We have been staying at Port Douglas, almost in town at Four Mile Beach. Yesterday we had lunch on the wharf, overlooking the very smart boats moored there and had a good look around the area, especially up to the lookout. Today, as every Sunday, the markets were held down on the waterfront. They are quite big and full of lots of goodies - tropical fruits, beautiful plants .. how I wish I could have bought some of the cheap orchids there but would they survive the long trip home? ... clothing, jewellery - all sorts of interesting things. We spent [View Full Entry]

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We are enjoying Cairns, after arriving here yesterday afternoon. We called into Paronella Park once we'd left Mission Beach. http://www.paronellapark.com.au/ A Spanish immigrant, Jose Paronella, who made money first by working on sugar cane farms, then buying and selling farms, had the dream of building a castle. He bought an acreage containing the Mena Falls, in the 1930's, built a home for his family and then got to work building his 'castle'. He was a clever man and a good worker, first building a very very long flight of stairs up the hill so he could carry his building materials up [View Full Entry]

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We tore ourselves away from Rollingstone yesterday morning and continued north - a nice drive through sugar cane country We arrived in the sugar mill town of Tully. We had never been to Tully Gorge so decided that we'd drive the 40 klms west of Tully and have a look, a pretty drive with very healthy looking bananas lining each side of the road. I think in the wet the Tully river is a raging torrent, but at this time it's just a little stream with a few areas of rapids and lots of rocks - all very pretty. We ignored [View Full Entry]

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Well, only in a manner of speaking. It was great if very busy being back home, getting to see all the family and helping to celebrate all the special birthdays. Tara and the boys making the trip from New Zealand was a great bonus and we were glad we were there for Jason after his car accident. Thankfully, when it was time to leave the big city, life was almost back to normal and Jason recovering. We arrived back in Townsville at lunch time yesterday and, after picking up the motor home - all intact and waiting for us - donning [View Full Entry]

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We have had five wonderful days and nights at Rollingstone, walking the beach, swimming in the pool, just lazing around in the sunshine, chatting to the other campers and I've begun the big job of scrapbooking my photos of our trip. We've found birds have been prolific around the country and here is no exception. Each evening lorrikeets make a racket as they settle into the trees, yesterday there was a Brahminy Kite and a Sea Eagle flying overhead and fishing in the shallows of the ocean was a Jabiru. The female Red Tailed Black Cockatoo was in the tree next [View Full Entry]

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After we left the caravan park at Charters Towers, we drove into town to have another look around. I like it there, the old Queenslander houses with their wide bull-nosed verandahs and the solid Victorian buildings from the time Charters Towers was a very wealthy town in the gold rush days. Now, I think it's a cattle town - I certainly saw a lot of big hats and boots around town! We drove on to Townsville - such a pretty city and getting bigger every time we see it, in fact, it’s probably the biggest city we’ve been to since Perth. [View Full Entry]

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We left Mt. Isa and drove through very boring country to Cloncurry. We stopped at the John Flynn Memorial Centre there to view an excellent display on Dr. Flynn's work - his starting the Australian Inland Mission, which became the Royal Flying Doctor Service, begun in Cloncurry in 1928. He was a man of great vision. The network depended largely on a pedal-powered radio invented by Alfred Traeger which helped open up the outback in that people on lonely stations (ranches) could transmit and receive the doctor's information. Tregear and Reverend John Flynn, discussed other services that [View Full Entry]

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We are now in Queensland and on Eastern Standard Time once again. After leaving Tennant Creek, we called into the old Telegraph Station a few kilometres out of town to have a look around and read how they lived there when it was very remote, and morse code was the manner of sending messages. There were small buildings for smoking meat, and keeping food cool underground, a blacksmith's and a butchering building - all interesting. It was then a long long drive though more outback country towards the border. There were quite a few caravans and motor homes heading west - [View Full Entry]

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We have travelled 600 kilometres from Katherine to Tennant Creek, a long trip but with quite a few interesting things to see on the way. Yesterday, our first stop was at Mataranka, in the Elsey National Park. Jeannie Gunn's wrote of her life at Elsey Station in We of the Never Never and in Mataranka's park they have statues of Jeannie and her husband Aenaes and also the Little Black Princess, Bett Bett. Their homestead was recreated for the movie, We of the Never Never and stands near the entrance to the Mataranka Springs. We donned cossies to have a swim [View Full Entry]

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We've had a nice stay in Katherine, catching up, cleaning up, and catching our breath. We spent a good bit of the day yesterday by the pool - we always see someone there who we've met somewhere before on our travels. Some caravan parks, mostly in Queensland, have evening entertainment. We knew there were things on here so last night we went to the outdoor bistro beside the pool to have a look. At happy hour there was a bush poet, quite funny, in fact we realised we have one of his CDs which someone gave us. Later in the night [View Full Entry]

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