Wouldn’t be without it

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Day 95 - Paronella Park to Cairns (just!)

We woke up this morning still at Paronella Park but with the added bonus of having the Channel 7 ‘Sunrise’ team with us as this morning’s weather forecast with Fifi Box is coming from inside the park, how exciting! We’d tried to text the Adams back in Box Hill but there’s no mobile phone coverage here so that didn’t work, darn, nobody will ever see the ‘Hi Mum & Dad’ posters now! We were down with the team and watching the antics from about 6.30am, Fifi even found time for photos and luckily one was with us! The team moved around the park quite a lot covering the castle, the waterfalls, the Grand Staircase and finally Kauri Avenue. It was good fun watching how everything comes together for the broadcast, especially when they mis-laid the clipboard with Fifi’s info on it and when they were asking Judy (the park’s owner) to tell them the reading on the mobile temperature gauge! We had an impromptu breakfast when a lovely lady served up some delicious bites so none of us went hungry and the finale with all the local school kids was terrific. A thoroughly interesting start to the day! Back at the caravan we started to pack up to be on our way. We’d spoken to the lovely ladies in the campervans parked next to us last night and learned that they’d enjoyed Paronella Park back in the 1960’s long before the fires that destroyed the main ballroom and movie theatre, dancing the night away under the fabled mirror ball enjoying it’s beauty ‘back in the day’. They’d enjoyed last nights tour but were a little reserved about what the daylight would reveal after all these years. We hope we meet these ladies again somewhere along the way, we’re travelling in the same direction so it’s more than possible! We’re so glad that we made the detour to visit Paronella Park and hope that Mark & Judy’s, the new owners, plans to re-introduce the Hydro power plant soon become a reality and that the park continues to grow in popularity. The staff are fabulous too, a great credit to the park as they go out of their way to ensure everyone is having a fabulous time. Long may the dream continue!

During Fifi’s weather broadcasts we didn’t catch what it was supposed to be doing for the rest of the day but needless to say it’s already taking a turn for the worst and the rain is getting harder. Going through the small town of South Johnstone the aroma from the Sugar Cane factory is almost overwhelming, it’s so strong! The network of cane train tracks seems to criss-cross the high street and at one point it does share the road making it’s claim to importance and right of way! Jackie (the Calypso guide from Mission Beach) had told us about a great café here called Off the Rails and sure enough breakfast was being served as we passed by! We followed the highway and could soon see Walsh’s Pyramid in the distance. I’d toyed with the idea of doing the walk, I thought it would be something different to do - walking up a pyramid and the height, on paper, didn’t look unachievable. Now we were face to face with it my mind began to change! There’s a footrace each year where people run up and back down and the record is 1 hour 15 minutes for the 20km round circuit! Mad, crazy fools! It was at this point we spied two other mad, crazy fools, Christof and his girlfriend who we also met on the Calypso tour. They are cycling around Australia and aim to do 100km’s per day and although their route would have been fairly level today the weather must be making it tough going. Good luck to them both though, they have our full admiration.

There were a couple of spots along today’s route where we could have stopped and set up camp but we decided to push on through because of the grim weather. This meant we missed a couple of the national parks, the opportunity to swim at Josephine Falls and the sight of The Boulders but hey, we can’t see everything!

Nearing the outskirts of Cairns we’re getting closer to the Crystal Cascade campsite where we’ve decided to stop tonight. We become aware of a taxi driver in the inside lane next to us, he’d undertaken our car and caravan which we weren’t impressed with but then crossed the lane in front of us to pull up along side Darryl’s window. Turns out that we’ve got smoke coming from the caravan tyres and he thinks we’ve got a bearing gone. We thank him for the tip off and pull over to the side of the dual carriage way to check things out. Dar can see that the leaf spring (part of the caravan suspension) has snapped on the near side and the tyre has been rubbing the chassis which had probably caused the smoke. It must have only just happened so we were lucky in that respect and the fact that we had mobile phone coverage, were close to a garage and on a road big enough for us to pull over and not cause a block. We were parked close to a garage so Dar called in to see if anyone there could fix us up. They came to have a look but suggested we got recovered to a Caravan specialist if we could. We’ve got RACV (same as AA or RAC back home) cover for the car and the caravan so we call them up for the first time of our trip. It’s a bit confusing at first as they seem to make a bit of a meal of things but you’ll see as time goes on that they were excellent and as their slogan goes we ‘wouldn’t be without it’! We were told that someone would be with us within the hour and that in the meantime we needed to think about where we wanted to go! That got us thinking, Canada maybe or Fiji!!! Sorry, no time for sarcasm! We borrowed a ‘white pages’ and took pot luck with Cairns Caravan Repairs, speaking to a guy called Dave that told us to have the caravan brought to his yard. This was all happening about 11.30 in the morning so we were hopeful that we’d be back on the road later today. The first RACQ (Q is for Queensland, V is for Victoria!) recovery truck swung by to check us out and measure the caravan etc. There was already another truck on the way but he didn’t get to us for about another 40 minutes so time was starting to tick away by this point. Our temporary home was hoisted up on to the back of the recovery truck and off we all went to the repair yard. When we got there it was obvious that they were busy and we started to realise we were either going to be sleeping in their yard in the caravan tonight or we’d need to make alternative arrangements. Our cover with the RACV means they pay for reasonable accommodation in this sort of scenario and when Dave confirmed that it would be tomorrow lunchtime before we could be on our way we got back on the phone to find a bed for tonight.

Lonely Planet had a good review about Discovery Resort and when I rang I managed to convince the receptionist Heather to give us a deal for a knocked down $110 which was our guide line limit from RACV. We were glad to have that sorted so emptied everything we thought we might need from the caravan and Dave kindly said that he’d put the fridge on to electric for us so we didn’t run the gas down and our food didn’t defrost! Let’s hope they keep the caravan level or it won’t work anyway!

The resort is quite close to the centre of Cairns and a 15 minute walk takes us there. It’s still raining so we decided to try out the Cairns Wildlife Dome which is on the top of the city casino. We get there just in time for the Furry Friends presentation which includes a bandicoot, a rather fat possum which likes to sit on the handlers head and of course a koala! It’s a great place in a rather unique location and even houses a saltwater crocodile which at this time of year is very docile. The birds fly around and occasionally poop on unsuspecting visitors, Darryl included! We spend some time watching the Spotted Catbird hoping it will give us a rendition of its beautiful singing voice slash cat wail! No luck though, his beak is firmly sealed this afternoon!

The wander back to the resort passes by a couple of camera shops and we are now the proud owners of an underwater bag for use with our spare, old camera! We’d decided we wanted to be able to take digital photos when we’re snorkelling or shallow diving but we’ve been unable to get a waterproof housing for our compact Casio camera. The lady in the shop was brilliant, she totally had the opportunity to sell us a brand new $499 camera with waterproof housing but she instead suggested that we try this $39.95 option first as she uses it with her Canon Powershot so assures us it’s safe as long as you follow the instructions!

Last job of the day, to find our way to an Indian Restaurant to get ourselves a takeaway! With that done we’re relaxing in our nice resort room with a saltwater swimming pool just outside the door, shame the weather isn’t warmer as we would have definitely been up for using that!!

So, everyone keep their fingers crossed that the caravan is ready and back with us tomorrow so we can continue the journey, oh, and that the bill isn’t too extreme!

Love to all, Dar and Sar

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