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.
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 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!
