Another day, another morning tea!
We left our beachside campsite bright and early and headed through some beautiful country with many sugar cane fields and cute cane engines hauling long trains to the factories.
This is certainly a food bowl area as we have seen every fruit and vegetable growing and for sale in road side shops. We also drove through lovely rain forests and kept our eyes peeled for the elusive cassowarys - with no success!! We called into Mission Beach as we had heard about it during the Yasi cyclone disaster and were pleasantly surprised to find this vibrant village with a lovely feel to it. The beach was beautiful with people swimming and relaxing on the sand. Evidently crocodiles are not often seen on the beaches - more often estuaries. It was quite busy and we walked around a bit enjoying the ambience of the place. You'd never know that the area had been hit by that cyclone.
We then drove through Cardwell which looked like a lovely place but Dennis was on a mission and we did a quick drive by! We found Forest Beach which is a few kms from Ingham and enjoyed a picnic lunch on the foreshore. Tommy the satnav gave us a little tour of a Forest Beach but lead us eventually to Jack and June Kennedys place. They have a lovely spot - quite secluded with lots of trees and birds and plenty of space for us to set up our campers. We cooked a camp oven roast for them and despite not watching the clock or doing anything more than plonking the meat and veges in our camp ovens, the result was delicious and I think we even impressed Jack who does a bit of bush cooking!
They were very gracious hosts and we felt very relaxed and comfortable even though we hadn't previously met them and we should know to trust Dennis's judgement! We had a very pleasant evening sitting around the camp fire.
Today we had a later start and left there about 10am. We headed to Townsville again and found the Strand where we met up with Dennis and Tops's mate Roger Moore and his mother for a nice lunch right by this area with swimming beach and lovely surrounds. These towns have lovely beachfront areas but I think Townsville has a better feel to it than Cairns. We didn't leave there till about 2 but still made it to the other side of Bowen. We had afternoon tea at Ayre and checked out Scott and Berny's storage sheds - not hard to find as they are right on the main highway! They are looking very neat and tidy! This is a very impressive bridge out of Ayre:
Tops and I pored over our camp books to find a suitable place to stay tonight with not much success but Dennis did it again by looking at his Wiki Camps site! I think we could put our books away as they are outdated and this web site has proven to be great! We are in this quaint farmstay place which is very rustic and unregimented - and we even went over to join in on the happy hour where the host cooked us a damper. It was delicious! Then chatting around the fire when we said we were from Murrabit she said she puts her houseboat in there at Stretch Landers place. She knows him really well as they grew up together at Bacchus Marsh! What a small world - Stretch is our neighbour!
We now have a vague itinerary - to be in Brisbane by this weekend to catch up with Dennis's brothers Rob and Rick. Then we plan to be at Jervis Bay about the 12th September to meet up with Beth and Dust. We are pretty excited to be seeing them as we haven't since Easter! Then home via Junee. It's a bit sad to be planning the end of a trip but all good things have to come to an end. It will be lovely to see family again. Love to all xxx
Ps Dennis is thinking of leaving Tops and the camper here and bringing this beauty home!
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