Darwin - Brisbane

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Darwin was such a long time ago I have to think long and hard about what we’ve done since then…I know it involves heaps of driving and lots of rain!

On leaving Darwin and busting a groove through Katherine, our second time there and still nothing to report, onto Mataranka Thermal Springs (highly recommended) and past the Queensland Boarder, we made our way to the little Gem of Mount Isa. Tom and I were so excited to be arriving into a town on a Friday night to sample the delights over the weekend. We’d usually arrived into town on a long weekend or a Sunday (both by accident) and missed seeing a few things. But this time, we had done our calculations and were all set to do a full day of sightseeing! We pulled into our chosen caravan park to be informed that not only had we lost a day somewhere and it was in fact a Saturday night, but it was also a long weekend. A double whammy!! Fortunately for us there were a few tourist things open for half a day so we explored an underground hospital that was set up in case the WWII invasion made its way to Mt Isa. It wasn’t actually used as a hospital but it had lots of artefacts and an expected creepy atmosphere. We also picnicked at Lake Moondarra and checked out the local weekend market. Not as exciting as we had hope, but came away with a lovely homemade Spicy Tomato relish.

There are two routes to Cairns and we decided on the northern route, a smaller road that we thought would be more exciting. It was that and we spent lots of road time on a single lane, pot holed tarmac track trying to avoid traffic coming the other way and spending the next few days passing through a blur of small country towns drinking Ice Breaks (iced coffee and Toms favourite food group). It went a little something like this:

Normanton = giant Croc (see photo – apparently actual size)

Karumba = Only town with a sealed road to the Golf of Carpentaria – fishing competition and long weekend meant that we were the only one there without a boat, our van was about half the size of everyone else’s and we were about half the age too. Also Croc territory so fish at your own risk!

Mount Surprise = grumpy old Caravan Park owner. Dirty swimming pool. Pools were no longer a priority!

Undara Lava Tunnels = bloody awesome! Tunnels under the ground carved out by the lava flow from nearby Volcanos. I know right? Australia has Volcanos!! It was also Tom’s big 30th today too.

Innot Hot Springs = Not recommended though Tom did have a Swedish massage by a Swedish lady. Happy Birthday dear.

Atherton/Yungaburra = Cold, wet, hilly, but great B-day dinner at Nick’s Italian/German restaurant

Kuranda = Hippy Tourist village where we checked out the local rainforest, waterfall and Emu hotdog. A pretty good day.

CAIRNS

We had arranged to meet up with our friends Rhys (Tom’s best man for those at the wedding) and his fiancé Jess for the weekend. Due to the rain making everything much harder in our little damp van, we decided to get into Cairns earlier and took full advantage of that extra day by peeling our mountain bikes off the back of the van, checking all the bits were there and hitting the Cairns slopes. The trails around there were once built to hold the World Downhill Championships and were listed as some of the best trails in Australia. Well, all I can say was that Tom and I lasted about an hour and a half and ended back at the van in a tired frustrated heap. The trails were in awful condition, the maps were wrong and just when you thought you had a found a great section of cross country track and you were getting into the swing of things, either the track was so bad you had to get off your bike, or you had to stop to scratch your head in puzzlement and frustration as you tried to work out where to go next. PLUS, major swarming mosquitoes. Tom seemed to fair quite well, however, I suffered horribly and ended up with what looked like a nasty disease on my right Calf muscle and left forearm. Random attackage by the mozzies leaving a very uncomfortable and ugly mess for me.

Anyway, back at the Caravan park and a quick dip in the subzero pool cleaned most of the mud and grime off and eased some itching, though had I known that someone would run off with my bikini the following day, I would have skipped the rather unpleasantly cold dip and saved myself a heap of trouble trying to replace it!

The rest of the weekend went rather nicely though Rhys had the flu and stayed in his hotel room most of the time. We did bump into other friends of ours there so we did manage to go on the town on Saturday night, a few BBQs and a very quick dip in the Lagoon on the foreshore. Monday included an interview at CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority) to wrap up our Kununurra Flight incident and then headed outa town north to the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest.

Who would have thought Australia could be so rugged and green? The drive from Cairns to Port Douglas was stunning and gave our van a good run for its money. Twisty windy roads weaving its way up steep, steep hill sides almost did the van in. But she kept plodding along, much to the annoyance of the nifty little cars lined up behind us who couldn’t overtake on such bendy roads. But wow what views!

Port Douglas: a pretty little town built as the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef and the rainforest. This is where we chose to do our snorkelling trip from after much research and booked ourselves onto a recommended tour leaving the following day. Thank goodness this one went off without a hitch. It was pretty windy and the sea was rather rough so I swallowed by prided and munched on a couple of sea sickness pills whilst Tom found his sea legs and was quite happy to make me feel worse with his usual boyish charm and lack of consideration for those who might have been feeling just a little bit ill ;-) However, once in the again bloody cold water minus crocs and jelly fish, you forgot about your stomach as your eyes were opened up to the amazing colours and formations of both sea creatures and coral. We went to 3 locations on the reef and all 3 had loads to see and places to explore. The sea food lunch was also a crowd pleaser no matter how sick people were feeling and by the 3^rd snorkel, the sun was shining too! Unfortunately, we didn’t have our camera with us and we don’t have an underwater one anymore so there are no pics to go with this section.

Next was the exploration of the Daintree Rainforest at Cape Tribulation. This lush, green area has many little nooks and crannies to go and explore giving you a real rainforest experience. Tom and I travelled up the cape including onto the unsealed road towards Cooktown (though not very far as we had grave reservations as to whether the van would make the journey back to tarmac as it conquered each hill a little less enthusiastically with each climb it made) stopping at walking loops, watering holes/swimming holes (too cold for a swim) beaches and of course an ice-cream shop. I think we covered most of what the Daintree had to offer in a day (including a crocodile sunning itself on the bank of the river on our return journey) and were back in Port Douglas with the biggest plate of Nacho’s you have ever seen that evening. I have no shame in saying said nachos totally won that contest.

Travelling south we spent another few days hopping from town to town. By this stage we had run out of audio books (our last one Gould’s Book of Fish being rather random and nonsensical) but thankfully, distances are much shorter here. Went passed through Cardwell, Stopped in Townsville to catch up with one of Tom’s Uni friends, had a VERY boozy night in Airlie Beach with a German/Italian couple whose son was out boozing with friends and had left mum and dad safely at the caravan park. Little did he know that Tom and I were there with a bottle of wine AND a bottle of rum, both of which were consumed that night much to our pain and regret the next morning, and headed inland to Moranbah. With queasy stomachs and nap stops we arrived at bustling mine town with sinking hearts. Well, mine was anyway. Tom had been given some work at the mine site there which was awesome for his career however, it would mean 4 days in a dingy motel (paid by the mining company thankfully) with nothing to do. That was a long 4 days. I even got to the point where the clothes dryer broke so I iron dried our laundry! We have not counted those 4 days as part of our honeymoon. In fact, I’d quite like to forget it if it wasn’t for the fact that we got to catch up with Warner and his family. Thanks guys!

So Thursday afternoon slowly rolled in and we were outa there without looking back. It was so good to be back in the van and on the road if only for a day or two.

We experienced our first full caravan park in Emerald. For the whole 2 months we have been travelling not once have we been told that there was no room so to arrive a 5pm and have the prospect of nowhere to stay was a little daunting. We tried the other town based caravan park but they were also full so after a bit of research and google searching (smart phones to the rescue) we found another van park out by the local lake but it was 20km away. Do we risk driving out there? It’s dark, wet, cold, killer Cain toads all over the place? Of course we do so out we trundle, fingers crossed that would have somewhere (even the carpark) where we could pull up for the night and to our relief there were maybe 3 sports left. We slept well that night and at a bargain price.

Now, we had made arrangements with another friend of ours to stay with them in Rockhampton over the weekend, however, our planned stop in the Blackdown Tableland National Park campsite seemed less and less appealing as more rain set in Friday morning, so we changed plans and dumped ourselves on Dan and Erin’s doorstop a day early. We did stop in at the beautiful National Park with a very exciting climb high high up the peak, through cloud to pop out the other side to clear, rain free sunshine and what felt like -2 Degrees. Glad we didn’t stay there! A fabulous weekend with our good friends – home cooked food, exploring the coast and national parks, some good wine, and great company. Cheers guys! A hop, skip and a jump later we were through Agnes Waters and the Town of Seventeen Seventy and bumped into the Bundaberg Rum Distillery, fancy that ;-) We never thought we would be able to even smell rum again after our Airlie Beach experience, but there we were all pumped for the tour which was great by the way. We even managed to have a few tasters at the end and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

And now… Brisbane. Well actually Maleny about an hour from the city but we’ve been here for a few days catching up with family and Tom’s been working hard writing documents that follow on from his time in Moranbah. Once it’s finished, that should be it for a while at least. From here we continue south as far as Melbourne and then head back up to Brisbane on the inland route. We think we have about another 5 weeks of travel and hopefully a few days of snowboarding as they say they have record breaking snow this year so fingers crossed. We have stocked up on thermals and thick socks which should hopefully keep us warm and comfortable for this next bit.

Speak to you all again soon, Love Anna and Tom.

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Photos

Normanton Croc
It truley was THIS BIG

Cake
Happy 30th Tom
It has magic candles too!

Its so green
Road between Cairns and Port Douglas

fun with the signage
Thats next to a speed bump by the way. Well, i thought it was funny.