Marcel took the kiddos to the ANZAC Dawn Service on the Cairns Esplanade, this year they had the opportunity to experience this tradition outside of Canberra. The ceremony was simple and just as meaningful and each year the children find more to connect themselves to this way of remembering the sacrifice of those who have fought for our country. Then it was back to Grandma's place for a hot breaky.

Later that morning we headed up to Grandma's cousins who live in Mossman. John and Jocelyn have farmed sugar cane in Mossman for decades and their parents before them have done the same. They have been retired now, having sold their farm and live up on the hill overlooking the ocean, Port Douglas and the coastline heading up to the Daintree.

Michael loved the view and in the background you can see the little hill in Port Douglas

After a lovely morning tea we headed up to Mossman Gorge for a swim and lunch.

In the afternoon we joined back up with John and Jocelyn to visit one of their sons (Trevor) who lives with his wife (Carmen) on the old family farm. They have done some great work doing up the old home to make it liveable.

I loved the rustic look of the kitchen - they renovated out the back to have the kitchen here.

 Carmen is from East Germany and she had so many interesting stories to tell about growing up in East Germany and what she remembers when the wall came down and traveling into West Germany for the first time.

Mum and Carmen

This is Carmen's new venture. 500 Cocoa plants put in the weekend before and 500 plants were going in the next weekend. The sugar industry has been hit quite hard over the recent years so the Mossman region have made plans to build a chocolate factory in the next couple of year to help support the industry in the area. Hopefully these plants will produce a good harvest in a couple of years time!

We ended up getting back to my mum's place at about 7pm that night!