Hi there everyone who reads our wonderful Blog.
Karen does such a great job with keeping everyone up to date n Kylin and her activities and the photos are just brilliant. I thought it was probably timely that I gave you all a bit of an update on what I’ve been doing over the last six or so months. As you may know I started work as a train driver with Pacific National Qld in Townsville in February last year. I was driving freight trains between Cairns and Mackay. The Townsville to Cairns jobs were great as I got to see Karen and Kylin (Kylin really loved visiting me in the hotel in Cairns where we had our rest period before driving back to Townsville). I really enjoyed the Mackay jobs as well as I was the only driver on the freighter and we were allowed to do 100kph on that route!

I moved back to Cairns in November and started back as a Lieutenant Commander with the Hydrographic Group at HMAS CAIRNS doing Navy Reserve days. There is tons of work to do (mainly writing Service papers) and helping get the survey fleet fully operational with their new survey systems. I’ve been advised that the Navy has given me work until the end of the financial year and I’m pretty certain that there will be more to come in the next FY.

I decided to move back to Cairns because even though I was getting home regularly from Townsville on my days off and when I brought the train up, I was still missing Karen and Kylin so very much. They both needed me here in Cairns and I needed to be with them also. It s been so wonderful being back home and being able to see my beautiful family everyday. Kylin has been into work at the Navy base quite a few times and he absolutely loves it. He says "he is part of the Navy crew and everyone knows him now". He always does some colourful drawings for each of the staff in the office and everyone thinks he is great.

I haven’t completely lost touch with the train driving. As well as the Navy work (which is Mon to Friday) I also am employed as a casual employee of Cairns Kuranda Steam. Cairns Kuranda used to run a steam train up to Kuranda but they predominantly operate a railmotor (The Savannahlander) out to Forsyth. They also are subcontracted by Pacific National to operate freight trains to and from Townsville when they are running short of crews or their drivers are fatigued. I have had quite a few runs up and back to Townsville which keeps my qualifications and route knowledge up to speed. The main thing is that I don’t spend anymore than a night or two away from Cairns and I still get to "play trains".

I’m also enjoying being back because there are always so many things to do around the house and in the yard. And of course the dogs love the fact they get a couple of walks a day in now.

I've attached some photos of a trip I did between Townsville and Cairns. Hope you like them.