Qld - Cairns to Normanton

The drive up to the Atherton tablelands west of Cairns was very picturesque with farms along the way growing everything imaginable. Many had road side stalls selling some of their produce.
When we arrived at Ravenshoe, Queensland’s highest town, we were greeted by about 12 wind generators producing electricity with no negative effect on the environment. You have to ask why there aren’t more out there in the Australian countryside.
As we continued heading west the land became much dryer and flatter and the farms quickly became stations, some thousands of acres. We spent a wonderful morning at Undara Volcanic National Park where there is over sixty extinct volcanoes. We walked around the rim of one of these, Kalkani crater, which is about 1.5 klms around the rim. From here we could see many of the volcanic cones in the area.
The Undara lava tubes were created about 190,000 years ago. These tubes were formed when the outside of the crust of a lava flow cools very quickly due to a rapid drop in outside temperature as the core of the flow keeps moving. The inside of some of these tubes were used by the aborigines for hundreds of years as eating places.
We spent a couple of memorable nights on the way to Normanton at camp areas where we sat around the camp fire with a guitarist, having sing a-longs with people we had never met. There is something magical about the outback.
Normanton is about 75 klms from the Gulf of Carpentaria. The main street of town has a replica of Krys, the 8.63metre long crocodile who was shot by a woman Krystina Powlowski in 1957. He is so massive that it is hard to believe that he was real.
While in Normanton we took a three hour trip on the Gulflander, the local famous old train which took us on a twenty mile trip where they stopped for us to disembark and have morning tea by a pond with water lilies and bird life. We have become quite the bird watches and have our book out all the time identifying the bird life. We have found lots of Brolgas, cranes and kites here are being challenged trying to take photos of them.
We now head further west to the Lawn Hill National Park where we will put our van in storage and camp for four days.

Qld - Port Douglas and The Daintree

While based at Cairns we spent some time up at Port Douglas and the Daintree. The drive along the coast to Port Douglas has to be one of the most picturesque I have driven. You wind your way north hugging the coast most of the way and pass along miles of palm lined beaches and hidden resorts.

Port Douglas is the home of many exclusive resorts, fabulous restaurants, day spas, art galleries and shopping. The area is unique in that it has two World Heritage listed natural attractions at its doorstep, the Reef and the Daintree.

Every Sunday morning, markets are held in Market Park which is at the inlet end of Macrossan St. The market has everything from fruit and vegs, arts, craft, pottery, clothing, lots of great jewelery, Australian souvenirs and loads more. The quality of everything is very high. My favourite stall was a man on a push bike squeezing the juice from the sugar cane. They added ice and a little fresh lime. It was delicious. It is probably just as well that we are short on space in the van because I could have done some serious damage to my credit card between the markets and the great shops in town.

North of here the Mossman river tumbles its way over the huge granite boulders that line the Mossman Gorge. There is a walking track that takes you through the Daintree stopping along the way to view the water and the swimming holes. We also spent two nights in the Daintree near Cape Tribulation. We even saw a cassowary as we were driving through the area. While we were at the Daintree it rained on and off for two days so we really felt part of the rain forest experience. We went on a crocodile cruise on Coopers Creek and saw four crocodiles on the shore relaxing and swimming.

The wind finally died down and we headed out to the reef on Shaolin which is a Chinese Junk. It was a very relaxing day and we got to swim with the turtles which was the trip highlight. Just to watch them glide through the water beside you is a surreal experience. They then rest at the turtle cleaning stations where the rass go to work getting unwanted creatures from underneath their shells. Fascinating.

All in all, our time here in Northern Queensland has been a magical experience.
We now head west to Normanton and Karumba and are looking forward to seeing what that area has to share with us.

Qld - Cairns

We have now been in this city on and off for the last three weeks and it is starting to feel like home.
The streets down town are lovely and wide and many of them are tree lined. Along the waters edge runs the Esplanade and the boardwalk which are both about two kilometres long. At the harbour end of the boardwalk is a large pool. As you walk or ride your bike to the north, there are exercise stations, barbeques, play areas and water play grounds for the children. It is the perfect place to walk or bike and then choose one of the many restaurants to have a meal or cook your own.
On friday, saturday and sunday on Sheridan St, Rustys Markets are open and full of the most amazing array of local produce. The markets are huge and my mouth waters just thinking about the fresh fruit and veg that we bought. There are also night markets which have many touristy type stalls as well as great food. We have eaten down there several times and enjoy the price and variety. You can get anything from a roast meal to fresh japanese.
We spent a day at Barron Gorge National Park with our grand kids. We caught the Scenic Railway train up to Kuranda where we spent three hours wandering around this quaint little town, and came back in the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway. Both directions showed great views of the waterfalls and the rain forest and are both engineering marvels. Definitely worth a trip.
Another great day was at Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures. They do a wonderful job of walking around with many native animals so that you can pet them. The kids got to pet snakes, turtles, baby crocodiles, kangaroos, water dragons and birds. There are free talks and feeding sessions all day. The crocodile feeding from the boat was a hit as the crocodile jumps out of the water beside you to grab his food. Boy, are they scarry! It happened to be their 75th birthday the day that we were there so we had free sausage sizzle and crocodile cake.
Cairns is a great stopping off point to visit the reef, Atherton table lands and Port Douglas is only an hour away.

Qld - Cooktown

Cooktown is a quiet, historic coastal town on the banks of the Endeavour River, surrounded by beautiful countryside. It is also the closest town to the Great Barrier Reef. It was here in 1770 that Captain Cook beached the “Endeavour” and named the river after his ship.
In the late 1880’s gold was discovered at Palmer River and Cooktown became the centre to service the mining camps of Queensland’s largest gold rush.
The streets are wide with beautiful old buildings and everything that is important to view historically is within walking distance of the down town.
We spent an enlightening day with Willie Gordon, a local aborigine, who took us on a tour of his clan’s ancestral rock art sites. We walked over their land, stopping along the way for Willy to show us some of the many survival techniques of his people. We made soap from leaves, special poultices for cuts, grasses to weave into baskets, seeds to eat and countless more. Some brave ones amongst us even tried some green ants. Willie explains the meaning behind the rock art, giving a unique insight into Aboriginal spirituality and survival. He helped us appreciate how amazing they were at living and utilizing what nature provides.
We also drove through Hope Vale, an Aboriginal community (well known in the area for local paintings and artifacts) on our way to the coloured sands.These were spectacular and very similar to the ones on Fraser Island.
As usual for us, we were going to spend one day here and ended up spending three. I loved all the history in the area.

Qld - Cape York - Weipa

Weipa is on the eastern side of Cape York about 850 km north of Cairns. The population is about 3,500 and is the site of the world’s largest bauxite mine which is the main component for the manufacture of aluminium. There is some controversy at the moment over the strip mining in this area taking away too much land. We really enjoyed our stay here as the camp ground had lovely grass sites and on the banks of Albatross Bay. The sunsets here are spectacular as the sun sets over the ocean.
There are crocodiles in the many creeks but as up north there seem to be more sharks than crocodiles.
Fishing is a very popular sport here and fishermen seem to spend countless hours trying to catch the legendary barramundi. We talked to a few fishermen who had lost their catches to sharks just as they were pulling the fish on board.

The weather on this entire Cape York trip has been fantastic averaging 30 each day and sunny.
We treated ourselves to lunch at the Albatross resort where I had the best seafood chowder and a beautiful glass of chardonnay outside enjoying the view.

Qld - Thursday Island

While staying at Seisea, the northern most town in Australia, about 40 km from the tip, we decided to take a day trip to Thursday Island.
Thursday Island is 30km off the Cape York Peninsula in the heart of the Torres Strait. The people are lovely and friendly and the island had a real Polynesian feel about it. I love the accents of the people and could listen to them talk all day. Years ago, the island had a huge pearl shell industry, mainly for making buttons, and unfortunately over 700 Japanese divers lost their lives due to the bends. They are buried in the local cemetery where there is now a memorial dedicated to their lives. Today, the main industries are cray fishing and tourism.
We hired a local taxi driver, Slim, who took us on an island tour and showed us all the interesting spots. The island is only about 3 kms around, so the tour was only about an hour long.
At the dock we watched the barges arriving. Everything on the island, including food, has to be brought in.
The island is very relaxing and you almost feel like you are in a time warp about 50 years ago. ((Nice feeling actually.)

Qld - Cape York

During the last two weeks we have driven over 1,300 klms from Cairns to the tip of Cape York and down to Cooktown over some good roads, some shocking roads, water crossings and everything else in between. We have dust in every part of our car, inside and out and thank goodness for plastic containers or we would have dust in our clothes and food as well. For two days Mike had a tinge of red in his hair from all the dust, (Quite a look!) My feet have been covered in dirt all the time except for the three nights that we camped where there was grass. Every other night we camped on either sand or dust. But, the experience was worth all the discomfort. We have stood on the northern most tip of Australia and it felt mighty good.
There were some roads that we didn’t tackle as people were getting winched out of the water, and smashing the sides of their vehicles when they hit submerged rocks while crossing some of the creeks. We have a long way to go around Australia yet, so babysat our car a little. In the six weeks that the road has been open this season, they have shipped 100 damaged 4 wheel drives back to Cairns and we didn’t want to be anotherstatistic.
The most frustrating thing for us was that the beaches are beautiful with fine white sand but, because of the crocodiles you can’t swim. We did find some fabulous waterfalls to swim at - The Saucepan, Eliot falls and Fruit Bat Falls. We swam and camped at these places both on the way up to the tip and back down.
Mike and I would consider going again but next time we would hire a vehicle that we wouldn’t have to worry about damaging that was more suitable for the rough going. It will have to be a while off as we are still remembering the kilometre after kilometre of corrigation where it was so bad that we could only go about 20 klms per hour. But, I figure it is just like childbirth really, after a while you forget all the bad stuff and decide to have another go.