Back in Towoomba at our friends Neil and Mandy’s place for a couple of days so we have come full circle since we set off 2 months ago. We are definitely not the greenhorns we were when we initially started but still manage to repeat the same old silly mistakes like not checking that all cupboard doors are locked and the skylight closed before setting off on the road. On the whole I think we are wiser really and still very much enjoying our adventure. We explored part of the riverside in Towoomba by bike which proved to be very pleasant and the view from the lookout at Picnic Point was amazing. With a population of 90,000 Towoomba is very busy with many, many huge noisy trucks passing through delivering goods to the inland towns. We ... read more

After listening to some very talented up and coming Country and Western singers at the Mareeba Rodeo showgrounds we ventured south to a town called Ravenshoe, pronounced Ravens “oh” and not Raven “shoe” we were fortunate to arrive just in time for their local annual carnival and street parade complete with about 15 floats! Very quaint and entertaining. There were even fireworks to round off the day but unfortunately Pete and I were in the pub watching the Kiwis losing against the Kangaroos and missed all the fun and action. Today we set off south once more to travel along the inland route to Charters Towers which amounted to several hundreds of kilometres of red dirt and gum trees and not too much else. The guy at the information office in Ravenshoe tried to persuade us ... read more

The Boulders picnic area at Babinda was a really interesting place with water holes where tourists and locals visit to cool off. However the water was too cool for Pete and I so we were happy to just go for some short walks around the area. Also there are warning signs everywhere to only swim where marked as there have been many drownings due to strong undercurrents when the water is high. On our walks we did see a rare Ulysees butterfly which are quite large and a beautiful bright blue along with several other large butterlies so that was quite special. Next stop was Cairns. We have been here before but it is lovely to be here again as there is so much to do. Today we joined the daily guided walk at the Botanical ... read more

At Airlie Beach before moving on we checked out their great free pool complex complete with sandy beach and sandy floor with a pool for toddlers, a shallow one for the older kids and then a deeper one for the swimmers. Very impressive and very popular. It may be a tourist town but still a great place to spend a few days. We headed north again, stopping at a camp area this time that had free hot showers! Home Hill only has a population of 2,500 so needs as many tourists/travellers to stop as possible to help the local economy. We had a sugar cane train bowl on past several times on one side of us and the main road with heavy trucks on the other but have no complaints as we still managed to sleep. ... read more

Rockhampton to Mackay is approximately 6 hours of driving with little to see in between apart from gum trees and plantations of sugar cane but we pulled over for lunch and fortunately were lucky to hit a spot right on the coast to enjoy the view. We are attempting to use the Camp6 book we have purchased for free camping sites as much as possible but as they are not usually right in the middle of most towns we stayed in a camping ground in the centre of Mackay for the night and made use of the endless hot water to have a wonderful shower seeing as we were paying for it. Mackay seems a lovely place and has a 19km bike trail passing through all the highlights such as the botanical gardens, marina, environmental mangrove ... read more