Our Travel Blog

Last night we headed out to the local bowls club for dinner. We’ve noticed in a few towns that the bowls clubs have public restaurants. This one had the added bonus that, with presentation of our room key, we got members rates! We had a good meal, for once it wasn’t too large so we managed a desert between us.

After breakfast we headed out to another hot and soon to be humid day. The temperature was in the mid 30’s (C) mid 90’s (F). Again we had nothing planned for the day other than reaching our destination. We went through a few different types of scenery from twisty mountainous roads to rolling hills and then flat lands. Very shortly after we left the coast behind us we lost cell connection and therefore Google was of no use. This also limited our geocaching activities, we still managed to find one cache though.

As we progressed south westwards we came into coal mining country, there were numerous mines all over the country side. We never saw a wheel house, but there were plenty of slag heaps so I guess it was open cast mines.

We also saw many “Road Trains”, which are normal trucks (lorries) pulling 3 semi trailers giving an overall length of around 125ft.

We had to forgo our morning coffee due to lack of civilisation, and even lunch required a 22 km diversion off the main road. We reached Clermont, our destination, late in the afternoon; not an easy task when Google Maps refuse to work and  the Garmin GPS refuses to accept the address. Luckily we found a map posted in a park which had the street we were looking for on it.

We found our bungalow, and moved in. It took all 3 air conditioners about an hour to cool the place down. During the cooling off period we headed into town to find a suitable place for dinner tonight…. there wasn’t one. We headed to the local grocery store to buy some food to cook. We also decided, purely in the interests of getting the blog published, that we needed to get another SIM card with a different carrier that had service in the town. I went with Vodaphone when we first arrived as it seemed like the best deal, unfortunately its coverage drops off in remoter areas. Telstra do provide service in those areas so we bought a data card to use. Panic over!

The town seemed very utilitarian, the basics were there in the form of a number of hotels (all full) and some bars, a grocery store, post office and a couple of other places. It seems to be a stopping place for truckers rather than tourists. The one splash of colour that it did have was some murals painted on old rail cars.

Tomorrow is yet another day with no particular goal, we’re just continuing South to Lyn’s cousins north of Brisbane, where we should be by Monday

Last night we stayed in one of the hotels we were in on the nortbound leg of the journey, this wasn’t intentional we had just forgotten we had been there, until we checked in! It was a good place with a nice view of the beach. Dinner last night was on the wharf at Bowen, there was a fishmongers who also cooked up the fish and chips and wrapped them up in paper for us. Luckily there was a seating area out the back of the property looking out over the fishing piers. The fish was good and fresh.

Today we had no plan other than to reach the town of Mackay. We took a look around Bowen and its lookouts and beaches, and even found a geocache!

We next drove around to Murray Beach, Horseshoe Bay was behind the headland in the photo below

After Murray Beach we headed out of Bowen, and south on the Bruce. We stopped a couple of times for Geocaches but no photos on this leg as they had been taken on the previous trip.

We stopped for a late lunch when we reached Mackay, there were no eateries available before that. As the food was in a large shopping mall we took a look around there as well (now we have become real tourists). From here we headed out to Mackay Lookout.

All in all a leisurely day, probably some drivers were cursing me as we cruised down the Bruce at  85 kmh (speed limit was 100), but there were plenty of overtaking lanes and no one seemed in too much of a hurry anyway. 

My opinion of Australian cowboys has dropped…. we saw a herd of cattle being moved from one area to another, great we’ll see the cowboys in action. We did….. one cowboy on an ATV and his faithful dog sitting on the handlebars chasing the cows!!!

The Bruce Highway has many, many signs warning drivers about driving fatigued. There are signs for kids with “Are we there yet Daddy” a few hundred metres further on, in the interests of equality “Are we there yet Mummy” and a few other phrases. There are also some trivial pursuit questions on road signs, with the answers a kilometre or so further on. Great idea.

One thing I forgot to mention way back while we were in Sydney was one of their ambulances, it was a Smart Car. Not too sure how that worked!

The last few days have been cooler, around 22-27C, but we are now back into the low 30’s.

Tomorrow we head inland for a few days, it took a couple of hours but I manged to get hotels booked for the next three nights. They were in very short supply, in one case we got the last accommodation in one of the areas, a 3 bedroom bungalow for about $115 CAD. A little bigger than we needed but it will do!

New titles are hard to come by! After a makeshift breakfast, the hotel provided a toaster but no plates or cutlery, we headed out on one of the longer legs of the return journey at around 375kms. Nothing near our 800-900kms / day heading to the trailer, but it seems long here!

We had nothing planned for the day, I had suggested stopping off at Townsville and taking the ferry to Magnetic Island and renting scooters, but that idea was soundly rejected for some reason. Instead we visited the Billabong Animal Sanctuary just south of Townsville.

Again mostly pictures, and I won’t aplolgise for the disproportionate number of Koala shots, they’re too cute not to include. Some of the photos are not overly clear due to shooting through one or sometimes two mesh fences.

I felt a bit guilty when I saw these guys. We had seen a couple of dead ones along the road, not knowing what they were we searched the web for Australian boars and pigs! For some reason I always imagined wombats to be cute and cuddly…. wrong on both counts.

We have been looking for these flightless birds, the Southern Cassowary, for the last couple of weeks, they are severely endangered but are native to the area we have been traveling through. Unfortunately we never saw them in the wild.

The bump on the head in the image below grows as the bird matures, it is believed to enhance their very low frequency communication reception.

These two guys couldn’t get any closer together…. they tried though

The Red Legged Pademelon is the smallest of the Kangaroo family, duck in foreground to show size.

The guy below wasn’t happy, he had lost his mum and was wandering around crying! Check out the size of the feet.

That’s it, time for food.

We scouted out the restaurants yesterday afternoon for last nights meal, there weren’t any. Luckily the local Spar store was open so we picked up some salads and some sausages fro the BBQ. The distance from the chalet to the town was 7.2 km, the distance from the town to the chalet was 25 km, don’t ask…. strange things happen south of the equator.

We had a few light showers in the evening, unfortunately the cloud cover spoiled any stargazing that we could have done in very dark conditions.

This morning we woke up to  a grey, drizzly day with some heavier showers. Breakfast had been left in the fridge by our hosts, and there was one sausage left over from last night, so it was time to try a brekkie on the barbie.

Quite enjoyable! We ate breakfast on the covered deck of the chalet and were rewarded by a visit from an Australian King Parrot to the birdhouse.

There was also a swamp hen wandering around the garden.

I also managed to capture this bee hovering in the flower.

Below is our chalet, together with the parking instructions.

After we cleared up after breakfast and packed, we walked over to the workshop where out hosts have a pewter jewelry outlet, unfortunately they weren’t working there to day so we just saw the finished product.

Lyn managed to get a route plotted out for us that should guarantee us accommodation! We headed out towards the coast and the Bruce Highway through some mountainous roads that climbed up to around 3500 ft. Most of this part of the journey was through mist, drizzle and the occasional heavy rain.

While waiting at some road construction Lyn spotted a couple Masked Lapwings in a field, with the telephoto lens she spotted a third bird, a chick.

We also managed to find a geocache on our travels, they are few and far between here!

We then took a scenic loop off the main road to go down to Mission Beach, we had been in the town before on the outward journey, this time we went to the beach. For a Sunday it was pretty deserted. One unusual thing about this beach, if you walked just above where the waves were reaching you would sink down 6-12″ in the sand, normally I’d expect this to be fairly firm.

After lunch, which was not too easy to find as Australia has not yet embraced Sunday shopping, we continued south to Ingham, our stop for the night. We were greet by a 3″ “thing” by the door, which then flew to the car. Amanda, what is it??

Tomorrow is going to be much of the same, but travelling about twice the distance.

We walked down to the local Pub last night for some well needed exercise, then back to the motel. Woke up around the normal time this morning and just  took life easy. Today was to be a quiet sightseeing day. Hopefully the next few days will be relaxing “drive and view days” having got all the “have to do” things done. Our only problem is in route planning, there doesn’t seem to be too much available accommodation. We wanted to return via the inland route, but it seems this may not happen. Instead we will probably have to make our way back to the coast initially and try to pick up the inland route further south. Lyn is busy slaving over a well used and tattered map trying to see what can be done.

We left the motel and headed back into Yungaburra for some photos of the place.

From here it was off to the Curtain Fig Tree, whatever that may be! As usual I’ll be lazy and give a reference, it’s interesting and worth reading right here!

Found in the parking lot for Catriona!

Next was a trip up Halloran’s hill for a view across the Atherton Tablelands, a large flat area of rich farm land.

From here we headed to Herberton for a coffee break (no cream cakes though, the joys of being in the middle of nowhere!!). Shortly after we left Herbeton we saw a sign for a lookout, so off we went. As you can see we have lost the sunshine; today was much cooler at 24C/76F

We also met this guy in the parking lot

From here we followed some good twisty roads with hills towards Milla Milla, climbing up to 3300ft. This was a good place for lunch before starting on the “Waterfalls Loop.

First falls were the Milla Milla falls

Next stop on the loop was the Zillie Falls

And finally the Ellinjaa Falls

From there we meandered back to find our cabin for the night, which was only about 40kms from last nights stop!

The cabin is somewhat isolated in a place called Tarzali, but on a very nice property. The owners also make pewter jewelry and other items, we will be getting a tour of their workshop tomorrow.

Cooktown was the Northernmost stop on our trip at 15⁰S, partly because of time constraints, partly because there doesn’t seem to be too much more up there and most importantly our car will not be insured if we go further!

We woke up to a grey, hot and humid day. The place we stayed at last night was great! It has only been open 4 weeks so everything was pristine. The husband was a builder and built the place himself, the wife has given up full time work to the run the place, it seems they are fully booked most nights.

After breakfast Andrew (husband) returned with a basket full of fresh, straight off the tree mangoes. They were delicious, not like the stuff they call mangoes in our stores. He also brought us a cashew apple, the fruit of the cashew nut that can be seen at the top. The fruit is very sweet when first bitten into, but with a VERY dry after taste. We didn’t try the nut as there is a poisonous layer between the husk and the nut.

We headed into town to see some of the older buildings and waterfront.

One nifty idea we saw along the water front were shelters with “coin in the slot” cook tops!

Next we went up to the top of Grassy Hill where Captain Cook visited when he got “stuck” in Cooktown. This was also the site of an old lighthouse, in WWII the site was used as a radar and radio site for early warning of Japanese attacks.

 We headed back down the hill for some groceries and petrol,  then wound our way southbound along much of the same road we traveled yesterday. All along the route were termite hills, some small some large (2m/6ft tall). These mounds were built by ………. mound building termites! See here for details

When we came up this way yesterday there was a lot of smoke in the air, it was still there today but not so bad. This was probably the cause

We stopped for lunch at the Palm River Roadhouse which was meant to have a display of old gold mining equipment. Unfortunately I think the place has seen better days. There was no sign of mining gear!

After lunch we swung a bit further south onto a new (for us) road. The scenery changed from that of mountains and rain forests to large areas of agricultural flat lands where many crops are grown; peanuts, bananas, coffee, mangoes and a few we couldn’t identify.

We reached our motel late in the afternoon to be greeted at our room by Bruce. Hopefully you can read the inscription.

The trip back is not really planned out, we have covered off all the touristy stuff we wanted to do, with the exception of whale watching! We are now picking up local information as we travel on the less touristy routes. The trip up to Cooktown covered about 3200Km.

We are now on the fringes of civilisation in Cooktown, data up here is SLOW so this will be a picture-less entry. As we are taking the inland route back to Brisbane there may not be any blogs for the next few days depending on connection speed.

Three days in a row we have got up before our normal time, I hope this isn’t habit forming! After breakfast we headed out to a craft store, Lyn was desperately trying to find a quilt store, but there wasn’t one to be found. We arrived at the store and Lyn was even more despondent when we saw it, not a good start to the day. After 60 seconds in the store her mood changed and her credit card started quivering in her purse. She had found her quilt store.

About an hour later we emerged from the store with plenty of goodies for Lyn. Next stop was up the coast to Cape Tribulation where there was a rain forest zip-line activity. The route to the Cape required a ferry crossing over one of the rivers. We checked with the ticket guy as to the routing from Cape Tribulation up to Cooktown. It turned out that a 35km section of the road was gravel with steep inclines and many tight curves. A 4WD vehicle was strongly recommended. We decided to buy a return trip on the ferry and take the easier route, rental car companies aren’t amused when you go off roading with their vehicles. At Cape Tribulation we asked about the zip-lining, unfortunately the whole package would take 2.5 hours. This, coupled with the fact we now had about 200km extra to travel to our destination would make it a very late arrival. Unfortunately the zip-lining was abandoned. We had a late lunch, and while sitting on the patio we heard quite a commotion coming from the trees, initially we saw nothing but saw that the people on the next table had spotted something. Up at the top of the tree was a colony of large bats hanging from the branches. One of the bats flew off, and I’d guess at the wingspan as being close to 3 feet.

Although we had to backtrack quiet a way, the scenery made it worthwhile. Much of the trip was right along the coast with miles of unused sandy beaches.

Once we started to head north towards Cooktown the scenery changed, there was hardly any sign of human habitation, cows were free to roam across the road causing us to stop a few times and there were “beware of kangaroo” signs every where, unfortunately there were none to be seen. We had a couple of small mountain ranges to cross with associated hairpins which was fun! We finally made it into Cooktown around 1830.

An even earlier early morning for us today. After breakfast we headed out to the marina in Cairns to join our boat out to the Great Barrier Reef (GBR)

The journey out to the reef was about 2 hours, with a brief stop at a holiday resort on Fitzroy Island. The crossing was far smoother than the one to Magnetic Island the other day, however the number of white bags in use was considerable!!!

I had signed up for a scuba trip and went off for my briefing en-route to the reef. It turned out that I was the only English speaker doing a dive today so I was paired up with a Spanish dive instructor! Paulo was a great instructor, had a MSc in marine biology, was fluent in a number languages including English, Italian, Portuguese, Hindi and Chinese. My dive time was set for 1400 so that would allow Lyn and I to get some snorkeling in together before lunch.

At the reef there was a very large pontoon that we moored up against, this was the “wet” area with aluminium seats and benches, changing rooms etc.

Time to get wet. The water was crystal clear, full of coral and tropical fish. I had a few technical issues with my underwater camera, but still got some shots in as well as some videos.

I’ll put some pictures at the end.

After our first snorkel there was a good buffet lunch available (free, as was tea and coffee throughout the trip), there was a plentiful supply of fresh prawns as well.

After lunch we did a little more snorkeling, then I left Lyn on her own as I went off to prepare for the dive. All kitted up we descended into the warm (28C) water and headed down to clear the ears. Finally I have mastered this art, I clear my ears every 18″ or so on descent whether there is any discomfort or not. I had absolutely no ear problems.

We swam around for about 30 minutes varying the depth from a couple of metres down to 10 metres. Fish of nearly every colour were all over the place and the varieties of coral were amazing. While I was doing this Lyn was either snorkeling or riding in the glass bottom boat.

All too soon it came to an end, and we headed back towards Cairns. About 15 minutes out we spotted some thick black smoke on the water. It turns out that a motorboat had caught fire, all 4 people were saved by a passing tour boat.

Pictures:

Although a number of the pictures a quite good, I had issues in taking the shots as the camera would go into snooze mode after about a minute, I didn’t realise this until later as it was difficult to see the screen in the bright sunlight. Unfortunately the cameras instructions are in pretty poor Chinglish (sorry Catriona!!) and mention none of the issues I was having. 30ft down in the Pacific was not the best place to trouble-shoot.

If you ever get the chance to go to the GBR, don’t hesitate….. JUST DO IT

Had to set the alarm this morning to be up 30 minutes earlier than usual! As it was we both woke up 1 minute before the alarm. After breakfast we went to reception and waited for our coach.

Today we were taking a train ride up to Kuranda, a trip up the mountain through the rain forest. Then back down via cable car. Again, I’ll take the easy way out and dump some pictures on you.

We were dropped off at Freshwater Station which is over 100 years old, and gets its name from the fact that this was the first point on the line that fresh water was available for the workers.

The engines used on this line have all been hand painted by local native people

On the train we met a couple of young girls on vacation from Arnproir and Carleton Place, about 25km West of Ottawa!

Next are a series of photos taken on the trip up, there were meant to be many magnificent water falls but the drought has left them pretty dry.

Part of the steepest ascent was engineered by John Robb, the workers left a piece of un-excavated rock as a monument to him. More can read here if you are interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairns-to-Kuranda_railway_line

Off in the distance we could see our transport down

At the summit we got off the train at the hot and humid village of Kuranda to be met by a Bird of Paradise

It’s a bit hard to see from the picture, but the seat is made from old railway lines.

These trees with their above ground roots always amaze me.

We heard the sounds of the didgeridoo as we walked along the street and just assumed it was a CD playing in one of the stores, in fact it was one of the locals playing the real thing.

They don’t like to destroy trees if they don’t have to!

As we expected the village was very much a tourist attraction with many of the stores selling the same articles. We did however manage to get most of our outstanding shopping done.

I was surprised to see a crashed aircraft off the side of the road! Originally it was the first aircraft to run a scheduled flight for the forerunner of what is today Australia’s national airline QANTAS, back in 1946. After been sold a number of times it was bought for use in a film where it found its final resting place.

As I said earlier our trip down would be by cable car. The total journey would be approx 8km, run by two systems. The first run was 4.5km and the second 3.5km. Below are some views.

The final shot is of a water park. One of the activities is water skiing, but there are no boats. Around the perimeter of the lake are a series of pylons supporting moving ropes. The skier hangs onto the rope and does his thing. The white objects in the water are jumps for skiers and boarders.

Tomorrow is our underwater day on the reef.

Normal wake up time, with the patient’s only sign of injury being her multi coloured eyelid(s), some bruising appears to have spread to the other eye.

We had an outdoor breakfast today.

I was expecting a quiet lazy day to day, but it didn’t turn out that way, it was one of our more physically demanding days!

We headed north along the Bruce and then took a detour off towards the coast and Mission Beach. Another MGB type road got us to Mission Beach, we carried on a few more miles to Wongaling Beach. This a unique area in that the rain forest comes right down to the ocean.

From here carried on North towards the Mamu Elevated Forest Walkway (possibly stopping for a cream pastry on the way!)

The walkway was name for the Mamu tribe of indigenous people, and is one of many World Heritage sites in the area. The walkway was constructed without the need to demolish any trees, Cyclone Larry did that back in 2004! The keepers of the site used the path of destruction to good advantage in building the walkway. At one point of the walk there is a cantilever section that goes, unsupported, out 150ft over the gorge! It’s getting late and I’m getting tired so here come the pictures.

We may have come out of mango territory, but the sugar cane continues on, the mangoes have been replaced by bananas.

The coloured bags you can see on the trees are covering the banana pods, each pod has between 100-150 bananas and weighs 40kg, those of you south of the 49th can do your own conversion this time! The bags are put on the pods when they first form, and are colour coded according to date. This aids in harvesting the fruit as the pickers know what colour bags to pick.

After a very late lunch we headed to Cairns, passing Walsh’s pyramid on the way.

In Cairns we stopped at the local tourist information office and gave our credit card a good workout by booking a train and sky rail trip tomorrow and a snorkeling and scuba trip to the Great Barrier Reef on Wednesday.