Cairns to Bowen

On October 19th we left Cairns for a 2 hour drive south, through loads of sugar cane and banana plantations, to Innisfail. Here we stayed at Flying Fish Point, but the weather was extremely windy and the recent high rainfall washing down the Johnstone River meant the sea along the coast was very brown and murky. Our next stop was beautiful Mission Beach where we stayed right on the beach at South Mission, looking across to Dunk Island. Mission Beach was named after the Aboriginal mission that was established here in 1914. When white man settled in Mission Beach they forced the Aboriginal people out of their traditional hunting grounds and soon had them working as farm labourers. The white men paid the Aborigines in rum and the Chinese banana plantation owners paid them in Opium. So before long the Queensland Government identified major social problems within the indigenous communities (not surprisingly) and forced them all into a mission (penal camp) where they were fed on sugar, tea and canned corned beef. Four years later a cyclone destroyed the mission and the Aboriginal people were relocated to Palm Island. It poured with rain for the next 2 days in South Mission but that didn't stop me going white water rafting on the Tully River. It was an unreal day with plenty of rapids and excitement........but not for Simon! He stayed in the van most of the day with the girls watching movies. Dunk Island disappeared behind a huge cloud.........it was so wet. Our next stop south was Townsville where we celebrated Simon's birthday and enjoyed walking along the foreshore and looking at the view to Magnetic Island. On Sunday 24th of October (Happy Birthday Pa) we left Townsville in the morning and just called into Bowen for a lunch stop.....and ended up staying 3 nights. We loved the beautiful turquiose waters, lovely long Queen Beach, the playgrounds along the main bay and the huge swimming pool at our caravan park. One day we walked out along the main jetty (used in the film "Australia") and saw dugongs feeding on the sea grass, a massive sea turtle, a baby black tip shark, a pod of dolphins and a guy on the end caught a Golden Trevally. What a great place!

Hannah's Birthday - 16th October

Hannah celebrated her 4th birthday with a party at the Lagoon Pool in Cairns. Isaac, Leanne and Mal (new friends from Exmouth) were also with us and everyone enjoyed some birthday cake and lollies. It was a great day! Thank you to everyone who phoned, emailed and txted birthday wishes.

Cairns and Surrounds

From Karumba we travelled East about 370km to Georgetown where we stopped for the night and continued about another 400km on to Cairns the following day. The landscape changed dramatically from the dry outback to lush rainforest as we crossed the Atherton Tablelands. It was so exciting to see flowing creeks and rivers, and cattle that actually had green grass in their paddocks! The town of Atherton is 800m above sea level and the drive along the Gillies Highway and down the escarpment to Cairns was an exciting one. Would have been better in a Porsche rather than a 7m long Winnebago! Cairns was very busy and congested but the coastline and landscape around it was spectacular. We stayed 4 nights and made a day trip further north along the northern beaches, Port Douglas and up to Mossman. Mossman Gorge was beautiful and Ashleigh and Hannah had a swim in the extremely cold river.

Karumba

From Cloncurry we made the 560km drive north to Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Here we checked into the Sunset Caravan Park for 3 days and Simon and Ashleigh didn't waste any time jumping on a half-day fishing charter. Together they caught 8 Blue-nose Salmon and 1 Silver Jewelfish, and we had yummy BBQ fish for dinner. We also tucked into some Gulf Prawns and watched the beautiful sunsets from the local tavern. Ashleigh and Hannah met lots of kids during our stay and we ended up travelling for the next few days with Mal, Leanne and 4- year-old Isaac from Exmouth.

Across to Queensland

At 9am on Friday the 8th of October we drove north out of Tennant Creek and turned right at 3-ways Roadhouse towards Queensland. Any green in the landscape soon disappeared as we travelled through dry brown grazing country. Our first stop in the sunshine state was for fuel and ice creams at Camooweal before arriving at the smoke stacks in Mt Isa about 6pm. We knew 'the Isa' was a huge mining town but we had no idea that it was all smack bang in the middle of the town. The Xstrata mining operation is the largest underground mine in Australia. We stopped for 2 nights at the Coppercity Caravan Park and did lots of washing and grocery shopping. We met a lovely family from Victoria who were travelling around the country for 2 years and had stopped in Mt Isa for work. Ashleigh, Hannah and their 2 girls raided the 'free clothes' box in the laundry and played dressups for hours. We also visited a free water park in the centre of town, right below a smoke stack. No wonder we read that Isa kids have the highest lead levels in the country. After Mt Isa we stopped only 60kms out of town at peaceful Corella Dam for the night. The dam was constructed to supply drinking water for Cloncurry and was a beautiful camp with loads of birdlife including Brolgas.

The Red Centre

Actually the red centre was much greener than we expected because of higher than average rainfall during August and September. The deep red dirt was covered in clumps of greenery and there were lots of wildflowers (which was great as we missed the WA season somehow). Our first red rock stop was the huge granite boulders of the Devil's Marbles or Karlwe Karlwe, about 100km south of Tennant Creek. We walked and climbed around the rocks and spotted the "marble" that Uncle Sean had karate-chopped during his 2006 Oz Odyssey. From here we did a huge drive down to Alice Springs for a couple of nights and on to the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. Seeing Uluru in the flesh was an incredible experience. We've all seen it so many times in pictures that it was hard to believe it was real. We stayed at the only campground in the Ayers Rock Resort at Yulara and drove to the Rock and the Olgas during the days. The Walpo Gorge walk at the Olgas was fabulous - walking beside these huge steep walls of rock. On our final night we got to see a small lightning show and then the rain began to fall. It felt very strange seeing so much water in an area that we thought would be so dry. The rain continued as we headed north back to Alice on October 6th (Happy Birthday Aunty Lisa!), and we saw the Todd River flowing (which doesn't happen too often apparently). In Alice we went for a tour through the Royal Flying Doctor Service Base which mainly consisted of viewing some very old video footage of the history of the service and watching a woman behind glass operate her computer and sip her milkshake. Unfortunately the flight simulator was out of order. I also popped into the Araluen art gallery and saw lots of beautiful indigenous artwork including the Albert Namatjira gallery, and we visited Steve Strike (Strikey) at his Outack photo gallery. Then it was back on the bus and the long trek north through Tennant Creek and East toward the Queensland border.

Mataranka

ur first overnight stop after leaving Darwin was about 400km south at the tiny town of Mataranka. The area is famous for its thermal springs which are not so refreshing at 34 degrees celsius. We took a dip in the Bitter Springs which were absolutely beautiful. At our campground the Barra-man told us all about the life-cycle of the Barramundi and heaved one out of the water to give us a really good look (which apparently the Barramundi enjoys). Ashleigh had a go at feeding the huge fish and was nearly pulled into their murky pond. Mataranka is where Hannah designed some new rock earrings that are sure to be the next essential fashion accessory. Send us your orders!

Ashleigh's Birthday - September 29

Ashleigh celebrated her 7th birthday in sunny Darwin. It was an action-packed day with a trip to the water park in the morning and the wave pool in the afternoon, then off to the pizzeria in the evening. It was all very fun.

Darwin

We were incredibly fortunate to be able to stay with Anya, Greg, Grace and Elly the Beagle at their amazing house in downtown Parap. The Ward Family had already nick-named it "The Darwin Resort" (Ward's Blog) and it wasn't hard to see why! For 2 weeks we were treated to our own self-contained little airconditioned bunker downstairs, swam in their beautiful pool, played with Gracie's toys, drove Greg's car around and were guided to all the hot-spots in Darwin. And hot is the appropriate word!!!! We called it Sweat City. The humidity was insane and the temperature only varied from 30 to 35 degrees day and night......and you couldn't swim at the beach. But we had an awesome time and hung out at some really great places including a free water slide park at Leanyer, the Wave Pool, Stokes Wharf, Crocosaurus Cove, the NT Museum and the Military Museum. We satisfied our cravings for Laksas, curries and great asian food at the Mindle Markets, Parap Markets and the Rendevous Cafe. We were also treated to our first night out to dinner without kiddies in 8 months! Anya babysat while we spoilt ourselves to meal at Hanuman (Patti's favourite). One day we went on a wetlands boat cruise at Corroboree Billabong on the Mary River and saw lots of wild crocs and birdlife including Jabiru's and Sea Eagles. On our final weekend in Darwin we went with Anya to her friend's place at Dundee about 100km SW. Tracey and JJ were celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary and in true relaxed Territory style we joined in the party and hung out at their beach house. The coastline was beautiful with long wide beaches (huge tides), turquiose water (with crocs) and surrounded by Pandanas Trees, Paperbarks, Cycas and patches of magnetic termite mounds. We hooned along the beach on quad bikes because it was far too hot to walk and you couldn't cool off with a dip in the sea. Ashleigh loved it. We also dropped into picturesque Berry Springs but unfortunately it was closed for swimming. Our plan was to continue south after the Dundee weekend but we had to go back to Darwin to order a new bonnet release cable for Daisy, so our departure wasn't until September 30. We loved Darwin but the locals also informed us that it was full and there was no need for anyone else to move here.