Tanks, Cars and Barbies - A Weekend in Queensland
Rain on Saturday morning meant we left the bikes at home and went in the truck to The Australian Armour and Artillery Museum in Cairns. This is the largest museum of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere, having over 230–240 military vehicles and artillery pieces dating from the 1800s to the present day with more than 190–200 exhibits actively shown on the floor, while others are in transit or undergoing restoration.
There is no climbing in or on the vehicles, and as a result they’re clean and well cared for. History, provenance and other interesting details are well documented, and you can also see the museum, their workshops and videos of restoration work on Youtube.
Conor and I spent some time there looking around and could have spent more if we’d tried the interactive displays such as the Humvee ride or firing a variety of military rifles, but we needed to call at the butchers on the way back to get supplies for the barbeque later.
Back in Port Douglas Connor stopped for fuel, and came out after paying shouting me and waving something in the air. It was my lost debit card! Apparently 5 minutes after I’d been in looking for it someone handed it in, and Kylie (not THAT Kylie) had kept it safe for when Conor or I called again when she was on shift. Although I’d stopped the card it was nice to know no-one was trying to use it fraudulently somewhere.
Later on, Martina, who I’d met at the Beach Shack, and Pablo her Argentinian boyfriend came round for a barbie. Martina’s Italian, and had already agreed to let us try the live translation feature on my Rayban Meta glasses. It worked fine. She spoke to me in Italian and a second later I heard the English translation. We then tried the other way round with the same result. Kerry then tried the glasses, and when Martina asked her to ask Conor to bring more beers out it worked perfectly. If 2 people of different nationalities each had the glasses they could hold a conversation despite not knowing a word of each other’s language. Something else from childhood science fiction that is now science fact.
The plan for Sunday morning had been to go to a hillclimb event in Mossman, where the daughter of a neighbour, Mark, was competing. She’s 14 and regularly drives her Mazda in these competitions. Unfortunately, torrential rain meant it had to be cancelled, but we’re waiting to hear if it will be rescheduled while I’m still here.
We still continued with the rest of the day though, which involved the 3 of us going to Cairns in Kerry’s car, where we dropped Kerry off so she could do some shopping in peace while Conor and I went to have a look at a car show.
The cars on display, with some also doing fast drag-style starts outside to entertain the crowd, were mainly highly customised Australian V8’s with superchargers, turbochargers or nitrous kits, and years of work and thousands of dollars had gone into most of them. A few had obviously never been used on the road but were just built as show cars, and while they were incredible to look at I think I’d want to know how it drove if I’d put that much time, energy and money into creating something outwardly capable of great noise and speed.
And amongst them all in the middle of the hall was a 1961 VW Beetle, restored to original condition, and drawing as much attention as the muscle cars around it.
We were just about to leave when there was a huge engine roar from outside, so we went to look. There was a blue car and a pink truck parked together – there’s a photo below to give you the idea – and the truck had been started and was being revved up, almost making the ground shake. When it stopped a girl got out, smiled, and said “that’s a proper girl’s car”. With its mini pink glitter ball hanging from the rear-view mirror, and sparkly pink door cards it was definitely a wolf in sheep’s clothing and looked as though she’d caught the bug from her dad who had the blue car next to her, with the insane air intakes – again there’s a photo below.
We picked Kerry up, dropped her at another shop and went to get some touch-up paint mixed for the Honda just for a few stone chips. After we all got together again it was off to Macalisters for a drink and a quick snack from the food truck (Indian today) before heading home.
The rain had been off and on all day but the bikes are under cover, so I spent some time touching in the black wheel rims, to good effect.
Tea was a barbie again, which was quick, simple and delicious, and there was the weekend gone. Despite the weather we’d done loads. Now it’s time to start another week.
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