Queensland part 4 - When it rains...

A bit of delay in getting this blog post out: long internet-less days driving across the country, and a good chunk of photos and Great Barrier Reef media to sift through! Without further ado here is our continued journey up through the morth east coast of Queensland.

Sunday 23rd March: Airlie Beach to Bluewater

After an incredible day on the water we started our drive up to the tropical north. Bowen was first on the agenda to visit the Big Mango and the Sunday markets. The Big Mango was pretty impressive and the little ant on the outside very cute. The markets were a real hit for us though, we shared a cheese hotdog, some hot cinnamon donuts and the best bit a NZ style real fruit ice cream. Absolutely delicious and a great cool down as we walked around to horseshoe bay. We didn’t go on the beach though due to the multiple croc warnings!

We continued north and along the way came across an unexpected big thing: the Big Pumpkin! Very life like but huge, we didn’t get out the car though as it meant crossing the highway with cars doing 100kmh! We were going to walk up Mount Ingham but the rain came and it was pretty miserable so we drove to the view point at the top. I’m sure on a clear day it would be even better, but the cloudy weather didn’t give us the best views. It was however a lovely stretch of the legs!

We drove across the Burdekin bridge, a 1km long bridge crossing the river and connecting Ayr and Homeshill. It cost $6 million in 1946 but it really is still going strong as the raging river below showed!

Our next stop was just short of Townsville and the flooding was very evident because the Big Python was surrounded by flooded roads and the park was unable to be walked through! Our final resting stop was the Bluewater RV site, it was a lovely little place and completely free. In sunnier weather we would have explored more but boy oh boy was it rainy!

Monday 24th: Bluewater to Babinda Boulders

Our original plan for the day had been to visit a plethora of creeks and waterfalls, but upon investigating we found out that the majority of them are still closed due to the past month of heavy rain and flooding. Time for plan B: improvise while driving north.

We found a place en route called Frosty Mango and called in to peruse their tropical fruit, which was sadly a few coconuts and a handful of black sapotes (which I regret not trying). Moving on we drove to Ingham to confirm with their information centre what walks were still open. Ironically the info centre was closed due to the recent flooding, so we instead followed a local boardwalk around the town and saw some freshwater fish and turtles.

Next stop, Lucinda for a sanga lunch, walk, and to see the 5.6km wharf used for sugar deliveries around the world. It’s big, horizon big. We raced on to Cardwell to speak with their info centre about the Cardwell Spa Pools. You guessed it, the pools were also closed, but the nice lady helped confirm which walks were closed or open and so a useful visit nonetheless.

Continuing our mission north we drove to the Murray Falls - one of the few falls still accessible. A pothole dodge and a small river crossing and we arrived at the falls in the pouring rain. The rain gave us the full 5D experience of the waterfall which was absolutely roaring! Definitely worth the soak through (he writes 4 hours later still soggy).

What can you do when most of your walks are cancelled? Go see some “big” things! In Tully, Australia’s rainiest area, we climbed the Golden Gumboot which is almost 8m tall in honour of their largest recorded annual rainfall. Wowza! We drove to Mission Beach to see the big Cassowary. The big cassowary was a bit disappointing as it needed a lick of paint, but unbelievably we saw an actual wild cassowary next to the road on the drive back to the main road! We were giddy for a while!

Roadside advertising sometimes pays off, as we saw an advert for “Murdering point exotic fruit winery” and decided on an impromptu visit. Chloe took the driving short straw and I tried several wines and liqueurs but the winner was a Davidson Plum red wine which we then bought.

Onwards we drove to the Josephine falls (thanks info lady!) where you can normally swim in the rock pools below. not today though, numerous signs and even flashing warning lights said the falls were too active to be safe, so we settled for a few photos of the raging falls. Our final stop for the day was Babinda boulders which had a nice overnight campsite for us to stop at.

Tuesday 25th: Babinda Boulders to Port Douglas

After a good sleep we jumped up to go visit the Babinda bounders in the daylight. What an epic granite boulder gorge! The rapids were full on flowing and there were plenty of scary warning signs explaining the various underwater hazards littering the gorge. Fortunately, about a kilometre upstream there is a far safer swimming spot which we took a morning dip in. A super refreshing way to start the day.

We called in at the Babinda bakery for breakfast and treated ourselves to some pies. It seems the further north you go the better the pies get! (Coming close to NZ quality pies now!). After a quick check at the local Info centre, we decided on doing the Barron Gorge National park, in particular the gondola and train, and so made tracks up the road for a few hours.

The skyrail gondola up was really insightful with an audio guide as you go, the guy was also super sassy which was funny. There were a few stops in the way at a rainforest walk, where Mike finally saw his tree frog. The guide was lovely telling us all about the different trees and the animals in the rainforest. We were hopeful to see a tree kangaroo, but they remained elusive! The second stop was at Baron Falls and boy oh not was that an incredible waterfall. The noise was heard as soon as you got off the cable car and by the view point you were getting sprayed by the water and there was a beautiful rainbow. The clouds we could see on the first stop weren’t actually clouds they were the water rising from the power of the falls which was incredible.

At the top we landed in the village of Kuranda, we walked around and obviously found the chocolate shop which gave us a delicious snack and a packet of chocolate mug cake to have for dinner later. We then wanted to walk along the river back to the Train station, but the river was still flooded out and ain’t no way I’m getting close when crocs are around!! Trying to avoid the dangerous crocs we turned around only for Mike to point out a 3-4m Carpet Python next to the path. I ran away but he stopped to take a photo, and it was only looking back at the picture later we realised it had already had it’s lunch!

Our journey back took us on the Kuranda Scenic Railway around the other side of the gorge. Again, a lovely audio tour and some beautiful shots from the 180-degree bends and crazy bridges and tunnels that they hacked through the gorge. We might not have seen Tree Kangaroos, but we did have a blast before a short drive to Port Douglas.

Wednesday 26th: Great Barrier Reef

Three snorkels in just over a week - sure thing! This time a day on the Northern Great Barrier Reef with Wavelength Cruises. We had approximately 30 people on our boat but the customer service and care were incredible!

We were based on the Opal reef but visited 3 different sites. The first site was Rayban reef (named after the sunglasses a skipper once lost there). This site had a coral nursery which Wavelength had introduced, and heaps of fish and lovely coral, but the best bit by far was seeing and swimming with 2 green turtles! A real dream come true moment and to be honest at that point I would have accepted if it had been the end!

Back on the boat with some morning tea of banana bread and pain o chocolats we headed to our next dive site - Beautiful Mooring. This time we joined a guided snorkel for half the swim where Kate showed us how cool the giant clams were when you wave your hand over the top, she explained how the parrot fishes chomp away on the coral and actually allow the reef to regrow, and she also spoke about how the sea cucumber defence is to vomit up all their sticky internal organs… Including their lungs! Just as the ship’s horn blew to tell us to get back on the ship we also saw a white tipped shark. It was probably about 1m in length and swimming super-fast, thankfully in the opposite direction!!

Time for lunch while we made our way to SNO: the Southern Northern Opal site. This one really highlighted the bleaching in the coral, which was a bit sad, but you could also see how much work Wavelength were doing to regenerate the coral. Over lunch we had a talk from the onboard marine biologist who explained about a novel method of coral re-growth they have developed and have the patent for. It’s nothing spectacular to look at but the low-grade steel clip allows the baby coral to embed it’s self on the rock while the clip rusts over 4 years to leave no trace. Really cool to see some in action. The SNO had even more fish, this time some super colourful ones, and we also saw a Moray Eel peeking through the rocks. You had to dive to it but it was so cool to see it peek its head and open its mouth.

Sadly, it was now the end of our time on the GBR, but some chocolate chip cookies and a mug of tea went down a treat as we headed back to Port Douglas. A magical day on the GBR and possibly my favourite day yet! (The images below were taken by the Wavelength peeps on our dive day!)

Thursday 27th: Port Douglas to Yungaburra

Well after yesterday’s awesome day, today was somewhat of a kerfuffle! We finally found a replacement gas bottle last night (after 5 attempts!), then got back to the campground and the gas STILL doesn’t work. We spoke with Gill and Malcolm for around 20 minutes, hoping their motorhome knowledge would help but alas we were still gas less! So we tried the 24-hour help line 3 times over the space of 2 hours and not a single answer on the phone. 11 phone calls later, and it’s only 10.30am, Let’s Go finally decided the best option was to give us a new van, however to get a new Van we had to drive to Cairns, which thankfully was only 1.5 hours away!

So with a new plan we headed into Port Douglas for lunch! A Kangaroo Pie, and Croc Laksa Savoury, a vanilla custard donut and a delicious chocolate brownie. We were podged but ready to head on our way! The change of vans was mostly smooth but the new van also needed the second batteries swapping over…! Finally on the way with a working battery and gas bottle we headed into central Cairns for some tourist help.

We went into the Reef info Visitor Centre and the lady was the most helpful visitor centre you have ever been to. Our main questions were about driving over to the Northern Territory alongside all the crazy flooding. She searched, explained helped and finally we think we found a route that should be great in a couple of days. So following her wonderful advice we headed to Atherton to explore the tablelands for a couple of nights.

We decided to test the vans functions out so booked a powered site at Bonadio RV Park. The lady had mentioned the wiggly road but what I reckon was 1000 turns later we made it to the lovely, quiet and calm campground! We headed straight to the river to go platypus spotting, but it was a bit too late really and we couldn’t see much. We did however get magical treat by seeing some Pademelons and Joey’s feeding near the camp kitchen along with a cheeky Copper Brush tail possum who wanted us to feed him! We will try again for platypus in the morning!

Friday 28th: Yungaburra

Sure enough, an early morning stroll around the nearby creek proved successful - we saw a platypus properly this time! We must have watched it pop up and down for about 5 minutes before it swam too far upstream to follow.

After breakfast, and deciding to stay an extra night, we set out to explore the nearby Tablelands. Our first stop was the Curtain Fig tree - a cool triangular tree created when the fig tree host fell over onto a second tree, which the fig tree promptly claimed too. Apparently, you can also spot tree kangaroos here, but we weren’t so lucky.

Next stop, a humid stroll around Lake Eacham where we spotted a forest dragon lizard. Fortunately, we didn’t spot the resident crocodile nor the Python that apparently crossed the path a few minutes earlier! A series of waterfall visits rounded off the morning and early afternoon: the Millaa Millaa falls, Zillie falls, and Ellinjaa falls. And of course, a visit to a chocolate factory as it had been a while since we’d seen one!

Our afternoon entailed a visit to the Tolga Bat hospital - an awesome little place that helps rehabilitate over 1000 flying foxes each year. We saw some cute little bat species up close and also entered a cage containing a hundred flying foxes eating fruit. A slight downside was the enormous amount of mosquitos (no mosquito-eating bats) but we persevered as the little cuties were worth it!

Plenty of highs and lows over the past week of travelling. Stay tuned to hear about our trials and tribulations crossing Queensland and into the Northern Territory.