Paradise Valley 2026

Our group is well over 50+ years of camping here each Easter, so it was great we were able to fly down. Maggie loved it much the same way I used to, swimming, kayaking, she was even keen to do the great walk. Eddie also loved it, probably more than all of us. Mud, fires, sheep, tents, easter bunny on a truck, kangaroos, and going on the kayak with me and his sister. Even better that Pa and Gaga was there.

Mickets and a Metre!

We were supposed to go to Shady this weekend but because of the generational wet season we couldn’t – it was flooded out and the road was dead.

So we went to Micketts and didn’t expect much of the neaps. Mark got a 60cm but we were quite surprised at Tom pulling in a fish at exactly 100cm!

The fish did a great job of wrapping itself around a snag, and I genuinely thought there was little chance that Tom would be able to land it, he did a great job even if it required dropping his rod into the water. He was too big for the net so we did a combined “grippers on the mouth and net on the tail” maneuver.

I tried all day and got nothing but heatstroke.

Daintree & Reef Trip in Cairns

Celebrating our 10th anniversary, went all went on a trip to Cairns. In terms of the outdoor activities that are the point of this journal the rainforests were particularly impressive, and Maggie and myself went to the reef.

The daintree was lovely and quite unique compared to Darwin. Maggie is very into nature right now and she enjoyed it. Eddie liked the walk but mostly the train!

The Great Barrier Reef was fun although the coral was not as good as the outer reef, I think we will need to go next time.

My favourite spot was just a creek on the side of the road where the kids had loads of fun playing and splashing.