Black Head (near Forster)

Spent two happy/sad nights at Happy Hallidays Park not far from home. The three month caravan of caravan is coming to an end.

By the time we pulled into the driveway at home we had covered 9500 Kms. The Troopy will need another service. Not sure how many of that was towing the van. I suspect about 6-7000. Can check more accurately but I'm too lazy.

We saw so much more detail than we expected to see. The touring included a couple of nights of fairly fine grained hanging out, checking the tourist sites, the shops, the restaurants, the beaches. You get a sense of mood, of local pride. Or just a vibe from other travelers, like us or international visitors.

So. Much. Fun.

Until next time!

Port Macquarie

Had a great time here. Checked out real estate here, it is very attractive. Caught up with P for dinner and L and J at their amazing mountain/bush property for dinner as well. Fabulous times.

Yamba

Had a great two night stay at Yamba. Great spanish restaurant El Pirata, near the Lighthouse, swam, had lunch at the marina, need a boat now, and caught up with my brother on the Wednesday night at the Tavern. Pretty town.

Ballina

The Ballina Lakeside Park accommodated us over Easter, which unfortunately meant that they would not accommodate Louise, our travelling Poodle. Luckily my Dad lives not far away at Lismore and she could stay there. Had a great catch up with him over Easter, my brother and sister in law too, and also swam in some rainy conditions at Lighthouse Beach.

Tweed Heads

Drove further south after seeing C and booked into the Top Tourist park on Kennedy Drive tight under the Coolangatta airport approach. Noisy and a tight fit into ensuite bay with too much advice from onlookers but had a nice comfy stay there. Caught up with D and M and kids, got the Landcruiser rego passed (whew!) as we were back in New South Wales and bathed in the surf at Kingscliff which is a lovely beach and revelled in the No Stingers there. Water was so warm!

Burpengary

Hervey Bay and Fraser Island was awesome, couldn't believe how big a city Hervey Bay was. Had a great drive down the sunny freeways past the Sunshine Coast  into Burpengary where cousins G and A live. Had a great weekend with them parking the Golden Eagle in the front of their large yard. A big thunderstorm coincided with the passing of their loved and wonderful dog. Sad moment.

Drove on on the Monday and stopped just south of Brisbane to catch up with long-time friend C who'd been travelling the world for the past couple of years. Parked in a busy roadside servo and sat in a garden setting for hours catching up.

Fraser Island

Took a bus tour of Fraser Island. Rode the ferry across after being picked up from the caravan park at 7am.  Great day was had.

Paronella Park

A Spanish immigrant in the 1920's builds an epic tourist attraction by his own epic efforts. It's under restoration and heritage orders and is simply amazing.It's south west of Innisfail, near South Johnstone. Whose river is infested with saltwater crocodiles. There is currently a 1.6m croc in the creek at the bottom of Mena Falls, that drives the hydroelectric turbine that powers Paronella Park and the neighbouring village. Cool.

http://www.paronellapark.com.au/here.html

Yeppoon

Great park on the beach which is a dog friendly beach. Go Louise!

Sarina

Long haul from townsville after deciding to go on from Airlie Beach. Got in late and found the Sarina Palms well after dark. First time on the trip. Lovely atmosphere for a crowded park with a lot of permanent guests.

Townsville

Visiting family. Nostalgia and great weather

Ravenshoe

Highest town in Queensland (over 1100 metres) and had lunch at the Tully Falls Hotel (highest pub in Queensland) which had the best fish and chips. We then drove the uncertain distance to Tully Falls. Great drive almost all the way to Tully - no road connection as the falls are a considerable drop down into the valley. Great rainforest drive. Drove back the Info Centre at Ravenshoe where there was a great museum regarding the Jirrbal people.

Fitzroy Island

Had to do a snorkelling day so drove down to Cairns to get on the boat to Fitzroy Island. The coral gardens and fish diversity was great.

Granite Gorge

Saw the sign on a couple of passes along the Atherton-Mareeba Road but didnt know any more about it. Then had a chance to have lunch at the excellent Mt Uncle Distillery and it was only a little further to Granite Gorge, so off we went. Awesome! Hundreds of little rock wallabies all wanting to be fed. Gorgeous. And the rocky scenery was great.

Lake Barrine

One of two volcanic crater lakes within 10kms of each other on the Atherton Tablelands, Lake Barrine is slightly larger than Lake Eacham. The Excellent Tea House has a boat tour which is Excellent. This day M and I did the 5km circumferential walk through the fringing rainforest. AMAZING. Not only birds and reptiles, in the daytime saw bandicoot and marsupial mice and possibly a kangaroo rat. And some lizards. Do it again.

Nerada Tea Factory Plantation Tea House

Came to the Nerada Tea Estates etc two weeks ago to find out it was closed all through February :-(

Came back today 3rd March and it was awesome. It is the only tea factory in Australia so its tea shop's factory fresh tea was AMAZING!

Waterfalls

Did the Milaa-Milaa Falls tour, Great drive with three waterfalls in the circuit around Milaa-Milaa.

Herberton Historic Village

This place is amazing and most recommended part of any visit to the Atherton Tablelands. It's whole everyday economic life captured in a towns' slice of collections and tableaus. Amazing. Everything.

Curtain Fig

The Green Fig has such a massive example here they dedicate a national park to it. Near Yungaburra where they have the Curtain Fig Cafe and stuff.

The last photo is if us peeking through the Platypus hide on the edge of Yungaburra. Daytime. Little chance of seeing the elusive critters.

Days 12 through 38-ish February basically

The caravan is parked and inert in O's driveway in Atherton. There is SO MUCH to see and do in the Atherton Tablelands it's literally mind-boggling. We've moved into O's spare bedroon in the high set house on the NW edge of town.

On Top of Mt Baldy, looking down on Atherton at sunset. Been up here twice already. 1015 ft climb up the hill.

Our Golden eagle parked in the drive of O's house. You have to look very carefully to see it! From the Top of Mt Baldy, 3.5 kms away, using a 15x lens and 8x digital zoom.

Days 10 and 11 Charters Towers to Atherton

Day 10 was a rest day after the long haul from Alpha to Charters. The Caravan Park was quiet enough and I caught up on this blog in the morning, did some washing and went swimming in the council pool. Finished series three of Whitechapel. Great series. Day 11 got on the road about nine, and actually overtook a cattle truck on the 130kms to Townsville. Exciting.

We managed to keep the aircon on most of the way until we started up the very steep (10%) Highway from Innisfail to Malanda. Down to second gear a lot of that way but because of the very quick climb it got high and cool quite quickly.Arrived about 5pm with only shot stops near Ingham and Cardwell.

Very carefully backed into O's drive in Atherton with inches to spare, to park the van for several weeks before we head back down south. Day 11 was 29 January2013.

Day Nine Gregory Development Rd to Charters Towers

We intended to stay at Clermont. Had a nice morning tea in a very interesting park in Emerald after being blown away by the agricultural cultivations on the western approaches to the city. This after crossing the scenic and rugged Drummond Range between Alpha and Emerald.

A guy double parked to tell us that he had the same van, three years old and said it has held together nicely and increased in value. He wanted to see if there had been upgrades and there had. Bigger wheels, something else inside.

We arrived at the caravan park in Clermont at 10 past 12. The sign on the office said closed for lunch between 12 and 1. Gates were locked. Sat the three of us in the shade outside the office in the heat while the own looked at us from an upstairs balcony while he smoked two cigarettes and said nothing. We waited another 20 minutes and thought, screw this, lets get to Charters. They have a pool and I bet a much friendlier welcome. (They did)

Long haul up the Gregory Development Rd was okay but scarily narrow when being overtaken by road trains. One eye in the left door mirror for the closest can get to the edge of the tar with the other in the fender right mirror for crashing disaster if the vehicles and carriages touch while backing off on speed to let the bastard past. Manage to anticipate and improving a pull over into layover or parking spots to let them past, getting some friendly thanks over the CB CH 40.

Arrived latest so far, on dusk, at Charters and found a spot we had to back into near a bunch of tented cricket teams, who while drinking enthusiastically managed to stay decorous despite some colourful language and actually went to bed early. Day Ten will be a rest day, as after eleven hours on the road yesterday, needs a break. Oh and the phones are back on an hour before we arrived in Charters. This outage was massive and unprecedented.

Day Seven Landsborough Highway to Blackall, Day Eight Capricorn Hwy to Alpha

Waving good bye to Mitchell we climb out of the Maranoa valley following our first road train. It was huge and was actually going slower than we were. Cross a range at about 500 metres we descend into Morven and leave the Warrego highway for the Landsborough which will take us to Blackall.

Towns are really spaced out here. Nothing until Augathella which is off the Hwy in some hills. Then into the plains towards Tambo, which was small but interesting.

Arrive in Blackall and find the ramshackle but friendly and quaint caravan park tucked away in a laneway in the middle of town. Australia Day and the Troopy is wearing a pair of Australian flags we were given when asked in friendly Mitchell, by the spa owners.

So off to the pub for a meal and watch Azarenko slug it out with Li at the Australian Open. Good tennis. But not before a refreshing swim in the town pool, a delightful 30 artesian degrees. We are ruing the sulfur smells though and imagine it pervading everything by now.

The next day we are devastated to hear from fellow travelers going in the other direction that the stockman hall of fame in Longreach is closed totally for renovations. How can this be? We were going to double back anyway to get to Emerald, so we can the extra 200kms or so and strike out for Alpha via Barcaldine. But not before going to visit the Blackall WoolScour.

I had a vague notion of what a Wool Scour was but M had tagged it as a major tourist attraction. Historical attraction. On the northern outskirts of town in a paddock with a flock of sheep and goats. They even let us take the dog on the tour. Being the off season there was only two of us on the tour. But what a superb collection of century old factory equipment, including steam engines, lathes, wool shears, presses, combs, belts, separators, air dryers, lofts, rail sidings. Two hours went in a flash and had us wanting to come back in the tourist season to see the steam engine in action. The town's effort to save this stuff, renovate it and use it as a tourist attraction is an impressive part of the story and the people of Blackall deserve high praise for their efforts. Well done.

 

Barcaldine is more exposed desert like than Blackall and some sort of workers Utopia according to the tourist literature but the Workers Museum was closed for the off "wet" season so we were not to find out, but did see the unique main street with some groovey pubs and the utterly alien Tree of Knowledge sculpture outside the train station.

The rest of the trip to Alpha was unremarkable except for the utter isolation joining distant towns with very good highway surface.

The Troopy couldn't pull the van weight in those temps (greater than 38 degs) and stay radiator cool, with the aircon on. So we were drinking LOTS of water, including 16 year old poodle Louise.

 

Arrived in Alpha in went to the town swimming pool for a non-sulfurous swim and then chatted before dinner with travelers who were diverting all across queensland to avoid flooded roads and some of the contractor road workers who like most of central queensland had no phones thanks to the massive Telstra outage affecting Optus services in most places thanks to main bearers being cut by floods. I only had VHF/UHF ham gear with me with no local repeaters so despite trying, I was no use for emergency comms far west of the troubles. The rest of us were forced to yarn like the old days for news.