Musical Tree’s - Revenge of the Kooki Monster

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DAY 290


The morning was lovely waking up at Crystal Cascades Camp site, a little damp as the surrounding area is mountainous, but we knew the morning sun would soon dry every thing out.

Today we were off again, as we have said before we like the Big 4 type camp sites now and again but bush camping is what we love, and where we can really be away from the caravan rat race.

I have been going through our blog day by day as today is day 290 and we keep an excel spread sheet of all the camp sites we have stayed at and what we thought of them, how much they cost what facilities you got etc, and within the 290 days there are a couple of discrepancies so the only thing for it was to go through it, bit by bit.

I have said to Caroline when we take the house in Cairns on Wednesday of this week, with the time we have I am going to read the blog end to end to just remind myself of past events etc and I am really looking forwards to doing that, it will be great to have time to look back while we are still on this fabulous journey.

We have a little breakfast, having the benefit of a powered site we can have toast, so Caroline rustles up some toast and Marmite to compliment the tea that we already have.

Soon after we are starting to pack the trailer away, as we have a plan to go back to Lake Tineroo where it is absolutely beautiful, possibly back to School point where we originally met Julie, who’s house we are renting and of course where we met the Wallaby Wanderers for the first time.

A quick shower for both of us and the trailer tent is now dry and can be folded away, so within 20 minutes its all done and dusted and we are pulling out of Crystal Cascades Caravan Park, heading out of Cairns, towards Atherton through the Gillies and into the Tablelands for Lake Tineroo.

It is an absolutely fantastic drive over what they call Gillies which is the mountain road, towards the Tablelands and of course lake Tineroo, we read camps 5 which tells us that all of the camp sites in the Danbulla National Park can get Telstra service, except School point which we were at Last time, and when we had lunch at Platypus point, with the Wallaby Wanderers we managed good Telstra service so we should be ok this time.

On the way Caroline makes a telephone call (for a change we have phone service) to Richard who we originally met in Tasmania and then caught up with in Darwin, unfortunately I find he is in hospital, he bent over the arm of his wheelchair to pick something up and as he leaned over he broke a rib. He was having to spend a few days in hospital and will hopefully be out and about soon, we wish Richard well, unfortunately he is over in WA so we cannot just pop over to visit him.

Caroline directs me to turn right of the main drag in towards the National Park, and soon we are descending the track and over the cattle grid.

Fong-On bay is only about 10k’s down the track, but for some reason we did not explore it last time, we take the turning to the camp ground and the track goes on for probably 5k’s down to the main entrance.
Caroline has the internet open looking on the availability of Camping at Fong-On bay and tells me it can take up to 251 groups of people.

We now never pay our money straight away, we have been bitten before, so our policy is to drive around first, check it out, see if it is a place we will be happy with, then pay our money, and we will never welsh on the money if it has to be paid.

We find a nice spot, I nearly said little but it is huge our nearest neighbour is about 100 mtrs away, and we have parked near a fire grate, as fires are only allowed in these.

Again the trailer is unpacked and everything is set up, it’s about mid day and the sun is searing, so we pull our chairs under the shade of a tree and enjoy this amazing view of Lake Tineroo and the mountains. The edge of the lake has an abundance of ducks and other birdlife sunbathing, water bathing and fishing.

Caroline rustles up some lunch but I am not that hungry to day so I said I will wait for my evening meal, as tonight we are (I am) going to do a fairly hot chicken curry in the camp oven on the open fire, which are such great fun and so easy to do it’s a joke!!

The trailer is unhitched from the Patrol and we have to go on a forage for wood, we have some in the trailer but we will need more not only to cook on but when you sit around in the evening the nights will be cooler and damper, so a roaring fire is what will be required.

We drive around all the fire pits that are not in use and gather up some of the wood that has already been collected by previous campers who have moved on, quite simple really and a preservation of our energy.

Back at camp we chat to our neighbours, Ian and Jean they have already been here for nearly a week and will probably stay a bit longer; who can blame them this place is magical.

Andy rigged up a bucket and secured it to some rope in turn attached to a tent peg on the shore, he placed a few bottles of Carlton Dry in hoping that the water would keep them cool, however later in the day it became evident that the water was too warm and it would not keep them cool at all. The fridge was actually quite full so we had to make some room to put a couple of bottles in.

Whilst it is still light I sit down with all the Ingredients for tonight’s dinner, the chicken was taken out the freezer in plenty of time so I know that is ready, onion is chopped, sweet potato, and potatoes are sliced and diced, red and green hot chillies are finely chopped and all put in the camp oven, along with Garlic, Chilli power, and the “Auzzie Wild Fire” Seasoning.

I go and get the two breasts of chicken take then back to my little work table under the tree and start cutting them in to nice bite sized pieces, I hear Caroline say “Watch out!” just as a Kookaburra swoops down and grabs a small piece of chicken and flies back in to his tree, they are such a nonchalant creature, Caroline goes over to Kooki and tells him off but he just turns his back on her.

Caroline tells me to put a lid on the Camp oven or it will happen again, I ask her if she will go and pass it to me as it is by the cooker and as she walks off Kooki takes another swoop and heads off with another piece of Chicken.

It surprises me that a Kookaburra will eat meat, but if you consider that they eat Cicada’s (Beetle like creature) and small snakes then it should be no surprise, we have heard of Kookaburra’s stealing meat of hot BBQ plates.

If he won’t be shouted at then he will just have to have his photo taken, he plumps his feathers up and his mate joins in for the photo call. All the while they are watching us and hoping for more chicken, Caroline laughs as she tells me that a bead of moisture has formed and dropped off the end of the Kookaburra’s nose, we think that one of the pieces of chicken that he took must have had some chilli on it, but he does not seem too concerned by this.

The fire has burnt down sufficiently to put the camp oven on, red hot coals are just perfect, the camp oven in place on and soon is bubbling away with the waft of curry filling the air.

It has cooked away within an hour and only needed some minor stirring to get it to where it needed to be, we boiled the rice and laid it out on the plate and spooned 2 good helpings of hot curry on to the plate.

The night is dark; it went dark very quickly just as if a magician had thrown his cloak over the sun, in some celestial magic trick.

We sit around the fire looking up at the night sky, there is absolutely no light from any external source other than the moon and no sound except for nature’s calls, Caroline picks out a small Possum stealthily trying to evade capture and we hear him tap dancing in the washing bowl on top of the pots pans and plates we have used.

Sitting back in our chairs, we marvel at the creation of the night sky and are thankful of how lucky we are to be able to see all this on our amazing adventure. We see another small furry animal but it does not look like a Possum, it has a long nose, we are not certain if it is a Bilby we thought we saw one at Henrietta Creek a few nights ago, but we need to be able to see it properly and identify its ears.

The night is damp, no where near as cold as some of the nights we have experienced on this trip, Caroline even said her fleecy pyjamas were too warm.

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Photos

Tender Caroline
Tending the Beer in the lake

Sweet Potatoe
We left the sweet Potatoe out for Kooki but he just left it alone