The Leaving of Queensland

 

Well, I have a thousand valid reasons for not posting a blog for ages, but I’m not going to bore you with them.

 

We’ve finally made it to NSW so I’ll update the last of our QLD exploring.

 

After leaving Townsville, we spent a few days at Mt Surround, then headed to Airlie Beach. I was there in 1979 for my first honeymoon. It had changed quite a bit! Spent a few days there and then moved on, back to some high altitude rainforest on a search for the elusive platypus. We loved Eungella with its cool misty weather and enjoyed some lovely walks. After many attempts we were finally rewarded with a platypus sighting – but no photos, so you’ll just have to believe me.

 

Airlie Beach

Eungella National Park

From there it was Mackay and Cape Hillsborough and lovely beach walks. As we were heading into school holidays, we decide to head inland. Everywhere is so busy, that we thought the hols would just awful. Unfortunately, we picked the heatwave week… 

Enjoying a cold beer in Mackay

 

 

Cape Hillsborough

 

 

Lawrence embraced his inner nerd and did an in-depth tour of the Qantas Museum in Longreach, whilst I enjoyed 2 hours in the airconditioned café reading my book. Day 2 saw us heading to the Stockman’s Hall of Fame – simply for the air-conditioning, but were really surprised at how much we enjoyed it. It was extremely well done. 

QANTAS museum

Stockman's Hall of Fame

 

A highlight of Longreach was an amazing Italian restaurant with an incredible wine list. We had a Tuscan Sangiovese the first night and a sublime Nebbiolo from the Langhe region on night 2. It was just too hot to cook. Oh and the food was good too.

 

Heading back towards the coast we stopped at Maraboon Lake / Dam near Emerald. It was 39 degrees and we were melting. The dam was so low that swimming was out of the question. Day 2 we just went into town and wandered around the shopping centre aimlessly buying stuff we didn’t know we needed.  Of course a pub lunch was involved with cold beer.   

 

Next stop, the stunning Carnarvon Gorge. The roads in QLD are pretty crap and the ones around this area are just dire. Dangerously so. Deep gouges that almost pull you off the road. Not much fun in a 4 tonne Boris.

 

Part of Carnarvon Gorge

We headed to lovely Coolum Beach on the sunshine Coast to catch up with Ken and Carol. We first met them in Ulan Ude in Siberia and then again in Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia. Being experienced long term travellers, they were very happy to be our PO box for various parcels we had delivered. Of course, few beers and meals were also enjoyed, whilst catching up on the last 10 years. Hopefully we’ll see them in WA next year.

 

Noosa Heads

We planned to catch up with old friends of mine who now live on the Gold Coast and I haven’t seen them for 35 years! On the way we stopped for a quick wine tasting at Witches Falls in Tamborine Mountain. A disappointing experience as the staff had no clue. OK we are fussy, but I had to ask them to open fresh wines as they were past it. One of them I’m sure was infected in Brettanomyces – a result of poor winery hygiene.  Oh well.

 

Catching up with my old friends was an absolute blast, and we’ll keep in touch from now on. It was like only a few years had passed. Great fun.

 

Catching up with old friends. A 'morning after' breakfast

From there we headed inland and upwards to Lamington National Park. Situated at 750 metres, it was lovely and cool and we were back in rainforest. The birdlife here is amazing. We did some great walks and saw a few birds that are normally hard to spot. Hanging out with the Scotsman for 15 years, it's hard not to enjoy a spot of birdwatching. I’m still hopeless with binoculars though!

 

Regent Bower Bird

Crimson Rosella

Eagle 

Currawong

Eastern Whip Bird

 

King Parrot

Sunset at O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat.

 

 

Our last stop in QLD was a very brief foray into the Granite Belt wine region. We were blown away by the quality of the wine. Their marketing concept is ‘Strange Birds’ – they do a lot of minor Spanish and Italian varieties, and even the Georgian grape, Saperavi – a favourite of ours. We loved the wine ‘church’ showcasing the smaller producers that don’t have cellar doors, a great concept and extremely well executed. The food van produces the best toasted sandwiches we’ve ever had. The wine was so good, we sent a case home to our friend who is looking after our cellared wine.

 

Wine Church - proof there is a God.

We’ve absolutely loved QLD and spent far longer than planned, but that’s what slow camping is all about!

 

Next: New South Wales.

 

 

 

 

 

Downtown Townsville

  We’ve been in Townsville for a few days, but I’ll update you on the last few weeks.

 

After The Tip we headed to Cooktown via Bramwell Roadhouse to pick up our bikes. We loved Cooktown and stayed 6 days using our bikes to get around. Had a few good meals and few good walks and just enjoyed the lovely relaxed feel of the town.

Cap'n Cook

River Mouth Cooktown

 

From there it was on to the Daintree – a bucket list destination for me. It did not disappoint. We spent about a week in the area from Cape Tribulation to Cow Bay to Daintree village. We had lovely beach walks, rainforest walks, a river cruise and good camping. A highlight was the Discovery Centre with a fantastic board walk through rainforest including a 23 metre tower to look over the canopy. We saw some lovely double eyed fig parrots up there on the second day having their breakfast.

 

Fan Palms

Next up Wonga Beach in a low key camp site right on the beach, we had our 14^th wedding anniversary there with champagne (Veuve Cliquot) and cassoulet with a lovely Rhone.

 

We then headed to Port Douglass for 2 nights and decided a second celebration was in order and had a wonderful Italian meal in town. I had carpaccio of Kangaroo – a first for me.

 

Port Douglas

After a brief stop in Cairns, we headed back to the Atherton Tablelands. We loved it so much that felt the southern end need to explored in more depth. We did the Kurumba Scenic Railway – spectacular, and spent time in Millaa Millaa. Did loads more waterfalls – pics to follow. We stopped in Atherton on the way up with a mission to go the IGA as it has the best cheese selection I’ve seen outside of David Jones Foodhall in Sydney – very impressive range so we stocked up again.  

Millaa Millaa Falls

Kuranda

 

 

Kuranda has a delightful hippy market set in the rainforest – a bit of maze on many different levels. We had a couple of really good Japanese lunches there.

 

Then it was back to Cairns to get lots of boring things done. We hired a car for few days so we could zip around to Bunnings, Jaycar, Clark Rubber, and so on. We left the bikes at bike shop for a good service after travelling through all those corrugations and dust. Lawrence’s gear thing was so clogged up the guy was surprised he could ride it at all. Also a new MacBook was purchased as the Mac expert declared it DOA. Another unexpected expense. We’d like those to stop.

 

From Cairns we stopped at Mission Beach/Wongaling Bay for a few nights. More lovely beach walks and plenty of R&R. Swimming is still a bit risky although some foolhardy souls don’t care and seem to survive. Think we’ll wait til we’re south of Townsville.

Mission Beach

Meat Fest at Cloakey's pub inland from Ingham

 

 

We did a magic day trip to Magnetic Island, spending the day touring all the small towns and had a great lunch at Horse Shoe Bay. The bus costs a dollar for a day pass! 

 

Magnetic Island

 

From here we’ll make our way Airlie Beach and check out the Whitsunday area.

 

 

We're Back!!

 

 

Sorry for the radio silence, but my MacBook stopped working altogether – kaput. Lawrence tried everything in the book to get it going again but it was dead.

 

Hence on our next visit to Cairns, a new one was purchased with all the usual set up drama. We had to pay an Apple expert to extract the data from the old and so on…

 

I think I last left you in Cairns for a brief pit stop before heading up to the Tip. We drove up the Peninsular Developmental Road (PDR) with a brief foray onto the Old Tele Track to see the beautiful Fruit Bat falls. We stayed overnight at Bramwell Roadhouse which boasts the best bathrooms I’ve seen on this trip. We could also leave our bikes at the Roadhouse as we didn’t think it’d do them much good being bounced up there and back. Fortunately the road wasn’t as bad as anticipated and after paying the exorbitant sum of $160 to cross the 50 metres of the Jardine River, we arrived at Alau campsite.

Fruit Bat Falls - 
people were swimming but there was a croc warning sign so we took the safe option.

Jardine River crossing

 

 

Torres Strait from Thursay Island

 

 

Lawrence at the Tip

We did a day trip to Thursday Island and got a taste of the Torres Strait. Really worth doing. The second day saw us driving up to the Tip. Once again, the road wasn’t as bad as expected, just  a few ropey bits. We left the next day as the humidity was crushing.

Palm cockatoos

 

 

 

We also see Palm Cocktaoos at the campsite, a real thrill for Lawrence as there were on his ‘must see’ list. They were very obliging and hung around long enough to get some good shots. Crazy looking birds. They remind me of Queen Camilla's hats.

 

 

After leaving the Tip, we headed to the Portland Roads are and stayed at the Greenhoose. It wasn’t exactly luxury accommodation, and the bed was smaller that the one on Boris. I had to sidle sideways to get into the bathroom. However it has a reputation for good birdlife and Lawrence really keen to see a magnificent rifle bird. We could hear those damn birds very clearly, but see one, never. Nobody did, not even the professionals that were there.

  

 

If you look closely at the photo of tree trunk, you’ll see a female eclectus parrot sitting on her nest. A very beautiful and devoted mother to be.

Eclectus Parrot

 

 

 

We drove to Portland Roads and Chilli Beach for the day. It was worth it just for the lunch. The best prawn rolls to be had.

Chilli Beach

Prawn Rolls at Portland Roads - wine was essential

 

I'll write another blog about Cooktown, the Daintree, and a revisit to the Atherton Tablelands very soon.

From the Tablelands to the Tip

After thousands of kilometres of flat landscapes, our drive up in to the Atherton Tablelands was a complete contrast with winding hilly roads, lush rainforest and misty rain. Sitting at around 800 metres, we expected cooler weather in Atherton but weren’t prepared for it be quite so cold.

 

After pulling out warm clothes, we went exploring. Lovely rainforest walks, waterfalls, wetlands, we even saw two Cassowary.

 

Crater - formed by an explosive eruption of volcanic gases which blasted through solid granite

Dinner Falls

Determined to have an aperitif outside

Malanda Falls but too cold for swimming

Rainforest

Fig tree

Stone Curlew in its natural habitat - the caravan park.

 

 

 

We spent 5 days here and then moved onto Cairns for one night. This stop was simply to get Lawrence’s bike adjusted and restock. We’ll get back to Cairns after Cape York. We stayed in a Caravan Park that was a paradise for school kids, but not so much for old fogies like us. 

 

Shopping for essentials in Cairns

 

From we just started heading north stopping at campsites on the way. We are currently in Coen with very little to recommend it except a pub with terrible beer and a low-key camping area. We’ve organised to leave the bikes at Bramwell Roadhouse so they are not bouncing of the back of Boris. They just ask a $25 donation to the Flying Doctor Service – brilliant.

 

Bush camping at Mt Carbine

The road so far as been quite good with more paved than expected, and the gravel not too bad, however from here on in it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

 

We’re seeing a few breakdowns but thankfully not us this time – having spent about 10k on preparations trying to be breakdown proof!!!! I hope that’s not famous last words…

 

 

 

 Welcome to the Cape