Tuesday 23th August – Day 31
Today, Beryl and I had to return to Lakeland to pick up our van out of storage. We decided to go back up the Bloomfield Track and then across to Lakeland.
We were then meeting the others at the caravan park at Craiglie, about 10kms south of Port Douglas. We had been told about a restaurant in Port Douglas that is on the water, and you can see the sun setting over the mountains, with the water in front. It was called the Combined Club, or The Tin Shed, so we just drove around until we found it. There was a big mob of people trying to get tables, so we just waited. We got one pretty quickly and sat there on the very outside row, with perfect view of the water and sunset.
The mountains were covered in cloud so it wasn’t the perfect sunset, but was still pretty special. Dinner was really good, so it was a good night. A bit of grocery shopping on the way home, then into bed. Tomorrow we travel all of about 55kms to Cairns.
Wednesday 24th August – Day 32
It was a late start, getting under way about 10. We headed north again, this time to see the Mossman Gorge. About 2kms up the road was a ‘no caravans’ sign. We turned the van around and took it back to near town and left it on the side of the road. Saw a Cassowary wandering slowly up the hill, and he was only 2m in the bush. He continued his trek up until he finally passed the gate where people could go.
It was a good thing we got our photos. We did see him again while we were on the elevated walkway, but it wasn’t as good.
We were there for about an hour or more, wandering around the rainforest tracks and playing in the boulders. We left the gorge and headed south again, this time heading for Cairns. We didn’t make any stops, even though we called in to Palm Cove to check it out. Thirty five years ago we spent 7 weeks there and it was a vastly different place. Nowadays it is like Surfer’s Paradise, without the skyscrapers. We didn’t even stop the vehicles, as it was very disappointing.
Cairns had grown 20-fold and seemed to be about 20kms long, and we hadn’t even got to the port area. We headed out of town looking for a Big4 and ended up in Redlynch which is about 13 kms out of town.
It is really nice, and hasn’t got the hustle and bustle of Cairns. We are near the Crystal Cascades and we went there after we had set up.
The Crystal Cascades are a series of waterfalls and pools, spread up a 1.5km valley. The falls were not big, but there were many of them. We took lots of photos, including some of tortoises that were in some of the pools.
Home again for a nice camp kitchen Shepherd’s Pie dinner that Beryl made. In the kitchen we ran into another camper that we spent time in Cape Trib with. She was from England, out here with 3 of her 13 children.
Thursday 25th August – Day 33
We are still in Cairns for tonight, and leaving for tomorrow for Townsville, or thereabouts. Hoping to drop in and see some friends who work on a mission there. Not much happened for us men today. We dropped the 3 girls into town at Central Station, so they could catch the train up to Kuranda.
We men hung around by going to Cash Converters and BCF, and then we drove up to Kuranda to meet them, and to see the sights. The town has grown by about 6000 times. It was nothing when we were here last, but now it is a huge tourist place. We arrived there just in time for the girls to arrive in the train, along with 5 million other people. It was crazy. Thirteen carriages of tourists from all countries.
Had lunch at a German ‘restaurant’, which was very ordinary.
Friday 26th August – Day 34
The girls had arranged with Amanda (mother of 13 kids) to leave at the same time as them (3 kids, and a potential kid-in-law are here with her) and go back towards town to a big craft store.
From there we got back on the road south towards Townsville. It was an uneventful drive, except for two detours. We stopped in Mission Beach for lunch. Mission Beach is where my mum and dad used to take their van up for holidays.
The second detour was to Tully. We drove through Tully just to see what damage from cyclone Yasi still needs doing. There were lots of roofs missing, and walls missing. They were mostly the older corrugated iron buildings, and of course lots of trees had been stripped bare.
From Tully it was a straight forward drive to the north of Townsville (17kms) to our home for the next 2 nights. We didn’t arrive until just before dark, so we just got things set up in time. Mark and I cooked our meat on the BBQ while the girls made up some rice and diced vegies. After dinner we sat around for a while and discussed tomorrow’s activities.