Red Hot Chilli & No Peppers

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DAY 288


This blog is from Henrietta Creek but it is not in The travel blog Website, so we have requested that it be added, and when it is I will remove his notice. KJ


I felt drip land on my face, the morning is not yet light but you can see the mist and in turn there are large drops of moisture dropping off the trees that surround us, particularly the one over our heads! We zip the inner flap up so that we don’t get any more drops, but you can still hear them drop on the canvas.

Andy heard a strange sound from a bird, it sounded a little bit like “lillaaa Wooop”, I heard it as well, but neither of us could identify it, it was a lovely sound, one would call out and then from another direction you could hear another one call out. We are not sure if they are owls, but checking my bird book later I could not see anything to identify them.

At 7.30 it was still cool outside, but the morning was beckoning so I stealthily got out of bed so that I did not wake Andy, which probably failed miserably anyway. I got the kettle on and made a cup of tea, by which time Andy appeared.

I suggested that we take our cups of tea and walk up to the bridge at Henrietta Creek, there are some waterfalls, but it is a 2.4km walk, it would still be nice just to go to the bridge and have a look and take some photos.

While we were there our fellow campers Ken and Roz Sherman walked up, they are geared up to do the 2.4 kilometre hike to the falls, however they stop for a chat and we chat for quite some time, during which the lovely cool morning is giving way to the heat from the rising sun.

We finish our tea and Ken wraps up the conversation, he is anxious to get walking, so off they go and Andy and I wander down to the creek edge to see if we can see any Platypus, last nights efforts failed so we are not too hopeful this morning as we think we are too late.

Back at camp we have breakfast, everything we are doing is at a leisurely pace this morning, it is hard not to be leisurely with the birds tweeting around you, for a change we are not surrounding by loud squawks.

Andy gets on with the blog and updates our camping schedule, I get on with tidying up the inside of the tent and get it ready for moving on. I cleaned my teeth and washed but when I went back inside the tent to get changed I felt a tickly on my leg and realised that a Leech had found its way onto me, fortunately it had not yet attached itself so I ran outside and flicked it off. Andy says he never saw me move so fast, but he has never had a leech try to feed off him, horrible things.

The “whizz bangs” who arrived yesterday evening had not even surfaced, it was nearly 11.00, so they have missed out on this beautiful morning.

Andy and I finish packing up the tent ready to move on and then Ken and Roz reappear, Roz is holding a little plastic container in her hands as she approaches.Roz said it was home made cake for very special people, which we thought was really nice, and wow what an amazing cake.
We welcome them back from their walk, Roz says she is exhausted they ended up doing the circuit which was a lot longer, they were not even sure that there was a circuit as there was no map or directional guide, they just carried on and hoped for the best, but they made it back in one piece and were ready for their morning tea and cake before hitting the road.

We hit the road at about 11.30, again we are in no hurry today, there is not a lot of mileage to do we just really wanted to get a little bit closer to Cairns, we could have stayed at Henrietta Creek but chose to move instead, sometimes a difficult decision when you have places like these to stay.

Just as soon as we see a lay-by Andy pulled in to check the tyre pressures, one looked a bit low but we wanted to get on the flat as we were parked awkwardly at Henrietta, however they were a little on the low side he pumped them up, while we were doing this we get a beep from Ken and Roz as they drive past us.

We are back on the road, it is a lovely road driving down through the mountains and onto flatter land as we head to Innisfail. We wanted to stop and get some some internet access to load up the blog, so we found a MacDonalds for a McCafe Coffee and in we went.

We were pleased to find that Helen at Woodstock has sent us photos of Woodstock, the Poddy Lambs and of course the ever lovely Wally our professional sheepdog who still has his leg in plaster, but hopefully only for another week, he cannot wait to get the plaster removed.

We see photos of a very different Woodstock from when we remember seeing it way back in February, the parched land has given way to green fields which the lambs are quite happily grazing on, there is also a shot of an early morning frost, something which could not be further from our minds at the moment.

There is a photo of Caroline, Wendy and Andy the poddy lambs that were named after us, they were drinking from their respective bottles of feed, a nice touch from Helen as they bottles were all empty wine bottles with rubber teats on them, I assume that they had all been emptied of wine.

As we were not to happy with the free camp site just outside of Innisfail, just a little bit too exposed, we decided to push on to Babinda, where there is are another 3 free camps, we drove up to the Boulders knowing that there are limited sites there, however on arrival we find 5 sites and more than 2 campers per site, so space is already stretched, we decide to head back into Babinda and check out the other 2.

Just on the south side there is a free camp at the Rotary Park, when we arrive, this too is quite busy, however it is much larger and we easily find a spot for our Wendy House on wheels. It is early afternoon we are soon pitched and resting in the shade as the sun is very hot.

We have Internet access so Andy uploads the missing blogs.

I used to think in England there is never an excuse to have a cold shower even when the central heating boiler breaks down the gym was always the best place to go for a hot shower. However on this site there is a single cold shower in the ladies and as we have been free camping for 3 nights I decide that now is the time for a shower albeit a cold one. It is hot so it is no hardship, in fact the water that has been sitting in the pipes comes out very hot, but soon turns cold.

Andy Skype the Wallaby Wanderers who have appeared in Alice, it is great to catch up with them properly, except we cannot see them as they are too tight to buy a webcam!! They will be going out to Uluru (Ayres Rock) early tomorrow.

We also catch up with our friends Gary and Karen on Skype, it is great to speak to them they are so enthusiastic about our trip

By now it is tea time so I get on with the cooking and soon I have knocked up a red hot chilli for us, which certainly made our eyes water, we put all the washing up in the bowl and put it in the Patrol to do in the morning.

At last sitting down inside the Wendy house, and out come the cards, a couple of quick hands before we go to bed but it turns out to be a hard fought game, between me and Andy foolishly he think he can beat me and I lul him in to a false sense of Security.

Its soon time for bed, again never a dull moment on our fabulous trip , so until tomorrow, you bloggers we will bid you a good night, and sweet dreams from the land of down under

KJ

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Photos

Talking Again
Andy in serious Conversation with Ken and Roz