Port Douglas Qld July 25-29 2018

Its only a short run from Atherton to Port Douglas via the mountain pass down to Mossman and we made it down to the bottom safely. It's probably a better way down than going via Kuranda and Cairns. Actually the van park is the Big 4 at Craiglie, which is about 4km south of the turn-off to Port Douglas proper. It makes for a quieter park and a nice little drive into the shops / beach / marina / markets.

What possessed us I don't know, but we went up to 'the Daintree' for the day. First of all you go into the Daintree village, and then wonder why you are there, because there is nothing there except a couple of cafe places and outlets for crocodile cruises. Not a problem, we'll go back to the turn-off and take the ferry across into the Daintree itself. Or not. We waited over an hour for the ferry, but finally, for the small sum of $28 for a return ticket (just how many one-way tickets do they sell?) we were under way.

Vehicular ferry. Daintree River, Daintree Qld

We headed straight for the Daintree experience looking for lunch and, well, an experience. It is one of those places where you walk around a raised path through the treetops and it is the first 'thing' you come to on the road, some 10km from the ferry. Sadly the moment we walked in we remembered that the cafe is perfectly neat and clean, but useless. They make coffee and have a handful of pre-made sandwiches, a dodgy looking frittata and a few cakes. We made the best of what they had because it was now 2pm and we were starving. However, we had second thoughts about taking 'the experience' and instead jumped back in the car and went looking for the Daintree Ice-cream Factory and Fresh Fruit farm.

We were looking forward to an ice ice-cream each from this establishment, only to find that they only dish up one style of ice cream, made up of 4 different flavours, one supposes from the fruit that they have at hand. Today was Black Sapote (chocolate pudding flavour), mango, wattle seed, and coconut. After one finishes ones ice-cream confection, one can follow the marked path around the farm and play spotto with the various fruit trees that they have, none of which are actually in fruit at this time. OK, so it was a pleasant enough way to pass a half an hour, but not something you'd go back to in a hurry.

Daintree Qld

We ended up driving the rest of the 40km up to Tribulation point, took an obligatory walk along the beach and headland lookout, sadly, no cassowaries, before doing the only thing to do, drive back again!

Kulkie Beach. Tribulation Point. Daintree Qld

On the way back, we stopped for a quick look at the Alexander Lookout and then back to the ferry. Our luck was in, straight on the first ferry.

Daintree River. Alexander Lookout. Daintree Qld

Fern. Alexander Lookout. Daintree Qld

Another day we revisited Mossman Gorge, which is still very beautiful and still only costs less than $10, and that's for the bus ride up to the walking track. You could give the bus a miss and walk (2.5km uphill) but why would you? We spent a pleasant hour and half wandering around taking too many snaps and watching the fearless young persons swim in the freezing waters of the river and dicing with the dangers of strong currents and unforgiving rocks. We even stayed for lunch at the delightful cafe.

Mossman Gorge Qld

It is peak tourist season as the log-jam on the suspension bridge shows
Mossman Gorge Qld

Rocks, water etc. Mossman Gorge Qld

Moss at Moss-man Gorge Qld

J Black. Ace Photographer. Mossman Gorge Qld

A few trips into 'town', to see the beach, the Flagstaff lookout, the markets, the boats, the shops etc, not to mention the odd lunch and coffee along the way, filled up a few more days. One night the sound of live music reached our caravan and upon investigation turned out to be two old fellows playing guitars and doing rock and roll classics in a blues style. Quite an entertaining evening, maybe the wine helped?

Four mile beach from Flagstaff Hill. Port Douglas Qld

Random view from Flagstaff Hill. Port Douglas Qld

Random boat activity. Port Douglas Qld

Today, after the Port Douglas Markets, we wandered down to Cairns to have a swim at Palm Cove beach, and then wandered back again. Tomorrow we are off down to South Mission Beach for a few days, which signals the start of our return journey.

Jacana on lily pad. Cattana Wetlands Cairns Qld

Atherton Qld. July 22-24

I was awake at 6:30am and next thing we knew, it was 7:30 and we were pulling out of the van park and heading towards the Gregory Developmental road, heading toward Atherton, via The Lynd, Mt Garnett and Ravenshoe.  Any idea we had of a nice easy run were dashed as we proceeded to drive through thick fog for the first 85km, caused no doubt by the fact that the road runs parallel to the Burdekin River. Once clear of the fog, the road immediately turned to a true development road for 10km but was ok then for a while. 

After clearing the fog and the dodgy road, we hit a good patch and were making good time when I failed to see the dead 'roo in the middle of our lane early enough to avoid it. The sound as it thudded along under the car and the thunk as it hit the towbar and the van chassis was pretty ugly. One has to blot these things out, the car felt OK and so we pushed on, and on and 'smack', a dirty big rock from a car and trailer going the other way, put a huge star in our windscreen. These things never happen when you expect them, such as on a dirt road, it always happens on a perfectly good clean-looking bitumen road. 

We stopped after 250km, at The Lynd, which is weirdly about 2km up a side road and consists of exactly 1 roadhouse run by 1 lady, for a cuppa before bashing on to Atherton. The road alternated been good bitumen and rubbish development road but got better after the Gulf Development Road joined in, at the delightfully named 40 Mile Scrub National Park. The road now graced itself with the title of Kennedy Highway and was fine up through Mt Garnett and on to Ravenshoe. You don't actually go into Ravenshoe unless you want to, and this year we decided to give it a miss, feeling like we were finally on a roll and wanting to get to Atherton and a full stop to the day. The trip had one last wrinkle for us: it becomes very, very hilly and twisty and narrow, we were probably driving around the rim of one of the many extinct volcanoes which give the country its fabulous scenery. Five hundred and twenty five kilometres and just over 6 hours after our bright-eyed and bushy-tailed start, we made it safely into the van park. 

Mind you the car and van have a rather 'odd' smell of half-cooked meat about them!

Not surprisingly, we did nothing much until much later the next day, when we wandered out to Yungaburra where we checked out the giant curtain fig tree and then went hunting platypus. The most obvious spot is Petersons Creek, which has a carpark and a 'hide' for the expectant platypus watcher. It was full of people speaking foreign tongues, so we took the 15 minute walk that goes back across and under the bridge before following the creek a short way. Naturally we stopped on the bridge and were rewarded with a water snake sliding through the water. We saw nothing else until we had turned to come back when we came across a platypus on the water's surface. It seemed in no hurry and dived and resurfaced for 10 minutes or more before taking itself over to a handy tree root where it climbed out, turn onto its back and had a lovely old scratch. This went on for ages before it returned to the water and started to make its way down stream.

Curtain fig tree. Yungaburra Qld

Curtain fig tree. Yungaburra Qld

Water snake. Petersons Creek. Yungaburra Qld

Platypus. Petersons Creek. Yungaburra Qld

Platypus having a nice old scratch on a tree root
Petersons Creek, Yungaburra Qld

We returned to Atherton, then out past the town to Hasties Swamp, to try our luck at bird-snapping. We found birds, lots of 'em. Mostly wandering whistling ducks, but Judy spotted a Pink-eared duck and the two bird-fanciers in the hide were waxing lyrical about a Shovel-nosed duck or something they had spotted further down the road. 'Quite rare, you should have been there!'

View from the two-story bird hide. Hasties Swamp, Atherton Qld

Pink-eared duck. Hasties Swamp, Atherton Qld

A flock of non-Wandering whistling duck, Hasties Swamp, Atherton Qld

Today we went out in another direction to Malanda, which we were at last in 2013. We had a look at the Malanda Falls, which doubled for a hundred years as the local swimming pool.

Malanda Falls, Malanda Qld

From here we took ourselves out to the Nerada Tea plantation and factory, where we had a rather nice lunch, and a cup of tea, of course. The thing about the Atherton Tablelands is that it's all lush green due to  the volcanic soil, and it always seems to be about to rain, which it does, often. And today was no exception, just a pleasant misty drizzle starting to settle in.

Nerada Tea plantation. Malanda Qld

But we had other ideas: we were also on the hunt to find a tree-kangaroo, and rumour had it that there was one or two out here. Guided by the nice lady in the cafe, we went looking and sure enough, there it was, some 20 metres up the top of a bare tree. It's probably as close as we are going to get to one, so  enjoy the snap!

Tree kangaroo. Malanda Qld

Anyhow that's our day in or at least around Atherton, tomorrow we are off to Craiglee, which is as close to Port Douglas as we will get the van, and the most northern part of our trip.

Charters Towers Qld July 21 - 22 2018

Easy run over to CT from Hughenden, only 250km. Mind you, it wasn't looking too good to start with as we just had to wait for a huge road train to go past before we could pull out. But, using our trusty radio and the good graces of the truck driver we easily got around, right after the roadworks.

We kept going, just cruising along for the few hours, only stopping twice, as directed by Police as they escorted two huge loads coming in the opposite direction to us, One was a single propellor blade for a wind turbine, some 70 metres long and 7 and a half metres wide, the other was two trucks carrying huge drums or tanks, also taking up the full width of the road.

We had to wait at the gate of the Aussie Outback Oasis van park for them to process the queue, but finally we were in and a pretty nice spot it is too. We went into town and did some food shopping before coming back for a swim and getting ourselves ready for the Friday Night Pizza & Show. For $10 you get a pizza and a show put on by the Magpies, who sing their way through some old favourites. They were here last year as well but just didn't seem to get into it as much. Mind you the three big tables of people who completely ignored them and yapped the entire time might have been a bit off-putting.

Today we followed an obscure sign to the weir and Water Park, about 12km out of town, It is a weir built across the Burdekin River, the lake that supplies the towns water. The little park is quite pleasant and obviously a favourite with the locals.

Weir across the Burdekin River. Charters Towers Qld

Back across town is Towers Hill, where all the goldmines were and where the Air Force had its Ordnance Replenishment Depot (lots of things that go bang, and lots of concrete bunkers to hold them).

Munitions bunker from WW2. Towers Hill. Charters Towers Qld

Clarke Mine. Charters Towers Qld

Clarke Mine. Charters Towers Qld

The old & the new. Charters Towers Qld

Later on we had lunch at the Royal Arcade which was used in the heyday of the gold boom as the Stock Exchange, then as offices, boarding house, fell into disuse and finally the glass roof collapsed when the timber beams rotted out. The fellow who built it had grand plans, perhaps to extend it through to the next street, but died only 3 years after it was opened.

Stock Exchange aka Royal Arcade. Charters Towers Qld

Gold assay office. Charters Towers Qld

And tonight, for something completely different, we went on a walking Ghost Tour, starting at the Post Office and moving around the streets of the old central business district. The Store, where it is said the owner of 60 years is still at work, even though he dies 40 years ago, The Stock Exchange, The Bank, where the chairman of the board of the gold processing plant was shot dead while sitting at the head of the board room table, by a disgruntled employee, to the World Theatre where the very board room table is still in use. The table is directly under the front of the building, which has been struck by lightning, twice. Ohhhhhhhhhh. Finally we found ourselves at the Private Hotel where it is said that the last and long term licensee of the hotel can be seen gliding down the staircase in the dead of night. All a bit of fun really and an interesting way to hear a bit about the town and its people.

Our ghostly guide.  Charters Towers Qld

Hughenden Qld July 19 2018

Travelled from Cloncurry, through Julia Creek and Richmond and onto Hughenden. The road was horrible. One of those endless strips of tar that bounced and rolled and jumped you and the van all over the place for hours. Damn glad to be here is all I can say.

We have not stayed here before, but as we've found, booking ahead has become essential, even in a flea-bite of a town like Hughenden. The van park has the oddest setup: what would have once bee all drive through sites, are now all tail-to-tail sites, and its full. There appears to be plenty of other nice grassed sites but they are all off-limits apparently. Oh, well, grateful to be off the road at least.

We went back into town to have lunch and went straight to the FJ Holden Cafe, where the food matches the decor: 1950s style. Mine was OK, Judy had a mis-steak sandwich - 90% gristle.

We wandered around a bit, had a cold lemonade at the pub and then wandered across the road to see the sheep sheering demonstration. This was rather quite interesting;  I had no idea that there was so much involved apart from grabbing a wooly-baa and giving it a haircut!

JB heading for a well earned luncheon at the FJ Holden Cafe
Hughenden QLD

Checking out a windmill
Hughenden QLD

Haircut? Who me?
Hughenden Qld

Yes, you, you little blighter!
The proverbial 'wide blow' but not so quick anymore.
Hughenden Qld

Hughenden Qld

Mataranka - Banka Banka - Camooweal - Cloncurry July 15 - 18 2018

Just  a short note to say that we left Darwin and headed south to Mataranka, where we had the obligatory swim in the hot spa, then on to Banka Banka, which was all but full at 1pm, and then over to Camooweal (where we discovered it was also almost full and why hadn't we booked?) and Cloncurry (where we definitely had booked and it was just as well as it filled up by 5pm). Basically just  4 day transport section covering 1720 km. As we've done it all before, several times, in both directions, there were no snaps, no memorable moments, just a lot of driving.

Actually, we did take some snaps: at Camooweal at the Billabong, which is just about dry but still popular with the free-campers.

Trees full of Corellas. Billabong. Camooweal Qld

Happy snapper. Billabong. Camooweal Qld

 Billabong. Camooweal Qld

Brolga. Billabong. Camooweal Qld

Water Lily. Billabong. Camooweal Qld

This sign has gone missing. The clever new operators of the BP, oops sorry, the Puma, have painted over it.
Camooweal Qld

They left this one thouigh
Camooweal Qld

Flat out in Camooweal Qld

The other way (this is the #1 highway...)
Camooweal Qld

Camooweal Qld

Camooweal Qld

Lizard. Camooweal Qld