We drove from Townsville to Arlie Beach today, stopping off for lunch at Horseshoe Bay in Bowen. We're planning to do some sea kayaking, snorkling, and beach walking in the Whitsunday Islands inthe next three days, before heading down to Mackay.
To see the photos taken today, click on Tuesday, Oct 18th, Arlie Beach.
Yesterday (Sunday) was a long driving day. We made it to Townsville, where we'll be until Tuesday. Today is a housekeeping day (haircut, prescription refill, etc.), and probably won't have much of interest.
To see the photos taken yesterday and today,
click on Sunday and Monday, Oct 16-17th, Townsville.
Today was an organizing day, staying two nights in one place, and making plans for the next week of places to visit. It was also a time to attend to mosquitos bites, sore feet, grocery meals, walks on the beach in front of our house, and recovery from almost being hit by a train.
A train, you say. Oh yes. Not something we ever want to repeat. Here's my tale, and I'm sure Pat has her own take. Driving on the roads which are basically serving the sugar cane farms of the past on the tablelands, we cross frequently the narrow gage railroad tracks on which trains carry many large bins of crops. There are no signals, and usually you can see left and right to detect if a train might be approaching. In all the driving we'd done before the incident, I'd driven across probably fifty sets of tracks. At this set of tracks, I was not going fast, but neither was I looking left or right. Before I realized it, I was approaching the crossing and Pat was hollering. To my left, a hundred feet away was a small train, blowing it's horn, and I had stopped with the front part of the car on the tracks.
My American car reaction was (and all of you who have driven cars with right hand steering will know) to grab the turn signal lever on the right hand side of the steering wheel, and try to find reverse. Of course, it's on the left hand side in these cars, and my efforts were totally futile. Fortunately, the train engineer ground agonizingly to a slow halt about a foot from our car. By that time, I had found the gear shift, and was sheepishly apologizing to his yelling as I backed up as he passed in front of us.
I hope you never have the experience, and but for a train not able to stop, or our car being a few feet further, I'm not sure we'd have walked on the beach tonight.
To see the photos taken today, click on Saturday, Oct 15th, Mission Beach.
Today's journey took us across the southern end of the Atherton Tablelands southeast to the coast. On the way out, we stopped by three waterfalls, a tree that reportedly saved much of the forest from destruction, two dairies, and a castle/garden built by a Spanish immigrant featuring the first private hydroelectric power system in Australia.
To see the photos taken today, click on Friday, Oct 14th, Mission Beach.
This morning, we left Port Douglas, and headed south. We drove along the coast for a while with the white sand beach on our left, and the rainforest on our right. We stopped in Mossman, and for the second day had breakfast at the Beechwood Cafe. Their scrambled eggs, orange juice, and hash browns beats most of the best I've found anywhere in the world, and it brought us back to try other variations of the breakfast fare. They don't have a website yet, but are working on it. You can't miss them on the main street in Mossman.
The real prize in Mossman, however, is Mossman Gorge. Accessible from the Mossman Gorge Cultural Center , it's gorgeous (sorry). A rainforest with a roaring river running though it, fully handicap accessible thanks to the same federal funding a few years ago which was spread around to a large swath of national parks. We have never seen such extensive boardwalks, bridges, and pathways. And busses bringing in lots of people.
About twenty miles north of Cairns, we turned inland and climbed to Kurinda. The terminus of a train and sky cable from Cairns, Kurinda has become a hub of crafts and art market hangouts which feels more like Berekely in the late 60's. We even saw someone in bell bottoms. From Kurinda, we went inland to the Atherton Tablelands. This huge stretch of high plateau was once the home of tobacco for Australia, and now hosts sugar cane, peanuts, mangos, maize, potatoes, avocados, and lots of berries. The climate is cooler, with less humidity, and that's just what we wanted. We're staying at the Chambers Wildlife Rainforest Lodges. Before turning in, we shared Duck Spring Rolls and a Beef Briskit and dessert with Grenache Shirraz at the Little Eden in Youngaburra.
To see the photos taken today, click on Thursday, Oct 13th, Atherton Tablelands.
Today was the Great Barrier Reef swim. We got up early, packed our backpacks with a towel, long sleeve shirt, sunscreen, wallet, battery for the cell phone (and cord), binoculars, water, hat, extra shirt and underpants, Wearing our swimsuits and carry the car keys in my pocket, we drove to the Port Douglas Wharf and the Calypso Ten. We and thirty others began an all-day adventure sailing from the Rainforest to the Reef.
Fifty-five kilometers later, we were oriented, instructed, clothed, supported, assisted, fed, and generally given an excellent team program to spend an hour at three coral reef locations. The only negatives to the trip were the several hours of a rocking and rolling boat getting out there, the overcast clouds which lessened the colors of the coral and fish, and the clarity with which I have now about how weak my legs and general balance are. Pat swam and walked much better, even with a very sore foot.
To see the few photos taken today, click on Wednesday, Oct 12th, Port Douglas.
We drove back down from Cape Trepidation this morning, and slowly appreciated the beauty of the winding road along the ocean edge of the rainforest. We keep looking for cassowaries, a rather large bird with plenty of signs showing where it should cross the road.
To see the photos taken today, click on: Tuesday, Oct 10th, Port Douglas.
A lazy day at Cape Trepidation. Not much to do except gawk at the lush rainforest. We drove into "town" and had breakfast at the the Turtle Cove Cafe. There are three restaurants within a mile of each other, and it sure does seem like money is beginning to be spent on them.
To see the few photos taken today, click on: Monday, Oct 10th, Cape Trepidation.
Cape Trepidation is where the Rainforest meets the Reef. Think Jurassic Park meets Nemo. This is actually the oldest rainforest on the planet, by far. It was born in Pangea and Godwana, those multi-continents that roamed the earth and contained most of the land mass about 300 million years ago. And the coral reef in front of us is the largest and oldest living sea creature on the planet. Kind of makes you feel young and small.
We're staying at the place you want to be when the shit hits the fan in the rest of the world. There's no wifi, and the only cell reception is way down the road near the general store. It's the carrier that was hacked last month, and lost the driver's license information of 95 million users.
To see the photos taken today, click on: Sunday, Oct 9th, Cape Trepidation.
Yesterday was spent getting from Darwin to Cairns. We mistakenly thought our flight was yesterday, but missed our flight on Wednesday. We also missed turning in our RV, and picking up our car on Cairns. We're a day behind, and this is one of those times when having money is helpful.
It's now Saturday here, and we've had a wonderful two days in Cairns. We're off to Cape Deception in the 3rd day of our month along the coast to Brisbane. Hopefully, we'll do a better job of turning in the car and flying to New Zealand then.
To see all of the photos taken yesterday and today, click on Friday and Saturday
Greetings!
Well, somehow we lost a day - with great consequence. We have a restful but hot night at Discovery Caravan Park - pretty close to where we will drop off the van. We met a nice woman in the pool, and Gregory swapped notes with a Queensland surfer in the converted bus next to us.
When we awoke, we found we were to have dropped off the van on the fifth. And we missed our 10/5 flight. Egads. It was torture finding out the Jetstar phone number, and then trying to get the phone to connect with it. The Telstar helpline is useless, but we finally got through to rebook the flight for tonight. We also learned that: 1) Our car rental company will not deliver until the seventh because we arrive too late; and 2) we can't extend our Cairn's lodging an extra night.
Good news. It's only money. We can grab a taxi from the airport to our lodging. And the good all bloke at GotoVans did not make an issue about our broken headlight glass and lens ("you got platinum coverage mate"), and did not charge us for the extra day. We transferred our stuff to the extra baggage, and really worried about the weight. Yet somehow the airline accepted our three large bags as check-in luggage without any extra fees.
We carried on the green backpack, and our two day packs, and the purse, and no one batted an eye or even bothered to weight it. We boarded the plane to find it full (except one seat between us) so getting this flight booked only this morning was really lucky. We met a very nice couple returning home to Cairns after an outback holiday.
We didn't photograph anything.
We left soggy Litchfield/Bachelor heading north towards Darwin. We stopped off in Berry Springs for the North Territory Wildlife Park, and what a great find. Although 30 years old, it's quite updated - 70 hectors of natural monsoon forest, wetland, and woodland, with well-marked paths and a train going around a circuit. Not crowded, but a decent number. We started with a hot drink, then to a presentation at the billabong. - a pelican feeding. They are huge white birds with black wing markings, and fly in with feet as landing gears, and slide across the water. We got within a few feet of them. Next to the Flight Deck Display, where trained birds came to the trainer. There were Jaibiru, osprey, emu, and a wedgefield eagle (who broke open an emu egg with the rock). We walked to the Nocturnal House, with all kinds of rat-like marsupials, echidnas, wallabies, bats, and snakes. Then to the aquarium with the range of freshwater habitats. there was a walk-through "glass" tunnel with barracuda, whiptail rays, archer fish, oceanic invertebrates, and a cool moray eel (white with black spots and a yellow nose.
We did see a dingo and water buffaloes, but missed the walk-through in the Aviary and several other walks in our over five hours stay. It closes at 3pm, and the heat leveled us by 2:30pm. But a real highlight to our trip.
We had about an hour's ride to the outskirts of Darwin. It's hot and muggy, and may rain tonight. Tomorrow, we drop off the van. Hopefully, we won't get dinged for the broken headlight screen. Then to a 655 pm flight to Cairns.
Some thoughts on the Darwin adventure: The van experience (minus getting used to the Manual/Drive transmission) was mostly positive. We got to meet more people in the campgrounds and on the trails. The air-conditioning made it tolerable, but the space is cramped. Of course, no schlepping of the heavy luggage. Northern territory seems pretty remote, but not as bad as Kimberly. But the roads and park amenities are first rate. The wet is coming on earlier this year, so I think we are getting out of here just in the nick of time. Cairn may also be hot, but it should get relief as we head south.
Here are the photos taken that day: Wednesday, Oct 5th, Darwin
An interesting experiment. I'm going to read from Pat's Journal.
We had a leisurely wakeup to very humid weather. We hit it into Litchfield Park -a lovely drive with lots of greenery trees, tree ferns, and palms. First stop was the magnetic termite man field - big flattened structures, oriented north south to minimize the impact of the sun's heat. Also Cathedral Mounds, huge multi -pillared structures from a second termite variety. Then to a series of falls and rock holes, most swimmable with lots of Aussies taking advantage of their noodles. Florence was the highlight, with twin falls and swimmers in the deep pools, swimming behind the falls. Also Tolmer Falls. We hiked up to two overlooks to the thin stream cascading way down, with a vast lookout to the plateau below. No swimming here - to protect the two species of rare bats. What a view. We see rain clouds forming in, coming our way. By the time we get to the last stop at Florence falls, it started down pouring. We waited about 40 minutes, and it never let up so we headed back to avoid any flooding. But it was a downpour all the way back, diminishing as we neared the campground.
And then off to bachelor for dinner - a funky butterfly farm guest house and café which served up Nasi Gorin and Kung Pao chicken like we've never had before, and hopefully not to meet again. Tomorrow, we spend our last night and Darwin.
To see what happened, click on: Tuesday, Oct 4th, Litchfield
I'm catching up with the posts, and will write more about this day soon.
To see the photos taken this day, click on:Monday, Oct 3rd, Litchfield
Affordable housing and homelessness are also a problem in Australia, and RV parks are about a quarter full of what appear to be long-term campers. This country's making babies, which might be a result of Covid restrictions, and strollers, parks, and pools are full.
Phone, cables, and batteries seem back in gear. Still dead MacAir, but resigned to buy a new one in the next month. Until then, the Google Pixel is doing both photographs and Blog writing.
A few days away from leaving our northwestern Australia experience, and it's been great. Hot and dry as we imagined, and a good combination of tour bus riding on bumpy dirt roads, car rental in Darwin, and RV navigation on sealed narrow highways long distance between interesting towns, cultural centers and museums, and campgrounds.
Eating breakfast and lunch from local grocery store, and enjoying dinner at the campground pool/bar/restaurant, we aren't overdoing it. Mindful of luggage limits, we haven't bought anything. Our bodies are getting used to the cushions in the RV, just about when we'll transition next week to driving a car for a month from Cairns to Brisbane and staying in B&B's.
To see the photos yesterday, click on Saturday, Oct 1st, Katherine
