Our life in Tropical North Queensland

How’s this for something that you would expect to happen only in communist Russia? Early yesterday morning, I received a phone call from the State Government’s Liquor Licensing Division, which kind of took me by surprise since we have nothing to do with the sale or distribution of liquor. I figured they either had the wrong number, or were going to offer me some type of loyalty card in response to the quantity of goon we have bought from our local bottle’o over recent months.

 But no. They were ‘INVESTIGATING’ a very serious breach of the Liquor Licensing Act as potentially perpetrated by Cairns Unlimited!

hmmm… unless it’s suddenly become illegal to polish off half a dozen cold stubbies of delicious Tooheys Extra Dry while sitting on our front patio dressed only in a towel, I couldn’t see how Liquor Licensing would have any business with a couple of hard working, quiet living businesspeople such as ourselves.

Too much suspense for you? Me too!

 The officer kept asking me about the advertising on our website, “Do the advertisers submit the text word-for-word, or do they officially authorize the text in any way?”

To which I repeatedly asked “What is this in regard to?”

To which the officer repeated her question.

Eventually, she saw that she was not going to get an answer to her question unless she answered mine. It turns out that the Liquor Licensing Division had been alerted to a couple of points (NOT advertisements, I hasten to point out!) in the Cairns Weekly Entertainment Guide which we produce. If you go to the Entertainment Guide for Tuesday, you will see that Tuesday Night is locals night at the Green Ant Cantina, our favourite Mexican eatery, and a popular spot for live music on weekends. See if you roll your mouse over the blue text that says ‘Locals night’, a small tooltip appears, reading “If you are a local, you get two meals for the price of one”.

Are you still waiting for the punchline?

Well, that tooltip text has been amended since the call from Liquor Licensing. Previously, it read “If you are a local, you get two for the price of one”, and - according to the powers that be - that could possibly be misconstrued to mean ‘two drinks for the price of one’, and the advertising of cut price drinks is actually illegal.

Yes folks, it is a sad reflection on our society - firstly, that if a bar wants to offer half price margaritas on a typically quiet night such as a Tuesday, they can only advertise that drink special within their own premises (where presumably nobody will see it, because the sole reason for the special in the first place was because there was nobody in the bar on a Tuesday night anyway!)…. and secondly that Maria and myself, for going to the trouble of putting together an Entertainment Guide as a free service to our readers (NOTE: none of the businesses mentioned in the Entertainment Guide pay to be there!) could potentially find ourselves embroiled in some potentially nasty litigation because we neglected to specifically point out that the two for one special was for meals only, not for drinks.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I had no sooner returned to work than the phone range again, this time the manager of Yorkeys Knob Boat Club, just down the road from our home. Our ‘local’. You guessed it… he had been contacted by Liquor Licensing that very morning with regard to a similar situation on Monday’s Cairns Entertainment Guide. Monday is locals (and members) night at Yorkeys Knob Boat Club, and as you will see, we have been forced to make it bleedingly clear that any locals specials offered on that night pertain to meals only. Well, there could be drink specials… but we would assuredly be shipped off to a Siberian work camp if we dared to mention it.

CRIKEY!

Yes, summer is back!!! No because it has been real winter in our piece of paradise, usually the temperature doesn’t drop below 20º, but it’s something in the air. After many weeks of getting up and sitting in front of the computers straight away, today we decided to go to the beach for a walk. It’s a wonderful day, sunny, warm and with a fabulous breeze. About time after the cloudy and rainy days we have had in the past weeks. It seems they are history now, so everybody, get ready to go to the Great Barrier Reef again. And don’t forget to rent one of our Digital Underwater Cameras We’re in the process of updating our stock, selling our old cameras (not one of the them is older than six months) and buying new ones. So if you are interested in buying one of the “oldies”, or renting one of the new ones, give us a call or drop us a line.

Well, I was talking about how much we enjoyed going back to the beach after so many weeks of hard work. We even had time to take a couple of pics to show you all that we’re still alive and kicking. And working on our tan for when we go to Spain on holidays at Christmas time. Looking forward to it already.

Last night we had a busy schedule. Apart from our normal delivery time, we met up with two of our Spanish clients: David and Yesenia. We organised their time in Australia, although they only had time to visit Cairns and the surrounds. They didn’t want to miss anything worth visiting, which is easier said than done. Tropical North Queensland is full of wonders, from the Reef to the Daintree Rainforest, from the Atherton Tablelands to the Queensland Outback. I think they were very happy with the way their trip had been organised, as they had time to go diving, visit Cape Tribulation, see crocodiles, cassowaries and other native animals in Cape Tribulation thanks to Mason’s Tours, make their way down to Mission Beach and Dunk Island and tour around the Tablelands, including Yungaburra, Malanda and Mareeba on their way back to Cairns.

And after saying goodbye to our new friends, we headed down to the Green Ant Cantina for a fantastic Mexican feed. Little by little we’re starting to have our favourite restaurants in Cairns, and in other areas of the region as well. It’s not an easy task, new restaurants open and close all the time and it’s pretty difficult to keep on top of things here in Cairns. We manage somehow.

Opened only a couple of weeks ago, Blue Sky Brewery is already attracting the crowds in search of home brewed beer.

I won’t be able to describe the beer at this new Cairns venue in depth, as I was the designated driver and was allowed to have only a couple of the lightest beer that they served. But from the amount of beers Steve and our others friends had, I think the experience they had must have been very good.

Apart from serving all the spirits you can think of and having an extensive wine cellar, the main attraction of this new venue is the handcrafted beer they brew onsine. Six different boutique beers, from the lightest one to the darkest variety, that will delight beer lovers. I started, and carried on with their lager, a really light but tasty and refreshing drink. Steve, even though he was determined to try each beer, only tried three different ones until he found the one he really loved: the blue sky pilsner, as he said that the taste was unusual although delicious. Our friend Dan started from the lightest one and finished with the darkest one, but I cannot say how many times he went over the menu, as we left around 11.30pm and he was still going back to the bar.

We also tried their food, as the Spaniards know very well, it’s not healthy drinking on a empty stomach. Most of us had pizza, and mine was delicious. Steve wasn’t as happy with his choice, Daintree pizza, it was a bit plain. Hehe, I don’t know why he keeps choosing his own food, more than frequently whatever I order is usually much better than his order. And this time it wasn’t otherwise.

All in all, we loved the place and we will definetely go back there again, hopefully very soon. We still have to try their ginger beer, so far the only ginger beer I have tried is the non alcoholic one, and I’m more than eager to try the real stuff. Only one little complain, the lights are too bright and it wouldn’t hurt to turn them down a bit after a certain time.

We’ve been busy these last days meeting with Spanish people. It’s great to know that more and more Spaniards are keen to travel to the other side of the world. Hopefully we will stop thinking that Australia is too far away and will be eager to discover this fabulous country. So we met up with Sonia and Javi, from Bilbao, with Monica and her group, from Madrid, with Isabel and Arkaitz, also from Bilbao, with Roger and Miriam, from Barcelona… I guess I cannot complain, I love meeting up with them and share a bit of our culture. I will never get tired of saying how small the world is, I knew one of the guys from Madrid from going to the same venues in the city.

But what’s news this week is that WE FINALLY HAVE THE TICKETS TO GO TO MADRID IN DECEMBER!!! I will try to keep it quiet from my family and surprise them. So shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh everyone!