Blogs from Atherton Tablelands, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 5

DAY 276 We woke up this morning in a place that can only be described as paradise, from my sleeping bag we can look over lake Tineroo and it is beautiful, the birds are chatting, the Kookaburra’s a laughing and all seems well with the world The day is started with a morning cup of tea with Darryl and Sarah in the day picnic area overlooking a different part of the lake; the mist was just rising off the water, Sarah and I discussed photography technical stuff and took photos, Andy managed to type some of the blog as it was starting to get a bit behind, it is such a hard job catching up, as the days just seem to blend in to one. We wandered back to our site and started to rustle up ... read more

DAY 275 We were not really quite sure how today was going to pan out, we found out yesterday that this campsite is fully booked and we would have to move on, after having told Darryl and Sarah that we would be at this particular place, this could mean that we potentially miss each other. The morning was cool but the sun was coming up, Andy got up for the kettle and I followed shortly after, my tea was made, I jumped out of the tent, took a slurp of tea, grabbed the camera and wandered off to look at the beautiful Lake Tinaroo that we are camped next to and take a photo or two of course. I knocked up a breakfast of boiled eggs, we were not in any particular hurry to move ... read more

We headed out of Cooktown on the very flash Mulligan Highway, built in 2006, which follows the old Cooktown-Developmental Road and connects Cooktown with Mareeba. We stopped briefly at James Earl Lookout, just south of Lakeland, and then had sausages for lunch in Mareeba. We continued south on the Kennedy Highway, then near Tolga, took the turn-off to Kauri and Tinaroo. We stopped at the Tinaroo Dam spillway and then drove into Danbulla National Park and State Forest to camp at Downfall Creek camp ground. Our camp site had a great view of Lake Tinaroo and allowed fires, although you had to bring your own wood. As we had arrived on Friday afternoon, the camp ground was filling up with weekend campers, but it never got rowdy - perhaps the light rain that began falling kept ... read more

08/05/09 Friday Day 266 A flying day and a busy day Early start this morning, very early. Up at 4am to go for a hot air balloon ride. Mareeba is the capital of hot air ballooning in Australia and since we’re here it’d be stupid not to. Went to our pick up point and was met there by the pilot, Dave in his 4x4 carrying a trailer with the balloon all folded up and the basket where we would all fit in. There was a bus load also coming from Cairns but they would meet us at the launch site. There was another older couple from Oz in the jeep with us also on the way to the launch site. Lovely people! Your man had been up before with the same pilot. Your one hadn’t along ... read more

Aujourd’hui a été une longue journée! On avait planifié se rendre de Cairns à Townsville aujourd’hui. En tout, on a fait 420 km, mais la journée a semblé plus longue car on a été pris pendant près de deux heures sur l’autoroute où il y avait des délais dû à un accident qui avait pris place la veille entre un train et un camion. Auparavant, on a passé par la région « Tropical Tablelands » et l'autoroute Gillies (une route qui tournait beaucoup pour traverser les montagnes). C’était encore très joli comme paysage. On a arrêté au lac Eacham et aussi aux chutes Milaa Milaa. Ces chutes sont vraiment belles! Le reste du temps a été passé dans l’auto! C’était une bonne journée pour faire de la route, car il a plu beaucoup aujourd’hui. Avec toute ... read more