I can explain!

Where have I been? Can I explain my absence? Yes! I went to Townsville for Christmas (as well as what would have been the 100th birthday of my paternal grandmother) and it was hot. And humid. And without any photo opportunities of the green tree snake that was apparently lurking around my Uncle's place - he regaled us with tales of how it was trying to eat a green treefrog the day before we arrived. But I saw neither scale nor fang of it! Was hoping for a few pix of it, provided I didn't become paralysed with fright over it all.

Here's a few photos from the holiday anyway:


^ View from The Strand.


^ St James cathedral, where we went for the Christmas service.


^ Salt flats on the way to Townsville from Giru.


^ Aww, purdee!


^ A green ant. They are EVIL!


^ A squished cane toad. Heh!


^ Bald Rock, in a national park thing near the Australian Institute of Marine Sciences. The whole thing of being near AIMS reminded me that I wanted to do marine biology once upon a time.


^ Just a leaf or two.


^ Durians! They have them in the shops up there. Odd.


^ The Saint.

Whew, what a visual overdose!

And there's more to come, because we went cemetery exploring, which allowed me to take ridiculous numbers of photos of tombs and statues and so on. I love cemeterys, although I have a vague fear of death, and they always provide excellent photographic opportunities. Ohh, I'll have to post some pix of the simply ENORMOUS graves in one of the Townsville cemeteries. Craziness!

We also caught up with relatives up there and had Christmas dinner with an Uncle, an Aunt and a cousin, plus his lovely partner (both of whom had senses of humour kinda like mine, so lots of laughs - hurrah!). In some ways, I was wondering what the relatives would be like, as I hadn't seen them since I was about two years old.

But 'twas fun.