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Published: September 15th 2006
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Jo, Anne and Marg
Waiting at the restaurant for the boys to finish golf on Father's Day. So here we are at Woodlands Caravan Park in Atherton. (This is the second blog in a week - trying to catch up). They gave us a great spot together, we are still with Wayne and Jill, on what looked like our very own village green. Because we were up on the tablelands it was quite a bit cooler than the last few weeks but the grass made up for it. Spent a day doing the waterfalls and weren’t they beautiful, and enjoying the tablelands at their best. Also visited the excellent Chinese museum and Temple. Once again a huge Chinese influence after the gold discoveries at Palmer River. They were not allowed to mine for any gold other than alluvial and consequently used their skills as market gardeners and retailers. We left Wayne and Jill here in Atherton as they were getting their car serviced and we wanted to catch up with Carmel and Ian Feebrey who by chance we found were camped about 30 k’s away at Lake Tinaroo. We stayed at the Caravan Park and the Feebs were at a camping spot right on the lake. They stay mostly in National Parks and are set up to do
Palm Cove
Dinner on Saturday night at Reef House with Bill's brother and sister-in-law who are lucky enough to live locally. a lot more off road stuff than we are. We drove over to them for tea and had a hilarious night ringing friends drinking champagne and wine whilst Ian cooked corned beef in the camp kitchen on an open fire. Had a ball. They came to us the next night for a bbq - we hadn’t had enough the night before so did it all again. Luckily we had to go the next day! (Have just realised that I published the photos of Lake Tinaroo in the last blog.)
From Lake Tinaroo we headed to Palm Cove and a pre arranged 5 star weekend at Sea Temple with the McJannetts and Backs. We left the van in a vacant block at the end of the street and booked in for 3 nights. It was just a really great weekend, catching up with our mates and eating, drinking and laughing ourselves silly. Sunday was Father’s Day and the boys were booked into Port Douglas for golf. We girls headed to Port Douglas after facials which made us look gorgeous, to meet them for lunch. Unfortunately it bucketed down and the boys just about swam around the second nine and we
Croc One
Steve Irwin's boat at Port Douglas, taken the day after he was killed. were unable to do the rounds of the markets as we had planned. At least the lunch of tapas was great but really no alternative to some good retail therapy. We were sorry to see everyone leave at lunch time on Monday but hooked up the van and booked into Ellis Beach which is only 7 k’s north of Palm Cove. The saddest thing was hearing about Steve Irwin as we arrived, everyone in the park was just shocked, it really is amazing how respected and well loved he was. Back to Ellis Beach CP, this was a real find. Has great cabins on the beachfront but only about 12 caravan sites on the water the rest close to the road. Found out we could get a beach front site after 2 nights so ended up staying 5 nights altogether doing very little but swimming and walking along the beach and generally relaxing after our exhausting weekend at Sea Temple!
Did some research on getting to Cape York whilst staying at Ellis Beach and decided to do a 7 day drive/fly safari instead of driving ourselves. We don’t think we have enough experience to do the 4 wheel driving
Ellis Beach
This is actually moon rise - it was just spectacular and makes you want to do that photography course. and we definitely don’t have all the recommended equipment. The tour leaves on Sun 17th Sept so we decided to take ourselves up to Cooktown in the interim which is where I am writing this. The road has finally been sealed all the way so it is only about a 4 hour easy drive towing the van. Have booked into the Big 4 park here and it is just about the nicest one we have been in so far. Have done some great touring around here and have been blown away by some of the wonderful beaches and camping spots. Unfortunately in another month or so the stingers will be in and there won’t be any swimming in the sea which is the major shortcoming living on the coast in far north Qld. The crocs make sure there’s not a lot of swimming anywhere around here actually. Cooktown had it’s heyday in the late 1890’s when gold was discovered in the Palmer River area and the buildings reflect the wealth of that time. The Jame Cook Museum is in the old convent and is stunningly impressive as well as being a great Museum. These days the population is quite small,
Ellis Beach again
Sunrise was just as spectacular, not that I saw it. John just loves getting up early. around the 3,000 mark, as well as a lot of people living on the outskirts of town on acreage. As the road has now been sealed there is an air of expectation for the future. A sister-in-law from my first marriage has lived here for nearly 30 years and loves the place.(Have put in a picture of us having dinner at the Top Pub where we had a 'top feed'.) They live on acreage and the attraction in previous years has been privacy, freedom and great weather as well as fishing, fishing and more fishing. Once again the road being upgraded will probably change all that and who knows what the next few years will bring. Left Cooktown on Thurs 14th - it was windy as all get out - going back to Cairns where we will leave the car and van whilst we head north all the way to the tip! Leaving on Sunday 17th so will get back to you after that.
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Jan and Gene
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Texas is windy, we have the big windmills all over. Are you going to make it back in a year?