From the forest to the sea.

We packed up the van and left this lovely  mountain getaway and headed to the sea. The trip down is much like the road to Batemans Bay - steep and windy but very pretty. 

                                     

This is the first glimpse of the sea and of Mossman. We were traveling behind this truck laden with sugar cane - you’d never really believe that this stuff could result in something sweet like sugar! Sugar cane is everywhere and with the mountain backdrop, makes a very pretty scene.

We came across this beautiful crossing and water hole just out of Mossman.

We also spied this plantation of what looked like passion fruit - all grown in individual pots.

                                        

Somehow this blog posted itself before I had even  finished it!! The wonders of technology! So I’ll finish off now and leave the weekend with Taylor’s till the next blog! It’s not a nice day in Port Douglas today - very windy and  cloudy. I’m sure it won’t bother us. Love to you all xxxxxx 

                                 

Feathers & Friends

With the car cleaned, my hair done, supplies renewed and some retail therapy, we left Mareeba and headed past Mt Molloy and Julatten to this beautiful place. It’s a privately owned property of some 43 acres and the minute you turn into the drive way, you know it’s going to be something special. The avenue of palms and bamboo, welcome you to an oasis of trees, shrubs and lovely mown grass.
We are set up in a lovely spot with plenty of room and are quite private.

You can’t leave any doors open however, as the resident chooks will hop in - plus, if you’re eating a roll, they might pinch it - as Darryl found out! 

                                        

Birds are everywhere and you can imagine the photographing that is going on. The whole area is now known for bird watching so we stumbled across just what we love. The variety of plants make me very envious - the stag and elk horns are everywhere (you’d love them Dennis) but prettiest of all must be red and blue jade plants.

     
We took a local map and toured around up to Mt Lewis - some 1000 metres elevation and it was the most picturesque trip - albeit on a very narrow, windy and dusty road. Now the car is dusty again! We were strolling along this walkway from a bird hide when we nearly trod on this fellow!! We have found out since that he’s a harmless tree snake - but he still gave us a scare. 

                                        
We called into a barramundi farm and purchased some lovely fillets plus packs of home made spring rolls! They’ll have to be good to beat Flo’s!   This area has a chequered history with agriculture, mining and logging but is now more touristy. We’re only 33km from a Port Douglas and 21km from Mossman so it’s in a great location as a base. This is an old bricked in boiler for the saw milling operation in Mt Molloy.

                                                  
We are very fortunate that we can store our van here whilst we are at Port Douglas so we won’t have to worry about dragging it up and down the mountains and we’ll know it’s safe. So the next leg of our journey will be living it up in Port Douglas! It sounds as if things are improving down south so hope the trend keeps going that way. We hope we’ll be able to visit you all one day!  Lots of love from Marg & Darryl ❌❌❌❌

Pinnarendi Station Stay

We enjoyed some rest  time and luxury at this lovely place. We were neighbors to a very interesting couple who live and travel in this huge bus - it actually is a converted horse float. Roy is an artist and sign writer and very clever. He’s actually been asked to stay on at Pinnarendi to paint a mural on the bland amenities block. 
They were great company and we enjoyed chatting to them. If you ever see a rig like this on the road you’ll know it’s Roy! This station stay also run a lovely cafe, serving breakfast, coffee, homemade cakes, lunch and Saturday night pizzas. We indulged a little with coffee and cake, the most delicious pizzas and eggs Benedict for one breakfast. The host is a very good cook! We enjoyed the walking track around the dams, spotting more birds for Darryl to photograph. 

We walked around the crater of the Kalkani extinct volcanoe and saw little wallabies and had a great view of the surrounding area.

The tour of the lava tubes at the Undara Volcanic National Park was very well done and we found it very informative. It was lovely to  walk through the remnant rain forest which featured this enormous old bottle tree.

                                          

The impact of the volcanic activity some 90,000 years ago, created these rivers of lava which spread out 160km. Now they are like caves - different from limestone caves as there’s no stalactites or stalagmites. 

The colours in the rocks were amazing. Now we’ve left the Savannah grasslands and are having an overnight stay at Mareeba where we have a concrete slab and grass!! I’ve washed our floor mats and my walking shoes as they were pretty awful! The drive here through the range from Ravenshoe to Atherton was beautiful but I’d forgotten how narrow and windy the road was. Then we opened up to lovely green rolling hills - a sight to behold after such a lot of red, dry dirt! 

We are pretty excited as very shortly I’m visiting a hair dresser and Darryl's visiting a car wash - neither of us can wait!! So the next blog will have us all clean and beautiful - well maybe? Trust you are all well and surviving the freezing weather. Love to all, ❌❌❌❌❌from Marg  & Darryl. 

Porcupine Gorge NP

Leaving Oondooroo station, we headed north to Hughenden where we stayed one night before coming out to the Porcupine Gorge National Park. Seeing we were totally unprepared to be travelling this far north, we were happy to find items on our list in the original Hughenden Drapery store. It was like stepping back in time but we found summer sheets and some summer clothes suitable for Port Douglas! I also had to purchase a hat - and thank heavens I did as it’s been pretty hot  - 36 I think! Now my already unruly hair has the added problem of hat hair!! We had a look around the town, fuelled up and restocked the beer supplies whilst I hit the laundry! 

There’s a beautiful newish town lake suitable for all water sports - a credit to the town. They are also into dinosaurs - this replica was in the Main Street.

The National park is only 60odd kms from Hughenden so we arrived before lunch. The countryside has changed and we’ve  left behind the plains for a more undulating landscape and the vegetation is more sub tropical. We’re also starting to see more of my favourite breed of cattle.

                                   

The view from the top of the gorge provided  a wonderful overview of the area - we also loved the early morning walk to the bottom of the gorge where to see the sun shining on the pyramid rock, was spectacular! We didn’t find the steps daunting and it was well worth the effort. 

 The rock formations are almost moonscape and quite unusual. The river is just flowing and there are pools at the base of the Pyramid where we saw some bird life. We can imagine when the summer rains come, it would be even more spectacular and you could enjoy a swim. We had a visit at nights from these little Rufus Bettongs who were quite friendly - and quite noisy growling to each other during the night. 

    

We were pretty happy to be able to use our fire pit each night to cook our meals and heat up the bucket of water - you’ve taught us well Dennis! 

We are now on the Savannah Way at Pinnarendi  station stay and the big bonus is, there’s a cafe here too so we can enjoy coffees, homemade cakes, lunches, dinner and even breakfast if we want!! We’re booked in for pizza night tomorrow night and I’m certainly going to enjoy Eggs Benedict one morning - luxury!! I’m pretty sure we’ll be happy here . It’s warm and we can’t believe it’s still cold and wet down home. We trust everyone is well and keeping safe. Till the next blog, love from Marg & Darryl. ❌❌❌

Winton & Oondooroo Station

We are really enjoying this station stay as it’s peaceful and relaxing. It’s very outback and quite dry with picturesque tree lined creeks and beautiful sunsets. 

             
The weather has been great - cool nights and mornings which is great for a camp fire, and warm days about 27degrees. We’ve had some success bird watching, spying more brolgas and some spinifex pigeons so that’s kept us happy. This station has some history associated with Banjo Patterson’s Waltzing Matilda, as he evidently first put the words to piano music at the homestead here. Not such pleasant history is the shearer’s strike which began here in the late 1880’s. The shearing shed was torched but fortunately rains extinguished the flames before it was destroyed. The shearing shed standing here now can’t be the original one as it’s too small and too modern. These days the station carries few sheep - the locusts ate the pastures last year so the numbers are only about 400 now.  The old homestead is beautiful and set in lovely gardens and the old stone buildings are being preserved.

We enjoyed a day in Winton and were surprised to see the lovely main street as last time we were through, it was music festival time and the streets were blockaded and we bypassed it. 

The buildings are lovely and we enjoyed a yummy lunch - of Gulf barramundi - (as you do when inland!) at the North Gregory Pub. We could have been anywhere in the world! 

We visited the lovely new Waltzing Matilda Centre - the original one burned down in 2015 so they have done a remarkable job building and resourcing this new centre. 

We certainly do have some changes in our travel plans! We sadly missed my Mums 102nd birthday and Marg & Brian’s special celebrations but as luck has it, we are able to celebrate with Anne & Greg for Anne’s special day! The proposed gathering at Port Douglas was of course cancelled for nearly everyone - but Anne & Greg are still able to travel to Queensland and Andrew in Brisbane can -and we actually aren’t that far away so off to Port Douglas we’ll head. How lucky are we? Many thanks to Trev & Sandy who are prepared to hold the fort a little longer than we thought! Maybe when we return the borders will be open and we’ll be able to see family and friends! We certainly hope so as even though we’re having a great time touring around, we do miss the special people in our lives. Take care everyone, and stay safe.

❌❌❌❌❌❌ Marg & Darryl. 

North of the Tropic of Capricorn.

We’ve certainly left the cold behind and we’re experiencing 30+ degree days - packed away is the big rug, our coats and boots and out with shorts and thongs! We enjoyed our stay in Jundah - it’s another dear little town with very friendly people. At every entrance to the town there are these shop facades with stories and information - and around the town we enjoyed a walk learning the history of the place. This town is on the Thompson River which is looking pretty healthy.

What we learned is that the early settlers were very brave setting out into the unknown and times were tough! Most amazing were stories of young 12 & 13 year old boys undertaking adult work - often by themselves for months at a time. 

In the lovely small caravan park - which had lovely new amenities, we were able to watch the brolgas in the morning and beautiful sunsets at night. (Not quite up to your standard Erin but beautiful all the same)

You will know of my dismay and disappointment Dennis & Tops, when we checked the road conditions on the back road and were advised not to go there as there were still wet patches - and rain was forecast!! So we travelled all day on bitumen! Along the way we stopped to see this native well and we topped up the wood box (note the safety boots!! ) 

We stopped at Stonehenge and appreciated their lovely community centre and clever sculptures. 

We hit Longreach and must be destined to spend a few $$ there as we fuelled up, bought lunch, visited the supermarket and each bought new thongs and shorts! Last year the same shoe shop was happy to see us buying boots & walking shoes. It’s looking terribly dry between Longreach and Winton - I don’t think they’ve had much rain at all. We’re here in a funny caravan park with dirt swirling around us - a shower will be very welcome tonight. 

Tomorrow we travel only a few kms to a stay  at Oonndooroo Station where I believe we’ll be parked on grass again. From there, we are not sure of which way we head - depends on weather I guess. 

Tomorrow we remember Betty as it would be her 94th birthday - as well as the end of the war in the Pacific. 

We trust you are all keeping sane and hope there is an end in sight for all of the restrictions to be eased. Take care ❌❌❌❌❌ from Marg & Darryl.

Onto Jundah

When we left Thargomindah, the sun was actually shining and we found out that the Quilpie road was open so we headed north. The road had been closed due to the Bulloo River being over the road initially about a metre. 

We did enjoy our stay in Thargomindah - one of the nicest little towns you’d come across. I did neglect to say that they were the 3rd place in the world - behind London and Paris, to have hydro electric town lighting. Quite an achievement! We stayed at the Quilpie caravan park as we were unable to camp out at the Lake farmstay due to wet conditions. We were quite comfortable there and had I packed our swim wear, we could have enjoyed an artesian spa bath!! Quilpie is a little larger town with more facilities including 2 supermarkets, a bakery, a chemist, several coffee shops, museums, schools and of course a pub!  We were able to catch up on some washing - even our smelly fire coats - stock up our supplies and enjoy a coffee too. St Finnigins Catholic Church has beautiful opal altar which we were able to admire - the colours were beautiful.

            
I had planned to seek my fortune looking for opals at the fossicking area just out of town, but thought I’d not have much success so saved myself the disappointment! I may try further down the track if we get to Opalton! 
We climbed Baldy Hill lookout where we had a good view of the surrounding area.

                        

From Quilpie we travelled along the Diamantina developmental road through lots of channel country where there was quite a lot of water still lying around. We crossed the Cooper creek just out of Windorah and it’s quite a wide expanse of river here. Some enthusiast even had a house boat there. 

We had a picnic lunch at Windorah (which isn’t very big at all) and saw this solar set up which looks like the one at Bridgewater. This one seems to be operational though and supplies power to the town.

                                     

We are now at Jundah, another small town on the Thompson River. The Thompson and Barcoo merge south of here to create the Cooper Creek! We’ve now seen the Cooper creek at Innaminicka, on the Birdsville Track and at Windorah. Of course this creek, when flowing, runs into Lake Eyre. 

We are unsure how long we’ll be here as the tour we’d planned to do in the nearby Welford National Park won’t happen as the park is closed - and with rains forecast we may have to move onto Winton via Longreach as that road is sealed! So the rains are great for everyone except outback travellers! However, with no time restraints and no set itinerary, we can work around what ever turns up. Meanwhile, we are enjoying warm weather here (about 30 degrees) so the shorts and T shirts are out again. 

We trust everyone is keeping safe and we are still thinking of you with the restrictions. All the areas we have been to are quite COVID conscious with hand sanitisers at every location, a register to record details in case tracing needs to occur, and social distancing is always followed. Fortunately, wherever we’ve been, we’ve not come into contact with many people so I think we’re pretty safe. 

Take care, love from Marg & Darryl ❌❌❌