ON THE HOME STRETCH…………..

 

With only 1550klms to home, it’s nothing compared to the 33000klms we have already travelled.  We, three girls wanted to head straight home, but Mike dragged it out for as long as he could.

Babinda Boulders is a nice spot.  Good free camp here,  we kept moving south to Mission Beach, still recovering from Cyclone Yasi.

 

We camped at Paluma Range N.P for 2 nights.  There is a safe swimming hole and rock slide which was fun.  We had the place to ourselves once again.

Wunjunga, Seaforth, Ball Bay, Haliday Bay are tiny fishing villages north of Mackay.  Beautiful blue waters only for looking, no swimming!

Visited the Nixon's for a night and headed to Lake Awoonga just outside of Gladstone to hopefully catch some red claw. A grassy spacious free camp right on the lake, we were able to moore the boat in front of our van.  A nice old man showed us how to clean the red claw properly and they taste delicious marinated in ginger & garlic, cooked on the barby.

 

Seventeen Seventy & Agnes Waters have certainly grown in size, the beaches are really nice. 

Inskip point was our final stop for our round Australia trip.  Would you believe we caught no fish since we crossed the Queensland border!

Our budget was $800 a week.  We tried our hardest to stick to that.  Finding the cheapest campsites, only eating out half a dozen times, the thing we bought most was thongs.  After 51 weeks on the road our budget averaged $940 a week.

We had a fantastic time, it was a challenge and sometimes very hard travelling but we did it and made it home safely.

Thanks for reading our blog. 

CAIRNS TO COOKTOWN continued…….

 

23/10/12 Travelled along the well known Bloomfield track today.  It started off like a roller-coaster ride, very steep incline to the top of the range & down the other side.  Crossed creek crossings, passed through cute little towns, but all in all it was a pretty good road.  Stopped at the Famous Lions Den for a cuppa.

Cooktown, we thought was a nice town too.  We drove up to the lookout where Captain Cook, every day would walk up & plot his way out of the reef.  The view from here was beautiful.

Port Douglas is very touristy.  Lots of shopping & cafe’s.   Doesn’t fit into our budget! 

We went snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and it is amazing and wonderful, but very crowded.  We saw some very colourful fish, enormous clams,  the coral not so colourful.  It was good to get in the saltwater again.

CAIRNS TO COOKTOWN

 

The tropical, touristy city of Cairns, sits along the coastline with a gorgeous backdrop of lush mountain ranges.  If you had lots of money & time, this area is full of things to see & do.  We stayed at Palm Cove, right on the beach for only $32, bargain!

The Daintree is dense beautiful rainforest, very peaceful and relaxing.  Not many walks though.

Mossman Gorge(more of a river).

Cape Tribulation, where the rainforest meets the beach.  It’s a great place to unwind & relax. 

Mike was treated to a foot spa for his Birthday.  Doesn’t he look relaxed!

 

 

 

ATHERTON TABLELANDS

 

Ravenshoe, the highest town in Queensland and it was cold.  We had to pull out of warm weather gear and brave the beautiful misty green mountains and waterfalls. 

We stayed on Lake Tinaroo, where we caught red claw and attached a rope to the boat so we could knee board behind it.  The Tablelands are beautiful and worth a visit.

Kuranda reminds me of Montville.  The Markets are open 10 till 2, every day.  The girls loved Bird world.

 

 

SO CLOSE, WE CAN SMELL IT

 

700Klms to Cairns, the East Coast!  Civilisation, population, crowded roads, internet.  The one thing we do miss is fresh produce.

From Karumba to Croydon(still boring), but Croydon is  an old gold mining town, lots of history and a nice lake where we stopped for lunch and a swim.  Camped on Gilbert River, which again was almost dry, but amazingly enough there were black brim in a couple of pools.  The fish life is pretty incredible when you see just how little water they need to survive up here.  The temperature has dropped, the wind has been blowing and we are trying our hardest NOT to put a jumper on.

30Klms out from Mt Surprise, we stayed on O'Brien's Creek, where you can fossick for gemstones.  It is hard work digging up dry rock bed, but exciting.  Found lots of smokey quartz, no gold unfortunately.  The creek was really pretty, a nice spot to camp.

Arrived in Ravenshoe, cold, misty and raining just enough to make the red dirt slowly drip from our caravan.

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE……..

 

The journey from Lawn Hill to Normanton was the most boring scenery of our whole trip.  Cattle country as far as the eye can see.  Lots of river crossings, most of them bone dry.  We camped on the Flinders River, which was receding quickly.  Fished for Barra, but they wouldn’t take the bait.

We made a little pool to cool down.

Normanton, place of the Big Crocodile.  This is a replica, apparently.  The town has big wide streets, it was very quiet considering it was school holidays.

We stocked up with supplies again, and headed out to Karumba.  Karumba is basically an old fishing village.  if you don’t fish, there is no point going out there.  It sits on the mouth of the Norman River which is green, muddy and lined with mangroves.  No Barra here!  We caught up with friends from Mt Isa, which was great.

It also rained.  First time we have seen rain since the 11th of June.  The park had no drains, not good!

 

 

LAWN HILL

 

We stayed at Adels Grove, 10klms from Lawn Hill as the campground there had no shade.  At $48 a night, it was expensive but the grove was totally covered with big old trees.  You can swim in the river although there are fresh water crocs.  We hired 2 canoes ($100 for 2 hrs) and paddled up Lawn Hill gorge.  It is really pretty, and if we had our own canoe, we would have spent more time here.

After paddling to the lower gorge, you then drag the canoes up over 40meters of rock, to paddle the upper gorge.

We decided to give Joe to a lovely ranger at Lawn Hill.  She has cared for kangaroos before.  It was sad, the girls inconsolable but realise that this is the best place for him.