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The saga continues.......

Thursday, May 21^st, 2008

Mareeba, gateway to the West for us. The past couple of days we spent in very diverse natural environments. Ranging from tropical rainforest to wetlands to coastal environments. The weather varied from lots of rain to beautiful blue skies, so nothing to complain about. And again we had a great time.

After Charters Towers we took the Developmental Road with a loop back to Townsville. Quite an experience I can tell you. The Developmental Road from Charters Towers in the direction of Undurra Lava Tubes is nothing more than one lane of bitumen. So what’s the fuss you’d think, not many people live there, not much traffic, easy going. Well……. Yes not much traffic, but the traffic that was actually there were mainly road trains. Our first encounter with road trains. We had our UHF radio on scanning and picked up a lot of conversations from the drivers of the road trains and all the comments they made on us being on that road. Not too sweet language!. It was really hilarious to listen to from time to time. But dzjee what do these guys travel at high speed with very long trucks. Very scary at times.

We ended spending two nights at the Jourama Falls National Park near Paluma. Great National Park camping with just a pit toilet and cold showers. One of the days we visited Paluma, which is a rain forest village. Nothing much to do there, except for a couple of nice walks through the rain forest. Had lunch there and drove to Paluma dam. On our way to the dam we walked to a beautiful waterfall. Quentin and Ykki had a great time splashing the water and hiking back up to the car on our shoulders.

The Paluma dam is a beautiful lake with a fantastic campground. Because the road to Paluma is steep and winding we couldn’t get up there with the trailer, but those with vehicle based camping or tents will have a great time at the lake.

The Jourama Falls were certainly worth visiting. A challenging walk on boulders through the almost dry riverbed with children on our shoulders was worth the effort when we arrived at the swimming holes. Quentin and Ykki had a ball there. They loved splashing the water and simply being wet.

On our way further up north it started to rain. Lots of rain. We had to set the trailer up on the Murray Falls (Cardwell range National Park) camping area in pouring rain. Not much fun, but we kept it nice and dry in the trailer. We walked to the spectacular falls when it was dry, but the rest of the day was rain, rain, rain, rain and more rain. Even the following morning it was raining cats and dogs. But again we managed to get everything fairly dry in the trailer, so nothing to worry about. We had a cup of coffee in Tully, which is a town that claims to be the wettest in Australia. Around 7 metres of rain fall there each year. Unbelievable!

Because of the rain we just wanted to get dry again and continued our way up north in search of the sun.

We ended up in Mena Creek and spend the night in Paronella Park. An interesting park set up in the nineteen thirties by a Spaniard to simply to entertain. He built 2 ‘castles’ near a waterfall and the park around it was landscaped, had a tennis court, a tunnel, a swimming hole, fishing spots and much more. Very interesting to see how someone following his dream could make this magnificent place. We had a Aboriginal tour and a history tour around the park and in the evening an Evening walk. Certainly worth the visit, even though it was obviously set up for tourists. But it was much better to see the park the following morning when the rain cleared up.

From Paronella Park we drove to Cairns and spend 2 nights at the Cascades Falls Big 4 camping. Reason for this camping was that they claim to have no road noise. Well…. That claim is certainly not true. Good facilities as can be expected from a Big 4 camping, but for the rest just a regular camping. Nothing special to tell about.

Cairns was nice to see again after 13 years. Lots changed: much more people, much more tourism oriented shops, great esplanade, and a beautiful free swimming pool on the Esplanade (which we didn’t try, because the weather was not fantastic). ‘Our’ hotel (we stayed at 13 years earlier) was still there and still looked good, but the beautiful old strangler figs in front of the hotel were replaced by new trees. Lots of the charm gone. For us Cairns was nice to see, but not our piece of cake any more. Too many tourists, too many backpackers, grown too big and commercial..

We drove to Kuranda. A nice very touristy rain forest village and had our first real Australian damper for lunch. Actually quite nice and worth to remember. Apparently not very difficult to make.

From Cairns we continued up north to Cape Tribulation. Magnificent road very close to the coast. Great views on the beautiful beaches. The ferry across the Daintree river was again very interesting for the children. They just love to be on a boat for such a short time. We stayed at the campground called Cape Trib. Nice campground, especially the non-powered part was really nice with secluded places for people to put up their tents or trailers. We were lucky to have the last secluded place, because people arriving later had to put up with the open space. The campground itself had basic facilities, but everything was available even hot showers. It is almost on the beach and of course the children loved to go to the beach and play in the sand. Quentin decided to walk straight in the sea with his clothes on……. Ah well, a washing machine can clean that up again.

On the 18^th we did the Bloomfield track to Cooktown. A 4WD-only track straight through the rain forest. Magnificent! River crossings, great views, steep descents and inclines, and a relatively well maintained track. Because people warned us that we could not take the trailer and because we were not sure if we would be able to return to the campground the same day, we prepared and packed to spend the night in Cooktown. Cooktown is a nice town, which seems not to have changed much in the past decades and is not too touristy. Still very charming.

We decided to drive a bit more up north, just past Hope Vale and spend the night at Eddies camp (Aboriginal land). Again only reachable by 4WD. Well, we couldn’t have found a more magnificent place to celebrate Ykki’s 2^nd birthday. We were able to put our tent just 2 metres away from the waterfront, almost on the beach! Absolutely fantastic. This must be one of those places they do those documentaries. Absolutely stunning, few campers only. The children thought it was fantastic that they could sleep in a tent. For us the night was a bit less comfortable (to say the least), but just waking up and see the sea through the fly screen of your tent is a fantastic experience.

On the 19^th we had presents for Ykki’s 2^nd birthday. Just simple presents, but she loved the colouring book and the water gun. Quentin also got a water gun and both enjoyed themselves for a while with them.

Eddies camp is the most northern place that we will go up the Cape (Cape York = ' The Cape'). The roads are not yet open (grader is going through at the moment) and we feel it is better to come back somewhere in the future with a more suitable trailer to go up the Cape. The Cape (and the old telegraph track) is renowned for its hard core off road driving and will require a trailer that can handle the real rough stuff. Whilst the Jayco is holding on well, it will not survive Cape York, we were told. River crossings are still fairly deep at this time of year (just after the wet) and we are simply not sure if our trailer is good enough for the rough roads and deep river crossings (gets everything wet inside if deeper than 90cm due to the vents). A big disappointment, but probably a wise decision………

Via the Bloomfield track back to Cape Trib campground where we decided to spend another night. Our neighbours told us that the crocodile and mangrove tour through the mangrove forest was certainly worth it, so we booked the trip. Unfortunately we only saw 1 croc up close. Not a very big one, but still scary enough. Another one we saw from very far. We learned a lot about Mangroves (there are very many different mangroves!) and enjoyed our walk through the mangrove forest.

Initially we wanted to spend another night in the Daintree national park, but when we arrived in Daintree it was a bit disappointing and probably a bit too early to set up camp already. So we decided to go straight to Mareeba. We already spend one night in Granite Gorge campground and will spend another one tonight. It is very peaceful here, hardly any people, reasonable facilities, plenty of wallabies and cool nights so it is good to catch up sleep here. We finally have the stoneguard for the trailer. Finally, because it took about 5 weeks to organize it to be made and send up from Jayco in Coffs Harbour. Amazing. We’ve got the strong feeling that after sales service can be improved for the Jayco dealers……it took forever to organize it, it arrived at the Mareeba post office without a name on it, no return address and…. worse, without the nuts and bolds to fix it to the trailer. Nevertheless, we’ve got it now, it’s on the trailer and will protect the trailer from stones coming from the tires of the car. Hopefully it will last till at least the end of our trip.

Besides buying the nuts and bolds for the stoneguard at Savannah Steel and FCQ Filters in Mareeba, we also went to the butcher near the Coles for 3 weeks supply of cryovacked meat! We already stocked up on tinned vegetables, dried sauces, gluten free food for Quentin and other things to prepare ourselves for the long, long trip West. The meat we had today from that same butcher promises that the rest is also good, so lets cross fingers, because otherwise we’ll have less nice meals the coming 3 weeks.

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Page last updated: 15-8-2009