Airlie Beach (The Whitsundays)

We went to Airlie Beach with the intention of somehow seeing the Whitsundays. We soon worked out that it would be hugely expensive to hire a yacht or stay at one of the island the resorts. We had, however, heard that that the 3 Island (8 hour) Cruise was really good value and great fun - particularly if the weather is good.

Fortunately we had to wait a couple of days for the tour to run as we were lucky enough to strike a really beautiful day. While it was only just warm enough to swim, it was a bright and clear sunny day with no wind at all. Our (quarter full) boat left Shute Harbour at 8.30am and travelled straight out to Hook Island for snorkeling - I'm happy to report that the girls thought the snorkeling was "just as good as Quobba", which is a big rap. From Hook we headed to Whitehaven Beach, which was just as beautiful as it looks in the brochures. We spent a couple of hours there playing cricket, swimming and bush walking. Our last stop was at Daydream Island where was watched the sharks and rays in the (man made) reef pool and enjoyed the pool and spa. What a day - our boat arrived back at Shute Harbour at 5.30pm, so it was straight back to the camper for dinner and bed!

We ended up spending 3 night in Airlie Beach and enjoyed it a lot. We camped out of town in a nice quiet park, and generally avoided the (loud) backpackers. It is definitely quite touristy but it still very beautiful looking out across the water to the islands.

Photos below are-
1: leaving Shute Harbour on the boat
2: in the glass bottom boat
3: snorkeling photo
4: Pia sleeping on the boat
5-6: Whitehaven Beach
7: lunch on the boat
8: chasing wallabies on Daydream
9: the big girls with mermaid statues on Daydream

Horseshoe Bay (Bowen, QLD)

Just a quick note on Bowen. We spent a couple of days there and found the town itself to be unremarkable, but we were really surprised at how beautiful Horseshoe Bay was. It is just a few kilometres out of Bowen and has apparently been recognized as one of Australia's top beaches - we would have to agree. It is a little cove with beautiful white sand and deep, clear water. We camped at the caravan park just a few meters from the beach. It felt a bit like a retirement village, but we loved the location. Would love to go back for a holiday one day.

Charters Towers

After having had a couple of weeks of rain on the east coast, we decided to head inland in search of clear skies. It was only a short drive west of Townsville to Charters Towers - about 150km.

Having not heard too much about Charters Towers, we were quite surprised to find that it is a really interesting place. It was once Queensland's second largest city due to a gold mining boom in the late 1800's, and there are still several of the grand old buildings standing. It also has a large hill right in town (Tower Hill) where we walked around old mine shafts and about 30 concrete bunkers used to store munitions during World War 2. It was also interesting to see that there are several gold mines still operating through the area.

As well as enjoying the history, we took a look at the cattle sales in Charters Towers. This gave Isla a chance to really blend in with the locals in her cowboy hat. While we really couldn't understand what the auctioneers were saying (they speak a language of their own!), we enjoyed the atmosphere nonetheless.

A highlight of our time in this area was staying at a farm stay called Camp Bivouac. There were lots of chooks and wallabies around, and the girls particularly loved happy hour around the campfire where some of the oldies sang songs.
Photos below are-
1: in the old Stock Exchange in Charters Towers
2: the town from Tower Hill
3: looking down from Tower Hill (note WW2 bunkers)
4: Pia
5; at the cattle sales
6: sitting around the campfire at Camp Bivouac
7-8: on the camp 4 wheeler with Del the dog

South of Port Douglas and Cairns

Sorry, no photos of Prt Douglas and Cairns because everyone's seen it all before. We had lovely but brief peons of sunshine while inPort Douglas and enjoyed walking around the streets and the water. It was raining as we passed through Cairns, so we decided to keep going after a very brief swim at the man-made lagoon.

The countryside south of Cairns is green and lush, and full of sugar cane. Moving through the extremely wet areas of Tully, Innisfail and Babinda we stopped only occasionally. A real highlight was stumbling upon the Babinda Boulders where the river has car edits way through the mountains to create some beautiful rock formations (best just to seen photos below).

We were all looking forward to arriving at Paronella Park, located about 30km inland from Innisfail. Created by Jose Paronella (a Spanish immigrant) in the 1930s, this is an amazing property. In its heyday it was a type of county club with a castle, tennis courts, cafe, ballroom and cinema set in rainforest along a beautiful river. It is gradually being worn away by cyclones but is still really worth a visit. We enjoyed walking around the enormous grounds, but the kids particularly liked feeding the turtles, fish and eels. The girls could resist letting the eels slither all over their feet as they fed them. As we were able to camp at the park, we also did a night tour where we spotted glow worms and luminous fungus and heard more stories about Jose and his family. The highlight was seeing the amazing castle lit up out of the darkness.
Hoots below are-
1-4: Babinda Boulders
5: Paronella Park (castle)
6: Tilly's feet with the slithering eels
7: by the creek at Paronella Park
8: QLD Karri Pines along Lovers Lane at PP
9: Jose's castle at night

Down to Cape Tribulation and Port Douglas

The rain went on and on. Rather than going back on the highway to go from Cooktown to Cairns, we decided to take the coastal road that goes south through Cape Tribulation (the Bloomfield Track). We had heard varying reports on the condition of the road, but decided to give it a go anyway - how bad can a 50km road be? Well, it probably would have been fine, except that the days of rain had made the river crossings quite deep and the road itself very slippery. It wasn't long before we hit some very steep muddy inclines and declines, and found the car and camper trailer sliding disconcertingly. The rivers we came to along the way were also deeper and flowing more rapidly than expected, but very difficult to turn back at that point. After getting a little concerned we covered the second half at snail's pace with the car in Low 4, which made it all much safer. We were relieved to finally hit the bitumen at Cape Tribulation a couple of hours later.

Not too much to say about Cape Trib. It's quite dramatic to see the rainforest growing right down to the beach, but you can't enjoy the beach too much due to crocs and stingers. The rain continued incessantly while we were there, so by the time we left nearly everything we owned was wet or dirty, or both. We had been camping in a very basic national park campground, so we were ready to check into a caravan park for a few days to clean everything up (car, camper, clothes, and ourselves). On to Port Douglas and civilization.
Photos below are-
1-2: the Bloomfield Track from Cooktown to Cape Trip
3-5: Photos around Cape Trib

Far North QLD

Even though we were a long way north, we noticed many big changes as soon as we hit the east coast - everything was very green and there was so much development everywhere (the complete opposite to the west coast!). We arrived on the Atherton Tablelands with only vapours left in our fuel tanks due to some unexpected hills and a strong headwind. Despite this, we made it to a campground on the edge of Lake Tinaroo, a large man-made dam not far out of Atherton itself.

We soon discovered why everything was so green. The rain started just after we arrived, and continued for the next couple of days. If that wasn't shocking enough for us, the temperature dropped to around 12 degrees at night. We all dug out our winter pajamas, raincoats and beanies and wondered where our lovely balmy tropical evenings had disappeared to. We did our best to see the sights around Atherton - some waterfalls and picturesque towns, and a tour of the big dairy in Malanda. Was interesting to see all the milk being bottled, but the free milkshake at the end was the big hit.

The rain got the better of us, so we decided to head further north to Cooktown. We camped at the character-filled Lion's Den Pub about 20km south of the town. It was set in the forest on beautiful green grass and backed on to a lovely creek where we swam (apparently no crocs there). The pub itself was a great old place filled with memorabilia. Unfortunately, however, the rain continued but we did our best to have a look around Cooktown. It had certainly changed a lot since we were there nearly 15 years ago - all the roads are now sealed and it has a much more refined feel to it.

The highlight of these two weeks came on our last day in Cooktown. We were fortunate enough to go on an aboriginal cultural tour with Aboriginal Elder, Willie Gordon. We were part of a small group that met on aboriginal land about 30km north of Cooktown, and spent four hours walking through pristine rainforest viewing rock art sites and hearing all the stories behind them. Along the way we also learnt a bit about bush tucker, and the kids even learnt to do their own rock art and how to be lizard-whisperers.

Photos below are-
1: Cathedral Fig in Atherton
2: enjoying a milkshake after our tour of the dairy
3: kids tee-pee at Lion's Den (Cooktown)
4: sitting at the bar at Lion's Den
5-9: Aboriginal experience with Willie Gordon

Across the Gulf to the East Coast

More long drives followed after we left Lawn Hill. We had a stop at Burke and Wills Roadhouse (in the middle of nowhere) where we watched a muster and Isla finally got the cowboy hat she had been wanting. We stopped at Normanton, at the bottom of the Gulf, for a night and saw a model of Krys, the largest crocodile ever caught (nearly 6 meters long!!!!!!!!). It was more like a dinosaur than a croc really.

Next stop in the middle of nowhere was Mt Surprise, a place that is really only noted for its gem fossicking. We felt that we should have the whole Mt Surprise experience, so went along and did some fossicking. The kids loved using their pans to find a little collection of topaz, quartz and aquamarine.

Photos below are-
1: cows crossing are a regular feature of outback roads
2: Krys the monster crocodile in Normanton
3-6: learning to use the pans and fossicking for gems at Mt Surprise