We stayed for a night at Bedrock Village Caravan Park in Mt Surprise. This was a nice caravan park and worth remembering if we are back this way one day. It was also where Steve, one of the workers here, identified the Brown tree snake that we had come across at Lake Eacham - see our previous blog entry. Steve also invited us into his cabin to show us all the bits and pieces of fossils, shells, skulls, etc that he had collected over the years, which were very interesting. From Mt Surprise we continued heading west on The Savannah Way , which connects Cairns in the east with Broome in the west via the Gulf of Carpentaria. We stopped for lunch at Lake Belmore, a few kilometres out of Croydon, and then continued into Normanton. ... read more

We packed up a very wet camper trailer in the rain on Tuesday morning and headed up to Port Douglas. We stopped briefly at Pebbly Beach, which is appropriately named with millions of smooth pebbles with varying colours. At Port Douglas we drove up to the town lookout and then passed all the resorts again on our way out with just a small tinge of envy, given that it was still raining and we had a soggy tent to look forward to. Oh, the joys of camping! We continued up to Mossman Gorge in Daintree National Park. We walked down to the Mossman River and completed the short River Circuit Track, but the longer Rainforest Circuit Track was closed. It had stopped raining by now although it still looked threatening, so we probably wouldn't have done ... read more

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 ... read more

We set off from Rockhampton on our 400 km or so trip up to Cape Hillsborough National Park, situated on the coast about 50 km north of Mackay. We wondered how we would go as we had not done such a long leg for ages. However, we started listening to 'The Key to Rhondo' by Emily Rodda on spoken word and time flew by. We stopped for lunch at Clairview, a small coastal village located midway along our route. We heated up our Bratwurst (smoked German) sausages that we had bought back in Maryborough and some onion on the BBQ, which we ate with sauce and mustard in a roll. The Clairview Community Centre is located at the rest stop and we bought some more jars of home made chutney and relishes there, an unexpected but ... read more

After walking along Urangan Pier in Hervey Bay, we drove back out to the highway via Torbanlea and Howard. We stopped at Childers for another one of our BBQ-sausage lunches at the local park. After lunch we went for a stroll along the main street and treated ourselves to 'Mammino' ice-creams, gourmet ice-creams made nearby. They were delicious and very rich. Above the Visitor Centre, we then browsed through the art gallery and the very moving Childers Backpackers Memorial upstairs in the renovated Palace building, which was the scene of the Palace Hostel fire in 2000 that killed 15 fruit-picking backpackers. The memorial features an amazing glass wall full of poignant images and memories of the 15 backpackers. The lady from the Visitor Centre spent some time telling us about the fire and how the surviving ... read more