.

When Ray returned, with his shoulders hanging and looking very dejected, he showered and then we ventured into Cairns city to have lunch. We needed to find Officeworks to attend to some paperwork from home, (we don’t have a printer in the van so Officeworks’ are very handy).

We went to another cafe that we went to when we were here in October. The waitress was very taken with Henry, bringing him the water bowl before we got anything. When the chef heard that there was a “cute” dog out the front, she volunteered to bring the extra carafe of water that we requested out personally. He was quite the pavement star.

On the way back to the van, we dropped into Machans Beach. This is one of the many beach communities between Cairns City and Port Douglas. Better known as Cairns Northern Beaches. We actually hadn’t been there before so didn’t know anything about the area but what we saw were houses literally on the beach, a tavern and a small beach. There were a lot of crocodile warning signs the more we drove around so we didn’t get out. We are hearing a lot of stories about dogs going missing from Cairns beaches and waterways. I’m quite paranoid. Anyway Machans Beach is a small but lovely area.

We got back to the van in time to finish up some organising and bring in the washing.

Karen picked me up and took me to her school which wasn’t far from our caravan park. We spent a good couple of hours talking curriculum and what she’s doing in her classroom and I got a tour of her new school. I thoroughly enjoyed it, her enthusiasm and pride in the teaching profession nearly made me want to pull out my pencils and sign up again…nearly!