Atherton Tablelands/Cairns Highlands

It has now been a few weeks since our adventure up the Cape and we have had a bit of a break from touring. We arrived back in Cairns to have our car serviced and to try and clean off some of the red dust that we accumulated from the Cape, we spent 2 whole days cleaning and we are still finding red dust everywhere.

While the car was being services Marty and I took another cruise this time to discover more of the spectacular underwater gardens of the outer Reefs of the coral reef system for more snorkelling, the morning session was on Michaelmas Cay (the middle reef) and then after lunch the boat took us out to Hasting Reef (the outer reef) for the afternoon. What we saw was very different to our previous snorkelling expedition at Great Keppel. We were about 50 kms off shore and the fish species and the reef very diverse. We saw small harmless sharks, giant clams and steep drops on the edge of the reef. All in all a great day.

Marty with a pineapple sea cucumber

A giant clam

We left Cairns and headed for the Atherton Tablelands staying at Lake Tinaroo, only a short drive from Cairns up the Kennedy Highway. After setting up camp we set out to sample some of the tastes of the Tropics in the afternoon with visits to the Golden Drop Mango Winery and Mt Uncle Distillery to sample some of the local fruit wines, liqueurs and spirits, some of which were so good that we had to take some away with us. The sparkling mango wine would come in handy as by this time we had decided that we were not that far from Townsville and we would be able to attend Marty's nephew's wedding. We also got some very tasty coffee and mulberry liqueurs that go down very well in the cooler evenings. We also found double bananas for 80c each, which is a real bargain because, to our surprise, bananas are no cheaper here than at home despite most of them being grown here.
On the Saturday we headed out to the township of Atherton, to look at the Crystal Caves a fanciful creation, with a private mineralogical collection of over 600 specimens, including the world's largest amethyst geode, the Empress of Uruguay, this is 3.5 meters tall with 100% natural amethyst crystals inside.

 Empress of Uruguay

Ammonite Fossils



Thats me sitting on a large bit of Rose Quarts  Rose Quartz has been known as THE stone that is inseparably associated with love, romance and passion. Rose Quartz is be- lieved by many to have powerful magical properties that open the heart for love, giving softness to the most hardened of hearts.



Maroccan Fossil

At lunch time we headed for Mareeba, where 70% of Australia's coffee is grown. We visited Coffee World and got to tastes 21 coffees, 4 teas, 3 liqueurs and 12 chocolates. I only liked the chocolates. Marty tasted all the coffees, as if he isn't already hypo enough. Coffee World also had an antiquities museum of coffee and tea memorabilia which included a good history of the introduction of coffee into western society.

Other things we saw in this area was the Rocky Creek war memorial park, the site of a 3,000 bed hospital complex at between 1943 and 1945 where over 60,000 patients were treated in the hospital. The patients were brought to the hospital from all theatres of war in the south west Pacific.
Sunday we took a long drive out along the Wheelbarrow Way to Chillagoe a small outback town west of Atherton Tablelands to see the impressive rugged limestone bluff containing over 560 known caves which were originally an ancient coral reef. We took a guided tour of the Royal Arch cave and visited the balancing rock before we drove around the town to see the ore smelter ruins and look at some of the marble souvenirs.

Balancing Rock



Royal Arch Cave, can you see the side profile of Queen Victoria?



We also visited the Historic Village at Herberton, just south of Atherton. The village contains over 25 buildings in their original form. There is a old businesses and civic buildings such as a school, blacksmith, banks, and a grocer each with utensils and tools from the 19th century. The weather wasn't great but it wa still an enjoyable visit.

After lunch we travelled on pass Ravenshoe the highest town in Queensland then onto Innot Hot Springs for a couple of restful days at the natural thermal springs that reputedly having healing powers for weary bodies like ours. We stayed at the Leisure & Health Park that has 6 public pools all with varying degrees of water temperature. 44 -24 degree water bubbles out of Nettle Creek so you can dig your own hole in the river sands of the creek bed and relax if you don't want to stay in the park.

Swimmers enjoying a pool of hot water in Nettle Creek

Innot Hot Springs Nettle Creek Qld 

Then on to Townsville for the wedding.

Cape York (an adventure in Blokesworld)

One of the goals we set ourselves for our time away was to get to the northernmost tip of Australia at Cape York. We did a lot of research and took a lot of advice on whether two townies in a pretend 4WD (an all wheel drive rather than a 4WD) towing a big trailer could get there on the 700 k of dirt roads on the cape.

In summary the advice we got was:

• Go there early in the dry season after the roads have been graded and the damage from the wet season has been repaired

• Go on the Peninsular Development Road (PDR) and take the by-pass roads and avoid the old telegraph track as the OTT is real hairy chested 4WDing

•     Talk to the locals including the police and fellow travellers for up-to-date advice.

Well we got to the tip in no small part because we followed this advice which was pretty right. Marty did the talking bits I did the rest. So what was it like? The PDR is a wide road generally in good order.

It changed surface often with many water crossings and dips. We think the dips were so named because they are lucky dips for drivers: some were holes in the ground while others were barely noticeable. We got good advice from Scott, a son of family friends who lives in Weipa and assured us the PDR was a unsealed freeway at this time of the year and from various station owners/managers who confirmed that the dry season manning of the stations went from 25 April until 25 October and we were there at about the best time as the graders were at work. Many parts of the road were very different on the way back even though only a week or so had elapsed. This was because of the grader work and traffic use. By talking to the locals we were warned in advance of the biggest potholes so we knew when to expect them. This meant that we only engaged 4WD drive on three occasions, driving in 2WD the rest of the time.

Highlights of the trip were

• The 34k trip to the tip itself from the camping ground and the iconic photo next to the sign "You are at the northernmost point of the Australian continent",

• The trip to Thursday and Horn Islands, where Alison Hall, a daughter of some friends in Canberra, made an excellent guide,

• The visit to Weipa and especially the mine tour

• Going bush to Stone's Crossing and Sandy Beach on the banks of the Wenlock River with Tony and Lorne, friends of Scott, who kindly took the time to show us one of the many special places around Weipa
• The camp ground at Loyalty Beach and the fantastic sunsets.

• The aboriginal drawings at Split Rock near Laura which had great explanations provided.

• And the best day of the whole trip so far, a day under the mango trees at Moreton Telegraph Station spent reading books, drinking wine and generally navel gazing.

We also gained a good knowledge of back packer employment schemes as every station/pub/camp ground had backpackers working as dog's bodies. We saw Swiss, Germans, Fins, Scots and Poms in very unlikely places earning a quid. We also saw some great sunsets, had food eaten by rodents in the middle of the night (Marty is a real hero with a broom handle against a ferocious mouse) and paid up to $2.36 a litre for unleaded fuel.

All in all it really is blokesworld as activities revolve around traditional male pastimes such as fishing boating and four wheel driving. I am happy to partake in this once in a while but I am too much of a princess to do it all the time and am looking forward to returning to civilisation for a while.

We made a lot of new friends along the way. Each night after we set up camp at the Road houses we took the opportunity to meet others that were doing the same thing as us and the general conversation each night would be: where have you come from today, where are you heading to tomorrow and which way are you going to go? Some days we would meet up with others that we had meet before and while we would take a different road and do something a bit different on some days we would end up meeting them again. And we hope that our paths may meet again as we continue our journey.

In all we probably spent longer than most on the cape as we had the time to do so and really wanted to get into it and get a feel for it.

We must give special thanks to:

Scott Byrne who event though he wasn't in Weipa allowed us to camp in his house in the town,

Scott's housemate Wayne who showed us round (we hope the edits to his resume were a reasonable repayment)

Alison Hall who took us around Horn and Thursday Islands and sent back our camera on the ferry when we accidently left it on Horn

Tony Wittkopp, who despite never met us before took us to a special place in the bush and arranged for us to get a new car battery when we needed it (sorry about the State of Origin result, Tony)

Big John and Di and Little John and Tresna the managers of Morton who allow us to have a special meal with their staff (the station doesn't provide meals normally but a butcher's daughter cannot resist lamb shanks).

The only bad part of the trip is Marty. Every time we say farewell to the lovely people we meet on our travels and they say "its been great to meet you" he says "I know" meaning they are the lucky ones and not us!!. We have also been playing spotto on the whole trip. This means that the first person to yell "spotto" when they see a yellow car scores a point. The current score 632 to me and 618 to Marty but that includes about 100 cars that only Marty could possibly think are yellow (Mustard, orange, gold and even light green).

Cairns to Cooktown

Whilst in Cairns we went for a swim in the beautiful but cold, clear waters of the Crystal Cascades swimming hole just north of the town.

 We also took in downtown Cairns, walking the esplanade and the various malls.

 Our backpacker friends cooked damper for us and then, with some help from some Swiss backpackers cooked a full repast for us. All these backpackers had been in the country for over six months and it was interesting to see how people from other countries viewed Australia and our idiosyncrasies.

We then continued travelling north to Mossman 'gateway to the Daintree' and stocked up with supplies for our trip to Cape York.

After a quick trip to plastic land (Port Douglas)

we spent the day in the rainforest. After crossing on the Daintree ferry we went to Cape Tribulation and stopped at some great lookouts and beaches.



 We then had a fantastic time jungle surfing for a couple of hours. This involved speeding along the top of the forest on ropes and in harnesses, sometimes even upside down and 'look Mum no hands'. It was exhilarating.

The next stop was the Daintree River where we went on a river cruise. The cruise boat got up close and personal with a couple of large, male saltwater crocs that were sunning themselves on the river bank. The crocs were very photogenic.

We also got quite close to a number of smaller crocs, a couple of green tree snakes and various native birds and frogs. The trip was both educational and great fun. We had dinner in the rainforest at the Cow Bay Pub.
We continued north via the inland route to Cooktown. After breakfast at Cook's landing wharf we visited the iconic Lion's Den pub

 and went to an art exhibition.

Townsville to Cairns

As we left Townsville we had almost completed one month on the road since we left the Gold Coast so we thought it was a good time to reflect on what we had learnt during this time:

• Towns in the west of QLD cannot survive without good rail connections and the mines, especially coal mines
• The wages offered by the mines, especially in WA, is threatening many other industries as they cannot attract or keep workers, especially unskilled workers
• Whilst Cyclone Yasi was devastating the insurance monies are now coming thru and people are looking up again
• There is support for and caution optimism towards the NBN; the message has been "it is about time we had the chance to be treated the same as the townies down south
• QLD does not produce any good wine,
• Backpackers find Australia expensive with the current exchange rate; many prefer NZ for this reason.

We are conscious of the impact of Yasi so decided to base ourselves in Cardwell, the worst hit town. The caravan park we stayed at in Cardwell advertised itself as the 'shady place' but didn't seem to have a lot of trees. However, we viewed photos of the park pre-Yasi and realised that most of the trees had been knocked down and removed. The beach which was previously pristine was now covered in debris and some campers in the park were there as they don't have a liveable home yet.

On the way to Cardwell we had a lovely lunch in a park in Ingham and had an unsolicited tour of the park. On the first day in Cardwell we went south and looked at the 6.7 km long sugar jetty at the nice town of Lucinda and then swam in a beautiful clear waterhole just south of Cardwell. The next day we went north and visited the amazing Paronella Park near Mena Creek. The park was originally built in the 1920s by a Spanish emigrant and was the centre of society in the area at that time. It still has amazing gardens and waterfalls and the ruins of the main home, ballroom, swimming pool and cinema. As sugar is the lifeblood of the area we looked at the Sugar Museum at Mourilyan near Innisfail. On the way back to Cardwell we tasted some of the worst wines imaginable. They tasted like fermented Dettol. Marty kept a straight face and reckoned the taste was not as bad as Army cooking but I nearly passed out. I tried not to show how bad the taste was but one wine, allegedly made from local berries, was so bad my whole face collapsed.
We also drove thru Mission Beach on the way back and looked at the Yasi damage there.

Then it was off to Cairns.

We took the scenic railway to Kuranda. We went 'gold class' which meant free champagne and croissants. There were many photo opportunities as the scenery is magnificent. The rail line is a fine example of engineering of the day. We then spent a couple of hours in the Kuranda (hippieville) browsing the markets and the village. We took the sky rail back. The gondola provide more photo opportunities as we passed over the rainforest and we stopped at various points on the line and took more photos. When we arrived back at the caravan park in Cairns I was surprised to see the 2 good looking, young Dutch backpackers from Townsville camped next to us. Marty seemed less surprised, I think he believes I orchestrated it all.