QLD trip

Today we began our trek back home which involved five days of driving and staying at the following places:

• Charters Towers QLD
• Rolleston QLD
• Hebel QLD
• Marsden Rest Area (between Forbes and West Wyalong NSW)

As we travelled further south, the temperature continued to drop with us waking up on our last morning to -1 degrees outside the van (and 1 degree inside the van).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Overall on the trip:

• 28 days
• We drove 7726km
• Across 3 states
• 3 return ferry trips (Noosa North Shore, Fraser Island, Cape Tribulation)
• Most northern point reached – Cape Tribulation
• Most eastern point reached – Fraser Island.  
• Highest temperature we enjoyed was 28 degrees (Mossman QLD)
• Lowest temperature we ‘enjoyed’ was -1 degree (near Forbes NSW)
• Highest number of cars that Campbell counted in one day: 1361 Cars (19/6)
• Caravan parks: 10   Back of Hotels: 1     Campgrounds: 6     Rest Areas: 1  for a total of 18 different locations stayed at.
• Most nights stayed in one location: 4 nights (Cape Tribulation)
• Songs of the trip: Horses (Darryl Braithwaite), Cows with Guns (Arrogant Worms), Everybody’s Free [to Wear Sunscreen] (Quindon Tarver), Wii theme music (the kids were humming)
• Breakdowns (gas not working on fridge fixed by mobile mechanic in Noosa)
• Things most missed from home: Stella (our Labrador) and hot showers (without thongs and coins)

From Downfall Creek we drove 219km to Undara, a campground on part of an old grazing lease. On our way here we had to wait for cows to cross the road. Interestingly, the accommodation now includes camping and also people can stay in the old train carriages (which were brought in as a tourist attraction). During our two night stay here we saw butterflies, bush turkeys, wallaroos (a type of kangaroo that has a dog like face), snakes, wedge tailed eagles, cane toads, microbats and big ants. Undara Experience has many cave tours of the lava flows from an old dormant volcano (which had tunnels where the lava originally flowed through). The adventurous cave tour involved climbing over lots of rocks to get down to the caves. In the caves we saw microbats and skeletons of kangaroos, check out what the cave looked like!

This morning, we had a reasonable amount of driving to get as far as Downfall Creek, Lake Tinaroo. Although the campsite is called Downfall Creek it is actually on the sideline  of Lake Tinaroo, with Downfall Creek nearby.  This was a lovely place to camp for a night, right on the lake as it was very peaceful and had a pretty outlook
to the lake!

Welcome to the treed outlook of beautiful Cape Tribulation, this small town and National Park has no power nor phone coverageso they live off generators and solar power, and you can’t swim in any beaches because there is the danger of crocodiles (but they did have good pizza and toasted marshmallows on the campfire).

Throughout our days at Cape Tribulation we had a fun filled time, went on a exotic fruit tasting tour where we got to try 12 different exotic fruits from all around the world.

We also went snorkelling at Mackay Reef in a 25 person rib/rubber ducky, in the Great Barrier Reef and we spotted some turtles and had a great time viewing the coral and fish.

In addition we went Jungle Surfing which is where we went on 6 zip-lines that each had different views of the beach, a creek and the rainforest itself.

In the morning we headed to Barron Falls followed by Wright’s Lookout near Kuranda! From Kuranda we then went to Cairns waterfront, we went to Muddy’s Park, by the beach overlooking the mud crabs, then we explored the Bouldering Park. In the afternoon we went to a The Courtyard Cafe for a drink, and then topped the day off with an Indian dinner in this multicultural city!

We relocated from Ellis Beach to Kuranda (40mins), went to the Kuranda’s Heritage markets, and had some traditional French profiteroles! After dinner Isabelle treated us to her homemade sultana damper.

All the locals probably were wondering what we were doing when we set off on a full day at The Great Barrier Reef,  when it was raining.

However there was a lot of blue sky when we arrived at our destination. From the large catamaran we then transferred to a even bigger pontoon with shower, change rooms, sun deck and a nice buffet lunch!

 

On the way to Ellis beach in Palm Cove (just north of Cairns) we visited Josephine Falls and Babinda Boulders. Both were exploding with water from all the recent rainfall.    Also along the way we stopped off at a set – serve local fruit stall that sold bananas, passionfruit, grapefruits and limes.

We had a massive day of driving (603 km) , and visited the big mango at Bowen (including a yummy mango sorbet) and arrived at Cowley beach in the dark at 8:00pm. Here we came across many cane toads in the dark, Isabelle didn’t like the look of them!

Our journey continued to Seaforth further north up the Queensland coast. We stayed in a council reserve on the beach, in a quiet little seaside town. In the morning there were a couple of guys who were pruning  coconut trees. Check the video out!