Archives by Tag 'Cairns'

Girl Power

By Helene - Last updated: Sunday, December 11, 2011

Girl power always makes me smile. At our friends’ wedding on Saturday we had a ‘pilot’ photo. The girls outnumbered the guys five to three, although we manage to leave one of the women out of the photo… (sorry Fizz..), and the guys tried to claim Baby William was a pilot in the making.

Heading home for Christmas

By Helene - Last updated: Friday, December 9, 2011

The best feeling in the world is waiting at an airport knowing I’m heading home. True, I am an aviation tragic so being around aircraft makes me happy, but knowing the destination is hovering just out of reach is what lifts my heart. In three hours I’ll touch down in the velvety heat of North [...]

Category Five

By Helene - Last updated: Saturday, November 19, 2011

The Tropical Writers, a diverse and talented group of writers living in North Queensland launched their fifth anthology today called Category Five. No prizes for guessing where the name came from!! It’s a wonderful eclectic collection of poems and short stories all centred around North Queensland. The launch, held at the Havanna Music Cafe (another [...]

A long time to heal

By Helene - Last updated: Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Long after a cyclone or a natural disaster the devastation still remains. Yasi’s destruction has been all but forgotten except by those who are still rebuilding their lives. The rest of us move on. I spoke to a woman recently who said she lived at Mission Beach. ‘How are you doing?’ I asked, thinking she’d [...]

What Qantas did for Australia

By Helene - Last updated: Wednesday, November 2, 2011

It’s a funny old world. A week ago the average Australian probably didn’t even know what Fair Work Australia was, let alone how it impacted on them. Since Alan Joyce staged his company ‘stop work meeting’, most Australians are now experts on our Industrial Relations laws. Over the last three days I’ve had animated (and [...]

Dave Delaney – Aussie Bush Poet

By Helene - Last updated: Friday, October 28, 2011

For me Bush Poetry is an integral part of the Australian landscape. It’s as important as the Simpson Desert or the Great Barrier Reef, as Aussie as a game of Two-Up on Anzac Day, and as colloquial as ‘g’day’ or ‘she’ll be right’. I’ve never been brave enough to write a bush poem, but I [...]

Sunday bike-ride

By Helene - Last updated: Thursday, October 20, 2011

Locked in another hotel room for the last two nights I’ve been delving into my photos of home. It may sound crazy for a pilot, but I’m really a homebody who loves nothing more than family and friends around me, in a familiar environment. Consequently, my computer has hundreds, maybe thousands, of photos of special [...]

Sweet!

By Helene - Last updated: Wednesday, September 28, 2011

It’s nearing the end of the cane cutting season in Cairns and the ground is dusty as summer bears down on us. Yesterday morning, as I rode into Cairns on my pushbike, I could smell the cut cane long before I could see the harvesters at work. The sweet, green scent in the air is [...]

Silver Dawn

By Helene - Last updated: Saturday, September 10, 2011

Don’t be late for training on the ski – the boys don’t wait!

Too good to drink…

By Helene - Last updated: Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Palm Cove has many hidden treasures. Eric, the Barista at The Chill Cafe, is one of those. A morning coffee takes on a new dimension when you’re torn between drinking or photographing your cappuccino. And if you drop by you’ll have a sneak preview of the setting for a chapter in Burning Lies