We left Madrid at 22:05 on Saturday and arrived here in Trinity Beach, Cairns at a little over 13:30, Monday. Phew! Australia is a very, very long way from the UK. There were three legs, Madrid to Dubai, 7+ hours,

Dubai to Brisbane, 13.5+ hours and Brisbane to Cairns 2+ hours. Roughly 24 solid hours of airtime plus a further 6+ hours of hanging around in airports. This trip is definitely a one off.

Our hotel in Madrid turned out to be within a short walking distance of the Museo Reina Sofia.

We spent a traumatic 3 hours inside. It’s essentially a museum of twentieth century art with Guernica as a central focal point. Guernica is an incredibly moving painting and it’s juxtaposed with drawings Picasso made as preparation for the painting. It was painted in response to the unprovoked bombing of Guernica, a centre of Basque culture in 1936 by German Heinkel bombers on the request of Franco. The town was filled with women and children and a few old men. The attack included a large number of incendiary bombs which annihilated the town and everyone in it.

It also houses an extensive collection of cubist and surrealist paintings by Picasso, Braque, Dali, Miró etc

and there’s currently an exhibition on by David Wojnarowicz, a deeply troubled and political American artist who died of AIDS in 1992 at the age of 37. Unlike say the Uffizi in Florence, the Reina Sofia is filled with deeply provocative artworks which prove to be a real emotional rollercoaster.

The final descent into Cairns allowed me to take a series of images of reefs from about 10,000 feet.

I had thought that given the address of Trinity Beach, Cairns that we’d be in Cairns. In fact we’re actually some 20km north of Cairns. Cairns, it appears, encompasses a string of beaches over a 30km stretch of coastline. Nothing daunted, we’ll take a bus into the centre of Cairns tomorrow whilst we recover from the experience of the last few days plus the 9 hours of jet lag that we need to get accustomed to.

We popped out earlier to pick up basic supplies such as eggs and almond milk. The architecture here is much like Concord or Walnut Creek in the USA. Largish, low, well spaced houses with palm trees and bird calls reminiscent of documentaries on the Amazon rainforest. Definitely American style shopping malls. I reckon it’s an up market Rhyl but Dorothy is more complimentary.

Very tired now (22:24), so time to sleep.

Bon voyage