Where have you been, Billy?

Wow! This has been a big break.

Last time I wrote about moving up North to a little place near Cairns, FNQ (Far North Queensland).

For those of you who don't know much about Australia, Cairns is as far north of Brisbane as Brisbane is north of Melbourne. Cairns is in fact as near to the equator as it is to Brisbane and over 3000 km from Melbourne (via the shorter inland route). This is a vast country!

So we came up north and started to run our little business.

12 months later the eye of super-cyclone Yasi literally passed over our shop. After almost 8 hours of ferocious winds and pelting rain, the storm passed, leaving a trail of devastation that included the roof of our house.

Luckily no one was hurt directly but that was only because almost no one lives here. For an idea of what would have happened if it hit a population centre, refer to the similar-sized typhoon (Haiyan) that recently hit the Philippines.

So we kept going, eventually moving premises and trading on. And that's where we are now.

It's been an "interesting" few years!

Any nice photos?

Well, this part of the world is stunningly beautiful and with a little bit of effort, a photographer can't fail.

I took this little snap a couple of months ago (November 2013).

It was taken just south of Cairns at the side of the road at 5:15 am.

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Also, I stitched together a number of shots into a nice little panorama which still doesn't come close to reproducing the beauty of nature up here. Just click on the image to get a full-screen view.

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