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Onwards and upwards from Townsville (that’s north), one of our shortest journeys to date, the day after will be the shortest. We stop at Mutarnee, got to mention the park. It’s big, it’s quiet and has excellent facilities, park where we like for $25! Alas only stopping one night whilst we visit Paluma Range National Park. We had another steep climb before looking back over the valley to the sea. We then visited Little and Big Crystal Creeks, both fantastic spots for a swim (see pics) and then The Water Slides, more for the brave or maybe foolish as you shoot down the rapids between the rocks (pic of foolish girl in IBTWYPDB was censored by Deb, sorry guys). Back to camp via the world famous (Australia famous) Frosty Mango - yum yum!
50k north of Mutarnee is Ingham, our home for the next 3 nights, 50km being our shortest journey to date. From here we visited Lucinda, the jetty boasts to be the longest service jetty in the Southern Hemisphere at 5.76km long.
Afterwards we went for a walk at Forrest Beach, where we met a fisherman catching bait - Mantis Shrimp to be precise. These little (!) fellas stun
prawns by stinging them and then they drag them into their liars to eat. They are quite disgusting.
We also went to Wallaman Falls, the biggest single drop falls in Australia. Alas we were unable to do the walk we wanted, closed due to the death of a 49 year old Cairns Base Jumper the previous day. At the camp site we make a few friends, a couple of Willy Wagtails that will take food out of your hands, a tired green tree frog, a nesting finch (we think) and a fat cat on a lead (the four legged kind guys).
We decide we have had enough of waterfalls, creeks and rivers for a while so we head to South Mission Beach for a few days R&R. This place is brilliant! The Big 4 site is right on the beach front, 15 seconds from caravan front door to beach! The swimming pool is fantastic and it’s so peaceful! We expected Mission Beach to be similar to Airlie Beach, but it’s not by a long shot, but with Dunk Island in spitting distance and 14km of near empty beaches to stroll, it’s idyllic.
Wednesday 26 May, it’s PMT time (pre match
tension) State of Origin match one. The SLSC 50 metres down the road held a fund raiser, so we joined the atmosphere for the evening. Steve entered a betting competition, for $10 pick the first try scorer, half and full time scores, and man of the match. Steve came up with closest half time score winning 2 return ferry tickets to Dunk Island (we weren’t going to bother doing this at $40 per head). During the game we had an almighty downpour - oops, the roof vents are open in the van! Came home to a wet bed, but what the hell, one up in Origin, and several down (beers that is) who cares? Certainly not us!
Friday was our free day at Dunk Island. We were picked up right outside the camp site by this nifty little boat that drives onto the beach and whips us over to Dunk Island at some 35 knots. We have a great day out on a beautiful island - but no where near as revealing as Magnetic! We also get a view of Bedarra Island visited only by the rich and sometimes famous at over $3000 per night for the best villa!
Saturday
we went to the numero uno top tourist attraction in Queensland as voted by RACQ. This paranormal park, typo error, Paronella Park was built by a Spaniard in the1930s as an entertainment park. We enjoyed it, but you will have to go and make your own mind up rather than us waffle on.
At this point we make an apology to the nice Swedish couple who spent a night at South Mission Beach and left in such a hurry they left 2 very nice towels, now being looked after by yours truly!
Blog 9 will cover our next 2 weeks which we are spending at Lake Placid some 12km north of Cairns, our longest stop to date.
We have put together some statistics after having been on the road for 2 months that you might, or might not, find interesting.
Total km covered 6609km
Total km towing 3532km
Total litres of diesel used 878 litres
Total average litres per 100km 13.3 litres
Best site pool South Mission Beach
Best amenities block Crystal Creek Park, Mutarnee
Most boring grey nomads Airlie Beach
Worst tourist attraction so far Mystery Craters, Bundaberg
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Wendy
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Sounds like you're still having an amazing time exploring Oz. Love the blogs!