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Wallaman Falls
Australia's highest single-drop waterfall - 268 metres We made the short trip from Townsville to Ingham in good time and then turned right for the 20 km trip to Forrest Beach, which, surprise, surprise, lies on the coast. This is where Norma and Herman re-settled about 5 years ago after spending many years living next to Alex's family in Darwin. Norma and Herm were like second parents to Alex when she was growing up, so I guess they are like another set of grand parents to Annelies and Thomas. At least they spoilt them (and us) as if they are! After we arrived and unpacked, Herm set up the badminton set and we had a bit of a hit (with moderate success), and then tried our hands at bocce, which everyone enjoyed.
On Wednesday we drove out to Wallaman Falls in Girringun National Park (formerly Lumholtz National Park prior to 2003). These falls are Australia's highest single-drop waterfall at 268 metres. If you add some minor drops, the overall height of the falls is over 300 metres. Naturally Thomas was in seventh heaven as one of his missions on this trip was to visit Wallaman Falls. We spent a few minutes at the lookout at the top
of the falls and then did the fairly steep Jinda Walk (1.6m return) which takes you down to the bottom of the falls. Afterwards we drove to the nearby picnic area where we had lunch, and then did the short Banggurru Walk to Stony Creek. Back at Norma and Herm's we had a visit from Leanne and her family (Paul, Ally and David) - Leanne had lived in Darwin with Norma and Herm for 18 months when Alex was young. They stayed for a BBQ plus spaghetti bolognese dinner - Thomas had specifically requested the latter as he reckoned he had been suffering from pasta withdrawal! Ally and David are similar in age to Annelies and Thomas, so they spent a lot of time entertaining themselves. As usual with Norma's cooking and Herm's BBQs, it was a feast, as was Norma's sticky-date pudding with caramel sauce for dessert, which even surpassed her 'lemon delicious' that we had the previous night.
On Thursday Annelies and Thomas did some school work in the morning and then we all went for a drive up to Dungeness, Lucinda and Halifax. We stopped at Dungeness, which has great views of Hinchinbrook Island, and also
where one of Norma's nine brothers is working on the widening of the boat ramp. The ramp is very popular and was quite narrow, so there has been several 'ramp rage' incidents when some fishermen get annoyed with the slow coaches getting on or off the ramp. This seems to go against most fishermen's goal of having a relaxing day on the water! We also had a look at the 5.6 km long jetty in Lucinda, apparently the world's largest bulk sugar loading facility. Lucinda is a sugar exporting town and the jetty is used for exporting over half a million tonnes of sugar annually.
We packed up on Friday and left Norma and Herm with some reluctance. It was great seeing them and we hope to see them again in the not too distant future.
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