Denman to Tumut:21/10 and back to Geelong:22/10

We left Denman and headed towards Bathurst, where we stopped for lunch. The first cafe we went into.....the girl suggested that a cafe further up the street was much better (she used to work there) and we took her advice.
We continued driving for several more hours through Cowra, Young, Gundagai and finally Tumut.
The caravan park here has just been refurbished and is right on the river.....people sitting out the front of their sites fishing. Really a lovely park.

Our last night of housework free living for quite a while.....well at least until January and a week in Peterborough. All the comforts of home!!!!!!! contained in such a small space.

John, having worked in Tumut on several occasions, had to show me the sights. We then went to The Woolpack Hotel for tea and of course surprise, surprise the rugby between The Wallabies and Wales just happened to be on.
So to the final night of our trip....one last sleep so close to nature......tomorrow night home sweet home.

October 20^th 2011

Lucky we finished our trip when we did because the CREB track, which we did, and many of the other tracks are flooded and could have left us stranded in Bamaga.

The notice below is one of many on the Road conditions website.

19

Cape Tribulation to Cooktown Road - (V5)

Current Trouble Spot Status

  Creb Track, between Daintree Village and Wujal Wujal is closed to all vehicles.  

General Trouble Spot
(Description ONLY)

  Wujal Wujal - subject to flooding at Bloomfield River.
4WD VEHICLES ARE RECOMMENDED AT ALL TIMES.

Warwick to Denman: 20/10

We left Warwick about 9 o'clock Queensland time.

John putting the finishing touches to packing up

We stopped in Tenterfield to have a look at the saddlery and the birthplace of our nation.....Henry Parkes gave his speech calling for Federation here. We also had a coffee and muffin.

No one was singing the song, but the words were everywhere.
We went through Glenn Innes, Armidale and Tamworth...where we saw the Big Guitar.

We then travelled through the Hunter Valley, passing through Scone (the horse capital of Australia) so they say. We saw many huge horse studs on our way to Muswellbrook and finally Denman. In this picturesque stting we even have our own ensuite toilet and shower.....such luxury.

There is even a pond with ducks

Hervey Bay to Warwick via Maroochydore: 18-19/10

We heard last night that my uncle Jim had died on Monday  afternoon, unfortunately we ear still too far away to make it home for the funeral.
On our way from Hervey Bay we turned off to River Heads and had a look at where the Barge leaves to transport you to Fraser Island......perhaps another trip!!!!!!

If you can't back you can't go to Fraser Island!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

We travelled down the coast through Marborough and Gympie and then along the Sunshine Coast looking for sunshine but without much luck. We eventually stopped at Maroochydore at the Coconut Tree Caravan Park. We were camped very close to the water and it was a beautiful place to spend the night.....lots of friendly neighbours. Only downside was trying to get into the shower and toilet block when someone needed their husband to put in the code.
The water was full of kite surfers when we arrived, but they had all gone when we took the photo.

Where is the warm water?

We reluctantly left Maroochydore planning to reach Tenterfield but road diversions meant we had to go out of our way. They did take us past the Glasshouse Mountains.....so we stopped off to have a look. The pictures aren't very clear as the rain was coming in.

We also heard that there had been massive rains in far north Queensland and many of the tracks we had been on  were now flooded and impassable. Cairns alone had over 200mm in twenty four hours.......a week later up north and we would have had to stay put for a while.
We continued on and came to roadworks where you could only pass on the hour southbound and on the half hour northbound........these finally put paid to getting to Tenterfield. We revised our plans and with the help of our trusty ipad put in new directions.
We went down through Esk and Toowoomba to Warwick where we found a very quiet caravan park to spend the night......our neighbours came from Warrnambool(it's a small world)
Warwick is the home of Rodeo.....so they told us. We missed the big rodeo by two weeks.

Rockhampton to Hervey Bay: 17/10

Today's plan was for John to do some fishing while I did some swimming...but like all good plans sometimes they don't work out. John was very confident of catching fish as other people had been. His other fishing attempts have been fruitless (fishless), but he assured me it was because there were no fish there.
Anyway upon awakening and reaching for my shoes I discovered ants had made a nest in them overnight......everyone knows a holiday without ants is unheard of. Anyway my shoes went straight out the door while I tried to convince the ants to leave!!!!!!!
Ant removal is definitely a two person job and as fast as we removed them there was another lot somewhere else. We really needed ANT RID.

Almost packed....apart from the ants it was a good site. They had been doing some tree maintenance so had probably disturbed their nest

After this we just packed up and went on our way, even resorting to breakfast at McDonalds.
We stopped in Bundaberg for lunch and to organise flowers for a friend, then continued on through more roadworks and several oversized loads.

We also began to see rainclouds and some sprinkles of rain......our first since leaving home. The temperature also dropped to about 24C degrees. Hervey Bay isn't at all golden beaches!!!!!We've had to put jumpers on tonight......what a shock!!!! I hope it warms up again tomorrow.

Rollingstone to Airlie Beach: 15/10 ; Airlie Beach to Rockhampton: 16/10

We left Rollingstone and continued through Townsville, Ayr and Bowen to Airlie Beach.

Crossing the Burdekin River which is massive ( during the Wet Season it laps the bridge)

The Big Mango at Bowen

 We found a caravan park and set up, before going to have a look around and a drink at the yacht club.

Airlie Beach

The duck family looking for some handouts!!!!

 Next morning, after a visit from a family of ducks, some bush turkeys and a kookaburra, we had a drive out to Shute Harbour, the second biggest passenger terminal in Australia ( second to Manly Ferry Terminal) and the  largest seaplane base in the southern hemisphere.

Two views of Shute Harbour

We left Airlie Beach intending to stop for a swim along the way, but unfortunately there was a fatal car accident on the road just south of Bloomsbury and all traffic was held up for about half an hour while we were diverted. We had to be satisfied with some very amusing CB radio chatter between the SES personnel trying to control the traffic. People were going down side tracks and they had to chase them so they didn't run into diverted traffic. Lots of (over and outing). Then some bloke complained his kid was sick so they stopped everyone else and let him through......didn't even ask what was wrong with him ( John reckoned he was sick of waiting)
Anyway eventually we continued on our way very slowly as we came across every bit of roadwork and they do like making sure you stop for at least five or ten minutes. We passed through Mackay, Sarina, and Marlborough to Rockhampton.
Rockhampton was on another massive river and our caravan park was on one of the banks. We had to set up our camper trailer very quickly as the rugby between the Wallabies and the All Blacks was on. We found a good pub (The Criterion Hotel) to have tea and watch the game.......a lot of All Black supporters there though. After the game we had to walk back across the bridge spanning the river.

Port Douglas to Airlie Beach: 14/10

We left Port Douglas and travelled down to Cairns to pick up our camper trailer.  We continued through Innisfail, Tully and Ingham and saw many sugar cane farms and cane trains everywhere criss crossing the roads.

Loading the sugar cane

Cane field

We stopped for the night at Rollingstone , which had the most amazing caravan park on a beach in the middle of nowhere. The park was almost full. A beautiful setting and very modern.

Looking towards the beach from our campsite

 Rollingstone today (17/10) had 72mm of rain, two days after we left.

Port Douglas: 12-14/10

View through the fly screen of our tent when we woke this morning. Although I won't miss setting up each day, I will miss sleeping with only a flyscreen between us and the outdoors.
As we can't use credit cards to book accommodation we had a walk around Port Douglas and discovered that most places have standby rates. We moved into our spa apartment with a balcony and of course a pool on site.....for two nights for the same price we would have paid for one night.
Now off to explore more of Port Douglas.
Port Douglas is very much a tourist town......coffee shops and clothing 'bargains'!!!!!!!

Some of the photos we took:

Four mile beach where we swam.....even John!!!!!

The main street

One of the many hotels

The little church where people of all denominations can marry......it has a big picture window behind the altar overlooking the water

 

 

We spent most of our time eating, walking around the town.....looking in a few shops and of course swimming.
On our last day we went to the Wildlife Habitat and had breakfast with the birds.........a fabulous breakfast and birds everywhere. We finally saw a cassowary and crocodiles; we've seen so many signs to avoid these creatures.

Can you see the crocs?

These are a couple of the amusing signs we have seen on our travels:

Cooktown to Port Douglas:11/10

We went up to the lookout at Cooktown before travelling via Lakeland to Port Douglas.

Two different views of Cooktown

The land dried dramatically on the inland side of the range

The road we followed

We reached our destination and set up our tent for the last time, again a park with everything. We met up with people who had been in Weipa the same time as us and spent several hours discussing our travels and victories on the telegraph track.

 Relaxing outside the tent

Camp kitchen and amenities block

The bathroom and toilet (all individual in a big amenities block)

Cape tribulation to Cooktown via the CREB track: 10/10

After waking with all the wildlife, we packed our bags and enjoyed breakfast. We then headed off to find the CREB track.
We had to travel to Daintree to catch the ferry across the Daintree River.

View to the mouth of the Daintree River on the way from Cape tribulation

Crossing the Daintree River on the ferry

We then headed through farmland until we arrived at the Daintree River further upstream and had to ford it.

John checking the crossing

If you look carefully you can see the continuation of the road over the mountains in the distance

The beginning of one of the many almost vertical drops

The end is getting closer.......

We are almost there (thank goodness)

Finally we reached Bloomfield and headed back to Cooktown for the night.

Christine taking a picture of the Black Mountains on the way into Cooktown

We tried a different caravan park this time......this is the pool and camp kitchen (another luxury kitchen)