Our Last Day

WARWICK we are back where we had our first night on the 17th January 2009, where have the last 87 weeks and 1 day gone? It just feels like yesterday that we left home.

What an incredible adventure we have had travelling around this great land clocking up 78,000km’s of trouble free motoring. We will get a new windscreen on our return as have a chip and a crack and last week we got our first puncture caused by a splinter from some wooden edging in the caravan park, so can’t complain.

People ask where our favourite spot is and where could we live, a tough question, every area has great spots. In an ideal world it would be great to follow the sun and have a month or so in different spots, would have to include Coral Bay in WA for the snorkeling off the beach, Port Douglas here in QLD again for the beach and relaxed atmosphere. Northern NSW is also nice and you would have to spend some time in Tasmania, I could go on and on. There are too many spectacular sights to mention and must say we have done some great walks, alas haven’t lost any weight.

Have loved living in our house on wheels, it has everything that you want and makes it a horrible thought going to our storage shed next week and unpacking our ‘stuff’, can see another garage sale on the agenda.

The only thing we would do differently is that we would buy a satellite dish, Paul loves the TV and there are a lot of places where you only get two or three channels. As you can imagine having a laptop has been great and I have enjoyed sharing our days with the blog, thank you for following it. Thanks to the folks who have kept in touch, it has been much appreciated and nice to know that we weren’t forgotten.

It is now exciting that we are going home tomorrow and really looking forward to seeing Mum and Dad and friends who we haven’t seen since the first week of January this year. Have really loved not having a job and being footloose and fancy free so going back to reality and getting a job is daunting, fingers crossed that our lotto numbers come up.

If you are looking to travel anywhere and would like some hints and tips, just give us a yell.

Farewell for now from Mrs Cara Van and Paul until lap 2!

Our neighbours.

Back to the Darling Downs

THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE at Barcaldine acknowledges where the Labour Party, formerly The Australian Workers Party was formed after a shearers strike occurred here in 1891. The actual ghost gum tree by the railway station has now died and this monstrosity has been built around it.

HAPPY FARMERS  the outback has had some great rain and must say that it is the first time that we have seen green wheat. Even the road verges are green and some wild flowers are in bloom. This was north of Roma, we visited Roma last year so just having a night here and got to stock up at Woollies.

Outback Queensland

AUSTRALIAN STOCKMAN’S HALL OF FAME a great tribute to the pioneers and spirit of the outback. What a harsh life it must of been years ago, a bit easier these days with technology but certainly not everyones cup of tea.

QANTAS FOUNDERS MUSEUM fancy the airline setting up out here. Last year we visited the Cloncurry hanger which was the first destination and this was the head office, what a great vision the original owners had. At the museum they have a Boeing 747 that they were able to land here but due to the length of the runway it will never be able to depart.

BLACK HEADED PYTHON here at the caravan park in Longreach they had a cockatoo bird show and then a snake show. The snake was very warm and had a very shiny skin, funny feeling it’s muscles contract.

Bladensburg National Park

                                       

SCRAMMY GORGE just out of Winton. On the drive out here we saw a wedge tailed eagle having breakfast, lot's of red kangaroos, brolgas and a lizard. Driving from Hughenden to Winton there are cattle and sheep stations and one very bumpy highway.

If you carry on down the road you come to Lark Quarry where there are footprints of the only known dinosaur stampede in the world and these prints were used by Speilberg when he made the film Jurassic Park.

View from Scrammys lookout I reckon you expect to see giraffes and zebras on the plains below.

Dinosaur Country

PORCUPINE GORGE NATIONAL PARK, Hughenden The gorge is several hundred million years old and the area was home to dinosaurs when the area was an inland sea.

THE PYRAMID it was an easy 1.2 km walk down to the gorge for a gorge walk, although Paul looked like he was about to die once we got back to the top. Hard to imagine the amount of water that water that must have flowed through here in the past to create this solid wall on the bend in the 27 km gorge.

Yesterday we left the coast and turned inland at Townsville, it sure was nice to finally have clear blue skies on our way to Hughenden and then last night to see stars. Today has been really hot in the mid 30's. 

Australian Record

WALLAMAN FALLS is in behind Ingham and is the longest permanent single drop waterfall in Australia at 268 metres. As you can see there was mist from the valleys and would imagine that it hovers most days, the sound of the water dropping into the bottom pool was quite thunderous.

TAYLORS BEACH couldn't resist standing under this sign, as my old name.

Heading South

MISSION BEACH looking across to Dunk Island early yesterday morning. We were down there early to watch competitors set off in their kayaks for the island and back, then they did some biking and running, rather them than us.

There was one poor fellow who only made it about 50 metres in his kayak and tipped over about four times, paddled back to the shore and called it a day, he certainly had all the gear but no ability, so better luck next year.

LUCINDA JETTY Lucinda is 25kms east of Ingham and there is a lot  of sugar cane in the area with Victoria mills the largest in the southern hemisphere. Here the jetty is 6kms long to take the sugar away. As you can see it is another overcast day, won't complain when you look at what other areas are going through.

CURLEW there are about 25 of them around the caravan park, they make a real crying noise and we have been warned to expect that tonight. We don't mind the sounds of nature, there must of been about a thousand frogs croaking during the night at Mission Beach.

                                               

Curlew nesting.

Cassowary Coast

SOUTH MISSION BEACH a lovely beach with views across to Dunk Island, another island just off here is the elite Bedarra Island, you will need a very large bank account to enjoy a stay there. At the caravan park where we are, are hundreds of white lipped frogs that make a real racket in the evenings. 

TULLY holds the title as one of the wettest towns in Australia with an average rainfall of 4 metres a year. The Golden Gumboot is 7.9 metres high which was the rainfall recorded in 1950.

CASSOWARY with chicks, alas we did not see them on our rainforest walk today, these were models outside the information centre. The males have the job of raising the chicks and they don’t get their black plumage until about 9 months old.

PAUL PHONING HOME checking up on relations to see how they got on after the 7.1 on the Richter scale earthquake in Christchurch, all was well thank goodness.

Catching Up

US WITH ANDY AND RUTH friends who live in Cairns, who we caught up with last night and had dinner with. Our time in Port Douglas is drawing to a close, we were due to leave on Sunday but have decided to start our journey south on Friday as the weather has been unseasonally wet for August, so may as well hit the road. Have been to the beach a few times, got some books read and photos sorted for a photo frame, still need to cull again for an album, so all good.

A Dream Comes To Life

PARONELLA PARK Back in 1935 a Spaniard, Jose Paronella built a castle with ballroom that transformed into a movie theatre, 2 tennis courts and a picnic area beside the water on 13 acres beside Mena Creek falls, he even generated power from the water falls, pretty unique when other homes in the area did not get power until 1952.

The castle has been destroyed by fire, damaged by floods and devastated by cyclone Larry but the grounds and property is still open to the public after some fellow ‘caravaners” in 1993 called in for a visit and bought it.

KAURI AVENUE created amongst the 13 acres of tropical plants and trees. For more info - wwwparonellapark.com.au/highres

JOSEPHINE FALLS A nice easy walk to these falls in part of the Wooroonooran National Park which flows from Bartle Frere, Queensland’s highest mountain.

THE BOULDERS south of Cairns inland from Babinda which is a really nice town, the gorge must look spectacular in the wet season. There seem to be so many places that would be great to brave the wet weather to revisit and watch in all their glory.

The Tableland

GILLIES HIGHWAY LOOKOUT On our trip to Port Douglas with the van in tow we travelled down this windy highway from the tablelands so no chance to stop. Today we revisited the area and it was a lovely clear day with views across the valley to Gordonvale.

CATHEDRAL FIG TREE The tree is spectacular and the board states that the weight of the leaves alone is equal to a small car, a girth of 44 metres, the crown covers 2000 square metres, it is 48 metres tall and is around 500 years old. The rainforest around it was lovely with an abundance of bird life.

LAKE TINAROO we did the Danbulla Forest Drive around this dam which was built to service the Barron River hydro scheme. There were a lot of people camping and it is meant to have a great source of barramundi. The spillway would look very impressive in the wet season.

The tableland has a variety of crops; sugar, bananas, mangos, lychees, coffee and potatoes to name just a few.

R and R

THE INLET,  Port Douglas we have been really lazy the last few days and have mastered doing not much. Weather has been kind and the beach has been lovely, August seems to be a great time to visit here, we highly recommend it.

Back in Paradise

FOUR MILE BEACH,  Port Douglas this morning. After all our travels this is still our favourite holiday destination. Since we got here on Sunday the weather has been a bit ordinary but somehow the days have flown by. We did pop into Cairns on Tuesday to get the tyres rotated and do some shopping, funny being back in the big smoke, two lanes of traffic, round abouts, traffic lights and lots of cars. It is really nice to be set up for a few weeks, funny not getting up in the morning and go, go, go.

FOUR MILE BEACH, Port Douglas this afternoon, it was lovely to see clear blue skies, bit of a strong wind coming off the sea though. Have spent a few hours today sorting out photos to get printed, a job I have been delaying, but good to have under way.

CAR WASH Paul giving our house on wheels a much needed wash on our way north to Port Douglas, so nice to be rid of  most of that red dust.

Back to the Tropics

EMU AND CHICK on our  way yesterday to Mt Surprise, they sure do blend in with the surroundings. It was a lovely easy drive from Normanton, with savannah and then some ranges close to our destination.

ATHERTON TABLELANDS it was great to see green rolling hills after the last few months. We are now in Cairns and have travelled 2357 km's since leaving Katherine on Sunday. It was nice to park up today and actually set up our house on wheels, even though it is only for two nights. Sara's Mum is here in the park so we have had a chin wag and will catch up tomorrow. Tonight we are meeting other friends who live here, so very social.

Nice to be North

SKIPPY Today we left Cloncurry which is east of Mt Isa, between these two towns there is lovely hilly and rocky countryside which is such a nice change from the previous days.

On the first couple of hours on our journey north there was a lot of road kill, but it was still a surprise to see this kangaroo bounding across the road during the daylight which is unusual.

WANDERING STOCK we have travelled a lot of roads with signs warning of wandering stock and there were a few on the road today. We also got a cracked windscreen today after 72,000 km’s of motoring.

Tonight we are in Normanton and what a difference 383 km's makes in the temperature, back into lovely warm weather.

Another Change Of State

STUART HIGHWAY just south of Katherine, check out the speed limit, we cruise along at 95 km’s per hour. This was the scenery for most of the 512 km's down to Renner Springs where we camped up at the roadhouse last night.

RENNER SPRINGS we were up with the sparrows this morning and were rewarded with this lovely sunrise. It sure has got nippy, only got to 20 degrees today, a bit drastic after 35 degrees in Katherine.

BARKLY HIGHWAY yes the scenery is pretty exciting, although you do change from mallee and salt bush to almost prairie grass and there were very strong cross winds all the way. We have now crossed the border and on the home turf of Queensland, exciting and scary at the same time as reality is another day closer. Today we did 583 km's, although a fair distance it is an easy drive says me who does the navigating.

Change of State

VICTORIA HIGHWAY it was a really lovely drive from Kununurra through to Katherine with various ranges and at one stage we were beside the very wide Victoria River. Only 46 km’s out from Kununurra we crossed the border into the Northern Territory.

MUSTERING great to see this happening as we were driving along. Due to the wet weather in Broome earlier in the month we are a few days behind schedule so will have to stop and explore some of the spots around Timber Creek and Victoria River on lap 2.

CATCH UP Dee has lived in Katherine for the past three years so well and truly a local, we had a good Saturday checking out where she will be moving too and then being joined by fellow Gold Coast campers John and Maureen for a bbq.

Last day in WA

IVANHOE CROSSING just a few km's out of town crosses the lower Ord River below the Diversion dam and is the back way to Wyndham. This gives you bit of an idea of the speed of the river, just upstream from where the car is was a saltwater crocodile sun baking.

Trivia - the new homes in the area are made of corrugated iron as they are cooler, there are no gutters as they don't cope in the wet season. They also don't have any  letter boxes as it is too hot in the wet season, 50 degrees to go out and check your mail and for the poor postie. Older homes were double brick and just retained the heat.

DIVERSION DAM showing a portion of the water being released. There are so many areas up here that must look spectacular in the wet season with water in this area alone being at least 10 metres higher.

ZEBRA ROCK unique to this area and mined around Lake Argyle, just a youngster at 600 million years old!

Tomorrow we cross the border into the Northern Territory, we have really enjoyed the last four months in WA, just don't know where the time has gone.

East Kimberly

KUNUNURRA only 42 kms from the Northern Territory border is like an oasis. Serviced by the water in Lake Argyle the area is classed as the salad bowl with the various crops grown in the area such as water melons, mango's and rock melons. There are also a lot of sandalwood plantations with the trees being exported to Asia.

MIRIMAR NATIONAL PARK just a few kilometres out of town looks like a mini version of the Bungle Bungles.

LAKE ARGYLE wow, lake as far as the eye can see, the wet season water is stored here and then released down into the Ord River, through Lake Kununurra, Diversion dam, water passed on to local farms at $5.00 per million kilolitres and then further down the Ord River and out to sea. Unfortunately it is not cost effective to pipe the water south and enough water to provide Australia for a year goes out to sea every few days - amazing.

ORD RIVER flowing today at about 14km's, interesting the changing vegetation along our 55km trip from the Lake Argyle dam to our caravan park in Kununurra. The river is home to the most freshwater crocodiles in Australia.

LAKE KUNUNURRA at sunset.