Monday 29th May

We combined the final 3 walks in the N. Park into one this morning seeing the cascades, wild dog dreaming aboriginal art then climbing Mount Contance. These were the best views yet as they gave an overview of how the gorge fitted into the rest of the landscape. We were impressed with the standard of the tracks and clear markers and went to thank the ranger who unfortunaetely was not in his office.
Upon arriving at Adels Grove, they asked if we'd like to book in for a meal to which Cathy replied, "Don't suppose you do a Sunday roast?" They didn't, but kindly crossed off Fish and chips and changed to roast chicken for Monday. It lived up to expectations with roast potatoes, sweet potatoes and pumpkin - yum yum! then they topped it off with raspberry cheesecake and we washed it all down with a bottle of chardonnay - wonderful night. We met 2 men flying around in their Cessna 182 so I think David has itchy feet for flying again.

Sunday 28th May

Within 15 minutes of waking up we were packed and ready to go for an early moring walk up the Island Stack to see the morning light reflected off the east facing walls. We sat down for breakfsat then hired a canoe to paddle up both gorges, carrying the canoe along the portage between. The headwind on the way up became a tailwind to sail us home and the different view of the gorge was well worthwhile.

Saturday 27th May

We ventured into Lawn Hill National Park, about 10km from Adels Grove, and did the first of our bushwalks. We climbed to Dungawarri lookout then down to Indarri Falls before going up again to the Upper Gorge lookout with magnificent views to the canoeists below. The afternoon was spent swimming in the smaller gorges at Adels Grove with Jeff and Jen, Wilson and Kelly. Jeff recognised Cathy from Adelaide in 1994 when they worked at the Adelaide Children's Hospital!! It was great to spend time with people our own age and Cathy loves haivng some well-behaved kids to play with.

Friday 26th May

Long boring drive to Adels Grove. Brief stop at Gregory Downs Pub....for a coffee!! Nice campsite at Adel's Grove with plenty of shade, a nice gorge to swim in and NO Mozzies (apparently they sent them away for the dry). Cathy is smiling........if she can ignore the snakes, scorpions and spiders.

Thursday 25th May

We've been asking for days whether the road from Normanton to Burketown was open, and heard several stories that the creeks "were up over the bonnet". A quick visit to the shire offices assured us it was open with "a couple of inches" of water. This was 90% correct....most crossings were only a couple of inches. But as we rounded a bend in the road, created by a bulldozer from recently formed sand dunes we spotted another car heading in the opposite direction with water up to it's bumper bar. He informed us that this was the worst of it. We sailed through in the Troopy without a problem. We have stopped at Burketown for the night and shared a few beers with friends from Karumba.

Wednesday 24th May

An early morning walk along the beach started another day in Karumba. We decided to stay another night (one of the joys of being without deadlines) so we could do our washing.....and have more prawns for dinner watching another sunset.

Cathy rescueing David from "Big Krys". Again?

Relaxed 23May

Washed up whale on Karumba Beach :)

Karumba Sunset 23 May

Thought you might like to see this!! Jealous yet?

Tuesday 23rd May

An early start was not hard as the fishermen were up before dawn. Cathy bumped into her old friends from Mt Surprise on the train. It was a very enjoyable trip as it clickety-clacked along at a maximum of 40km/h. We were both amazed at the size of the crocodile in Normanton, luckily Cathy was on hand to keep it at bay!! A lovely meal of garlic bread and prawns at the Sunset Tavern (appropriately named) capped off a beautiful day.

Monday 22nd May

We trust you enjoyed the blog, it took an hour at Georgetown. We moved on to Croydon. The information lady was extremely helpful and was still talking as we walked off on the local tour. This included historic buildings and a tour of the Chinese archaeological site. We stopped at Leichardt Lagoon with a multitude of biting insects so we could catch the Gulflander train the next morning.

Sunday 21May

A day of rest. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. Except Cathy made me cut my nails, and clean the fridge, read all the brochures, reorganise the sock drawer, move my laptop out of the way, ........ I need a rest day!!!

Saturday 20 May

Another half-day tour, this time at a reasonable hour (10am) with lunch included. This is by far the widest part of the gorge. Many parts are only just wider than the boat.

Friday 19th May

We decided to settle into Cobbold Gorge for 3 days. This photo relied on the outside light of the caravan next to us. We are surrounded by the Robin Hood cattle station.

Thursday 18th May

Early start for a half-day tour of the Undara Lava Tubes. An extraordinary experience and well worth a visit if you get the chance.

Wednesday 17th May

John and Suze travelled up to the Undara National Park on a tour and met us. We spent the afternoon bushwalking and David got very close to some wallabies taking some great photos. This photo shows us all on top of the Bluff though.

Tuesday 16th May

We spent most of the day looking at spectacular waterfalls, but the true highlight was a small camera museum at Herberton. The owner and tour guide had been a member of MI5. He had an amazing collection of spy cameras, old cameras and assorted photography bits and pieces. He takes a good photo too!!!

Monday 15th May

A wet day spent driving around the tablelands. We bought some lovely Cajun peanuts from a roadside stand, obviously called "The Big Peanut". Saw some great photography by Bruce Duncan.

Sunday 14th May

Took a drive up the Gillies Range. We both wished we had been on a motorbike (but not with 500kg of gear!!!). Lovely afternnon tea at Lake Barrine with all the families celebrating Mothers Day.

The internet desert!

We have hit the outback once again after a few cool days in the Atherton Tablelands.  Lots of pretty waterfalls (wait for the pictures) and rolling green hills interspersed with rainforest.  There's a place called misty mountain for a very good reason!  We had a lovely couple of days at Undara Lava tubes with John and Suze and all found the half day tour of the caves spectacular.  We warmed up in the Innot Hot Springs and spent last night at Bedrock Village in Mt Surprise.  Cathy got a great surprise today when she found she won a competition to have her mum's portrait painted by Rolf Harris!

Will update soon!

Saturday 13th May

Neither of us have any dreams of bungy jumping but the AJ Hackett Minjin swing sounded simple enough - a bit like the 18m high adventure swing Cathy has been on at the Diabetes Camp in Anglesea. So they strapped us in side by side and winched us up 100ft or more above the rainforest until the ground looked a long way down and people below were very little. The light went green, David pulled the "rip cord" and there was a moment of freefall before the rope tightened and swung us over the roof for a view over the Cairns harbour. Back and forth we swung with Cathy screaming and laughing uncontrollably. As the attendant stopped us over the platform he casually asked if we'd like to do it again and before we knew it, we were being hauled up to scary heights once again, this time with Cathy to pull the cord. It was heaps of fun. The remainder of thse last two days has been spent relaxing around Cairns with a visit to Palm Cove. The windy weather and poor conditions have made a trip to the outer reef seem a bit futile. We have to leave something for coming back again one day!

7th to 11th May

Cathy has worked hard at the conference (daylights hours) and various nightspots around town. David has walked, had coffee, shopped, had coffee, been sightseeing, had coffee, coffee and more coffee. He has also been banned from most internet kiosks around Cairns.

Saturday 6th May

Cathy got an early morning fix of shopping around the Kuranda Markets. We were also fortunate to spot a bottle of our favorite Sav Blanc at the local pub. As it chiiled in the afternnon, we took the Kuranda Scenic Railway down to Freshwater Station stopping at the spectacular Barron Falls on the way. Then a quick bus ride to Skyrail, a gondola set above the rainforest. We stop again at Barron Falls this time on the opposite side of the gorge from the railway station. At last, the time came for dinner at the "Kuranda Verandah" reataurant at the caravan park. The waiter poured the wine, but to our dismay, it was off!! We settled for an Oomoo unwooded chardonnay instead which was lovely. Cathy was happy to avoid another bite - she found a snake in the toilets when she got up in the night! We heard the next morning that hans had killed the snake which was a brown tree snake. The joys of camping in the rainforest.

Friday 5th May

After a morning stroll along the beach, we took a leisurely drive up into the tablelands to Mareeba and found ourselves a coffee and chocolate factory. There was unlimited tasting of 21 varieties of coffee and 4 of tea then samples of yummy chocolate. Our favorite was the coffee liqueur but we resisted buying a bottle and left with just 100g of lemon myrtle chocolate - what restraint! After several toilet stops, we came across the Emerald Creek falls so we had a picnic lunch and did a walk to the top of the falls. By then we decided to go on to Kuranda Rainforest Accomodation Park where we checked in and had a refreshing swim.

Thursday 4th May

After farewelling Mary and Graeme, we headed off for the Daintree and Cape Tribulation in mosquito proof clothing, reeking with "eau de Mr Bushman's". The day was gray and wet but that didn't deter us from the Canopy boardwalk of the Daintree. We have seen so much rainforest lately that we are rainforested out so we were quite excited when we finally saw a cassowary and 3 chicks on the road to Cape Trib. We also found a cafe where the rainforest meets the sea. We had hoped to do the Bloomfield 4WD circuit but the roads were closed due to rain. It doesn't stop some people though. We met some guys who had been up to the Bloomfield falls and they said the water was rising on the way back so that it went over their bonnets! They tried to talk us into going ahead but we decided it was too early in the trip to risk our lives in crocodile infested waters. We headed back to a nice caravan park in Wonga Beach for the night. Cathy finally got to finish her next book "Memoirs of a Geisha" which she enjoyed very much.

Wednesday 3rd May

All four of us went for a walk in the rainforest at Mossman Gorge then enjoyed a picnic there. Mary bravely did the 3.4km walk with us even though she has a sore Achilles so by the next day, her other leg was sore! It was lovely to spend time together and we topped that off with dinner at a Thai restaurant. Cathy managed to collect plenty more itchy bites so she had a very uncomfortable night trying not to scratch them.

Tuesday 2nd May

Paronella Park, a mansion built by Jose Paronella for his fiance, had just reopened after the cyclone so we stopped off for a tour. With the loss of vegetation in the cyclone, we were told that it was more open and like the descendants remember it when they were younger. It was certainly set up for entertaining and weddings were still held there until recently. It has a tunnel of love, fountains and a pathway lined by Kauri pines. From there, we moved on to Port Douglas and met up with Mary and Graeme, Cathy's parents. They have enjoyed time in Cairns and Port Douglas so we caught up on all their news and made them sit through our photos to date!

Monday 1st May

Our next stop was Mission beach - or south Mission Beach to be more precise. We had a lazy day walking along the beach, reading by the pool and learning about cassowaries. As we drove about, the effects of Cyclone Larry were still quite evident. There were trees pushed to the side of the road, the rainforest was a mess and many older houses had tarpaulins on their rooves. It is warm and wet up here - more overcast than in the Whitsundays.

Our trip so far (up to 30 April)

The actual GPS track of our travels. You can see the big loop from Innamincka to Longreach (because of floods). And a smaller bump whilst heading north. A detour on the detour.

Our Site at Adventure Whitsunday

No wonder we overstayed.

Townsville Water Park

If only it was beer....

Thursday 27th to Sunday 30th April

We have spent a delightful few days at Airlie Beach in one of the most impeccably clean caravan parks we have ever seen. As a result, a couple of days were spent lazing by the pool reading a book or the newspaper, playing on their minigolf course (Cathy won!) and sitting around the BBQ area chatting to all our new friends. On Friday, we were up early to catch the bus to the marina where we boarded the "Camira". This is a 85ft purple catamaran that took us out around the Whitsunday islands to Whitehaven beach then snorkelling near Hook Island. The rest of the tme was spent sipping wine and beer along with a delicious luncheon on the decks - a magnificent day. David joined Cathy in the bite competition but cannot keep up with the bites and stings she has attracted. She now has sandfly bites, mosquito bites and a beesting but we are both covered in hundreds of bites from some nasty in the water where we were snorkelling. At least those ones don't itch but we look like we should be quarantined!

Wednesday 26th April

We woke to another overcast day but the sun snuck through intermittently. After admiring the view from the top of Clark range, we headed down into the valley again and back to Finch Hatton Gorge where we did a 2 hour walk - much of it up steps - to see the Araluen falls and Wheel of Fire falls. Had it been warmer, we would have been swimming in the clear cool water. Local knowledge again pointed us to a pretty drive through canefileds and a mountain range before meeting the main road to Airlie Beach.

Tuesday 25th April

Today was a big walk day. We got a lift from a local to the start of the track and set off about 9.30am. Dense rainforest surrounded us as we walked along for the next 5 hours. When it rained, we were relatively sheltered below the canopy of trees but did resort to the wet weather gear for part of the day. We returned to camp to a treat of fresh mango scones with jam and cream and a hot coffee. We pottered about for the afternoon then went across to the Eungella Chalet for a pub meal. David's mixed grill looked like a herd had been sacrificed!