Cape Tribulation & The Daintree NP

13th-16th May
The most northerly part of our adventure was about to be embarked upon – Cape Tribulation. We took the day to slowly drive up the coast, towards the Daintree rainforest, passing through Mossman Gorge and the Daintree River.

The Daintree area is beautiful and home to many species of plants and animals that are endemic to the World Heritage listed National Park – thus making the protection of this area very important.

We were very lucky to stay at Cape Tribulation – a camp ground set amongst the rainforest trees and edging onto the white sandy beach. There are only some areas you are able to walk in through the rainforest, over board walks but we were lucky to be there at a time when it is fairly quiet along the walks. Along all the roads there are signs to tell drivers to be on the look out for cassowaries – we saw one walking by the side of the road!
We walked to the top of Mt Sorrow lookout to see some Germans being eaten by leeches and the spectacular view from the top. The slippery and steep climb was worth it!
Cape Tribulation was spectacular – again the photos do not do the place justice!
Although the area is saltwater croc country, we did find a waterhole that was croc free for a cool dip – unfortunately there were baby barra in the river that enjoyed nibbling legs.

Port Douglas

11th-12th May

Port Douglas is another tourist venue but a lot quieter and prettier than Cairns. Stinger season is nearly over but we still swam in the netted areas of the beach – though sitting on the hard sand wasn’t as appealing! Snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef was our main aim whilst we were in the area so we booked a whole day trip out to Opal Reef – The photos tell it all but it was absolutely amazing!

Cairns

10th-11th May

Cairns is full of tourists and touristy places so we didn’t hang around too long as we knew there was more to Tropical north Queensland than a chlorinated lagoon by the esplanade.

Instead we did a very touristy activity - caught the scenic train from Cairns to Kuranda! The train line was another rail line that was created to move gold from the tablelands to the port of Cairns. It was also a handy way for people to move to and away from the coast.




The rail line winds through the rainforest, over waterfalls and through 11 tunnels. The train ride lasted about one and a half hours and stopped at the ‘hippy’ town of Kuranda – it was originally a haven for those who wanted to get away from it all but now has been overcome with tacky tourist shops – a shame as it is a beautiful and quiet location.

Kuranda is also home to the butterfly sanctuary and we were able to see different tropical butterflies fluttering around.



We spent the evening catching up with some friends we made in Undara NP

Mareeba

May 9th

Now in the Atherton tablelands, we were close to Cairns. The area above Cairns is filled with tropical fruit farms, coffee & tea plantations, mango wineries and waterfalls.






We spent the morning visiting the surrounding forest areas – we saw the widest waterfalls in Australia – 66m wide! Wow!





Dabbed our toes in natural hot springs – over 100 degrees. Jamie nearly stepped onto a black or red belly black snake as he hopped out of the car! Mareeba hosts many coffee plantations so we spent the following morning tasting Australian coffee and then mango wine!

Undara National Park

May 7th-8th

The landscape changed as we headed into country that was once very volcanic. There were mountains and lush green vegetation . Within this National Park there are lava tubes that were formed by volcanoes about 10 billion years ago. When one of these volcanoes erupted, as the lava cooled the huge lava tubes formed (mostly made of basalt) These lava tubes are at least 30 metres high and we were able to walk through one that was 200 metres long.







There are many lava tubes within the national park but only a few are open to the public. You can only enter these tubes with a guide as these are the biggest and longest lava tubes in the world – we are lucky that they aren’t closed off only to the scientific community!
We were lucky to see pretty face wallabies along the way and a black snake in the distance!




We also walked to the rim of an extinct sporia shield volcano to see other shield and cone volcanoes in the distance.

Georgetown

May 6th

We left the grey nomads to continue on with their fishing and drunk behaviour to head south again alongside an interesting railway line that ran from Normanton & Croydon. This short stretch of railway is only used now for tourist trips but was originally built to move the gold mined in Croydon to Normanton so it could be shipped from Karumba. This line was difficult and costly to build and was only used for four years! The line runs over swamp land thus every wet season would be inundated with water and the train would possibly be stuck for weeks while the water subsided.




After checking out the quiet – now farming – town, we headed on Georgetown, another town that was big for mining but now is a centre for surrounding farms. Georgetown hosts one of the biggest personal collections of rocks and minerals. The museum was very interesting – pertified wood, prehistoric mollusc shells, thunder eggs and various minerals – we learnt a lot!

Karumba

May 3rd-5th
We then headed north up to the Gulf of Carpentaria to where all the grey nomads had been hiding. The township of Karumba has 4 caravan parks and they were all filled with grey nomads and fishing boats.




Karumba is fishing heaven for those who love to catch the big fish such as barramundi or blue salmon. Many people also lay crab pots in the creeks. Karumba is a port for live meat exports overseas and was used during the war as a major port.


Gulf country was very hot and humid and unfortunately the only swimming allowed was in the pool as the saltwater crocs, stingers and sharks inhabit the waters of Karumba! As we drove into town we saw two crocs cross the road amongst the various waterbirds!

We spent a half day on a fishing charter and both caught an edible fish each – blue salmon. We also caught lots of grunter fish, catfish and Jamie caught a little sand shark which was cut up and used for bait. We ate our salmon for lunch after we found someone to clean it for us – delicious!





We met 3 women travelling around Australia on motorbikes, raising money for bowel cancer research and spreading the word about violence. They have a website if you want to check it out – it is pretty amazing as one of the ladies has bowel cancer, and this trip is something she always wanted to do. www.penscouragetochange.com.au.
It was great to be by the ocean, view the gulf and eat fresh seafood!

Cane Toads using Telstra to phone there buddies down in NSW

Lawn Hill

An absolutely beautiful national park! We were lucky enough to only share the campsite with one other set of campers on our first night so it was quiet and we could listen to the birds going to sleep at night and waking up in the morning. We were lucky enough to hear a barking owl! We walked up to the furthest lookout and viwed the gorge from above – there are waterfalls, pandanas trees, ferns, wallabies and unfortunately freshwater crocs! These crocs are apparently shy and won’t bite but we decided not to swim but instead canoe up the creek and through the gorge – beautiful! The pictures explain it all.



A friendly frog in the toilet

Devils Marbles - Tennant Creek - Camooweal - Mt Isa

Thursday 29th
Waking up with the knowledge we hadn’t been whisked away into a spaceship overnight but instead to a sprinkler right next to our tent – placed there by the odd grounds keeper was dampening.
We headed towards the Devils Marbles Conservation Park – a very sacred area for the local indigenous people and when you are there you can feel and see why – it is such a quiet area and the size and balance of the rocks upon one another is quite amazing.







We continued to head north towards Tennant Creek then stayed the night 10km across the Queensland border in a town called Camooweal.

Friday 30th
Mt Isa was the next stop on our journey through Queensland. Mt Isa mine has a much longer life than Broken Hill mine thus the town is more industrial but built in much the same way as Broken Hill is – mine at one end and town at the foot and spreads from that so that from nearly everywhere in town you can see the mine.

We spent the afternoon at the Mt Isa discovery centre where we learnt about the Riversleigh fossil site in Lawn Hill National Park and were also able to talk to a palaeontologist who worked at the site. It was very interesting learning about the fossils that had been discovered in the area – it is one of the best sites in Australia for marsupial and mammal fossils. This site gave scientists mush more knowledge about what lived in Australia millions of years ago.
Fossils of a turtle and 'big bird'

Desert Park & Wycliffe Well

We started the day with a visit to Alice Springs Desert Park – definitely worth a visit as we got to see and find out the names of many animals we had seen whilst in the area. We were able to come close to Black Kites, Falcons and Boobook owls. In the Nocturnal house we viewed many animals we hadn’t seen such as the Quoll, Potoroo and the Hopping mouse! There were also many smaller birds in the open aviaries, beautiful to see and listen to.



We then departed Alice and headed towards Wycliffe Well for a night with the aliens. This place is known for the most UFO sightings in Australia – boasting thousands of visits over the years (the walls of the road house are covered with newspaper articles and pictures) The roadhouse also seems to be a failed tourist park as there were statues of the hulk, Elvis and star trek men. Luckily we weren’t abducted but not a lot of sleep was had by Vanessa.

EAST MACDONNELL RANGES AND ALICE SPRINGS

Seeing as the town was closed for the day we headed into the East MacDonnell ranges towards Trephina Gorge via a few other waterholes for two nights. Trephina gorge was quiet and the surrounding country beautiful to walk through. The waterhole wasn’t as inviting but it was a waterhole nonetheless! We also walked along a track (that we couldn’t drive on due to our car lacking high clearance) to another waterhole where Jamie clambered through the gorge to see a few more hidden waterholes behind. It was a quiet place to be for the couple of days that we were there.

We headed back into Alice on Tuesday for haircuts, a wash and a movie. That night we tried to fall asleep to the sounds of fighting in the Todd River – not the nicest noise to hear but unfortunately that seems to be how it is in Alice – hopefully things can change soon.