Well dear friends, what adventures have we had since our last post?
Firstly, we were drawn to Magnetic Island just off the coast of Townsville. A nice haven of little bays and beaches, and it was great to spend some time catching up with Jacinta. We exlored the island a little, then drove to West Point where we were stopped all night...I missed a great photo opportunity of a sea eagle, but the other birdlife there was more than enough to keep us entertained. Kingfishers and funny lookin' birds - not sure what they were called, but gee they made a horrible noise!
The enxt day we did the Forts Walk - saw some WWII bunkers and gun mounts and the like - learnt that Townsville was actually bombed by the Japenese in 1945 - who would have thought? Also saw a koala on the track, and Caleb destroyed someones arrow that supposedly pointed to another one, but it wasn't there, so Caleb deemed it unneccesary.
Jacinta left us after that walk, and we were left to our own devices, exploring the island. A spot of fishing and relaxing on the beach, and another all-night-stop.
AFter this adventure, we went back to Townsville, hung out with Jacinta, then headed north once again. What were we to come up against next? The answer hit us pretty soon...
RAIN
Walloman Falls, the highest single-drop falls in Australia, and we got to the look out, to look out over the mist....could not see a thing. We had to walk down to the bottom (2km straight down...in the drizzle) to see them, and by the time we got back up, the mist had cleared....it was a great walk though.
The rain did not leave us, we stayed in Cardwell by the beach, and headed up to Babinda. We attempeted to climb Mt Bartle Frere, Queenslands highest peak, but, you guessed it, it was raining, and Lisa deemed it unsafe to go rock climbing in the rain. We did manage to snag a look a Josephine Falls though, which were very spectacular and thunderous.
As well as Bartle Frere we found a beautiful swimming hole at the boulders in Babinda, but we didn't exactly feel like swimming...as it was raining.
And may I add, that during all this walking in the rain, we were looking like ridiculour dweebs in bright, fluro orange raincoats...high-vis (some of Calebs power-station safety) so that if we have a flat tyre in the middle of the rain, oncoming traffic can see us...in this case, I don't think any oncoming walking traffic missed us...
All in all, it was dissappointing that we hit rain, but I would like to point out that Bartle Frere recieves 250 rain days a year, so it's not like we were terribly unlucky...
Currently, we are in Palm Cove, just north of Cairns. We have visited the Butterfly Sanctuary in Kuranda, the Ken Duncan Gallery and an Opal Mine and tomorrow we are going to check out a crocodile farm.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
The Fossilised West
Finally, some internet! We have only had it sparingly since leaving Emerald, tracking west. We made it to Barcaldine, checked out the tree of Knowledge, that is not so wise anymore since being poisened four years ago. Still, it was the birthplace of the Australian Labor Party (well one of them, seems to me that wherever there was a shearers strike was the birthplace of the ALP). We kept tracking west until we hit Longreach where we snagged a free campsite by the Thompson River.
At Longreach, we visited the Stockman's Hall of Fame, which was really interesting but my goodness was it a lot of reading! We then travelled out to Starlight's Lookout. Now, before I describe this venture, let me discribe the landscape of Longreach...it's flat. That's pretty much it. Beautiful in its own way, but as flat as the ocean (well, even flatter, given the lack of waves and surge). Trees and scrub dotted around, but its all dry creek beds and long dry grasses, gravel rocks and short shrubs. Starlight's Lookout is a small mound I guess of rock, in the middle of nowhere, and it is rumoured to be the lookout of Mr Redford, a cattle duffer who stole 1000 head of cattle and drove them to South Australia where he sold them. He was later caught, tried and found not guilty. So much for justice. It is rumoured the he, or one of his men climbed this mound and kept lookout. Because seriously, due to the flatness, you can see a great long way from the top.
Unfortunately, it was here we lost a bolt on the shock absorber, and had to drive very carefully back to Longreach. We still had some decent views though. That night we went to the best of the St Kilda Film Festival, which is currently touring Australia. It was brilliant. Only a small community event, but we met some terrifically nice people and really enjoyed the 15 or so small films, all Australian, most of which were very witty and good. It was tops.
The next day we went through the QANTAS museum. The birth of this international airline is really terrific - Two WW1 pilots started it as a taxi and mail service to people of western Queensland as the roads were often impassable. Who would have thought? It also contributed to the begining of the Royal Flyning Doctors Service, as John Flynn, the founder of that particular service was good mates with old mate who started QANTAS. We then took off on the road again, braved the kangaroos who could potentially be our death by stupidly bounding in front of the car in the dwindling twilight and headed for Winton.
We covered the dinosaur trail, saw ancient dino footprints at Winton, sea creature bones at Richmond and more bones and fossils again in Hughenden. By now we were totally museumed out.
We made our way to Townsville, finally, stopping briefly in Charters Towers, a terrific town I would not mind living in. We drove into town around 6:30 last night, had dinner with Jacinta at the Baptist Church where she lives and trecked up Castle Mountain in the middle of Townsville to see a 360 degree view of the lights. That was great. This morning we are making preparations to head over to Magnetic Island, or 'maggie' as we should call it apparently (Magpie Island, according to Caleb). Keep watch for these adventures in the next few days!
At Longreach, we visited the Stockman's Hall of Fame, which was really interesting but my goodness was it a lot of reading! We then travelled out to Starlight's Lookout. Now, before I describe this venture, let me discribe the landscape of Longreach...it's flat. That's pretty much it. Beautiful in its own way, but as flat as the ocean (well, even flatter, given the lack of waves and surge). Trees and scrub dotted around, but its all dry creek beds and long dry grasses, gravel rocks and short shrubs. Starlight's Lookout is a small mound I guess of rock, in the middle of nowhere, and it is rumoured to be the lookout of Mr Redford, a cattle duffer who stole 1000 head of cattle and drove them to South Australia where he sold them. He was later caught, tried and found not guilty. So much for justice. It is rumoured the he, or one of his men climbed this mound and kept lookout. Because seriously, due to the flatness, you can see a great long way from the top.
Unfortunately, it was here we lost a bolt on the shock absorber, and had to drive very carefully back to Longreach. We still had some decent views though. That night we went to the best of the St Kilda Film Festival, which is currently touring Australia. It was brilliant. Only a small community event, but we met some terrifically nice people and really enjoyed the 15 or so small films, all Australian, most of which were very witty and good. It was tops.
The next day we went through the QANTAS museum. The birth of this international airline is really terrific - Two WW1 pilots started it as a taxi and mail service to people of western Queensland as the roads were often impassable. Who would have thought? It also contributed to the begining of the Royal Flyning Doctors Service, as John Flynn, the founder of that particular service was good mates with old mate who started QANTAS. We then took off on the road again, braved the kangaroos who could potentially be our death by stupidly bounding in front of the car in the dwindling twilight and headed for Winton.
We covered the dinosaur trail, saw ancient dino footprints at Winton, sea creature bones at Richmond and more bones and fossils again in Hughenden. By now we were totally museumed out.
We made our way to Townsville, finally, stopping briefly in Charters Towers, a terrific town I would not mind living in. We drove into town around 6:30 last night, had dinner with Jacinta at the Baptist Church where she lives and trecked up Castle Mountain in the middle of Townsville to see a 360 degree view of the lights. That was great. This morning we are making preparations to head over to Magnetic Island, or 'maggie' as we should call it apparently (Magpie Island, according to Caleb). Keep watch for these adventures in the next few days!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Gorge - ous
Well, three and a half days since our last post. Just a brief catch up as we are not sure when the next internet access will be available. We drove to Emerald and spent Sunday on the gemfields at Rubyvale with Derek, Amanda and Aiden, where we toured the heritage mine and fossiked for sapphires. I came away with four or five gems, but nothing cuttable. Oh well, it was still a wonderful day and a lot of fun looking!
We then journeyed south to Canarvon Gorge National Park, which is absolutely gorgeous! (excuse the pun). Beautiful landscape consisting of stunning cliff faces, diverse flora and constant running water. We managed all of the walks, totally approximately 26km in all, bar the Battleship Spur, which we really wanted to scale but unfortunately, due to our lack of time or hiking gear, we were advised against attempting it. We saw enough to be slightly green, knowing that in a few short weeks, some of our friends will be hiking exactly that. The highlight, for Lisa especially, was the Boowinda Gorge, a narrow offshoot of the main gorge with moss growing on the walls. It was stunning. We also managed a bit of rock climbing up the Bluff for good views of the gorge, as well as some Aborignial art - our first for this trip.
We managed all these walks, by the way, with a new addition in tow - Lisa's DSLR officially christened Betty. You can see some of the products of this addition to your right...
We are now back in Emerald, getting ready to depart in the morning for Longreach way. Not sure where we will end up, but Townsville is getting closer...
We then journeyed south to Canarvon Gorge National Park, which is absolutely gorgeous! (excuse the pun). Beautiful landscape consisting of stunning cliff faces, diverse flora and constant running water. We managed all of the walks, totally approximately 26km in all, bar the Battleship Spur, which we really wanted to scale but unfortunately, due to our lack of time or hiking gear, we were advised against attempting it. We saw enough to be slightly green, knowing that in a few short weeks, some of our friends will be hiking exactly that. The highlight, for Lisa especially, was the Boowinda Gorge, a narrow offshoot of the main gorge with moss growing on the walls. It was stunning. We also managed a bit of rock climbing up the Bluff for good views of the gorge, as well as some Aborignial art - our first for this trip.
We managed all these walks, by the way, with a new addition in tow - Lisa's DSLR officially christened Betty. You can see some of the products of this addition to your right...
We are now back in Emerald, getting ready to depart in the morning for Longreach way. Not sure where we will end up, but Townsville is getting closer...
Saturday, July 10, 2010
One week in - nearly
Well, it is now the sixth day of our trip. We started by staying the night at Murgon, then headed off to Cania Gorge for a few nights, where we completed all the walks there, bar one. After which we travelled up to Rockhampton where we have spent the last three days catching up with friends and family. We took a day trip to Byfield National Park, north of Yeppoon, and Caleb tried out a spot of fishing, and 4WDing. We found a place on Nine Mile Beach called the Orange Bowl which we had a ton of fun in the soft sand with the 4WD.
Today we are heading to Emerald, then maybe we will have a look at some gem fields, travel to Canarvon Gorge, and then head out west for a bit of sightseeing of nothing before heading back to the coast to Townsville.
Just a quick note to let you know where we are at the moment. And as a side note, I have added a few elements to this blog. Firstly I have created two new pages, which can be accessed via the links above this post and below the title. The first is a map I have created where we can show you where we have been, in case geography is not your greatest subject. It is linked to this blog, so to view it you need to click the link on the 'Map' page. Also, I have added a 'Quotes' page, which is fairly self explanatory.
That's all from the Maynes at this point in time, hopefully we will write again soon!
Today we are heading to Emerald, then maybe we will have a look at some gem fields, travel to Canarvon Gorge, and then head out west for a bit of sightseeing of nothing before heading back to the coast to Townsville.
Just a quick note to let you know where we are at the moment. And as a side note, I have added a few elements to this blog. Firstly I have created two new pages, which can be accessed via the links above this post and below the title. The first is a map I have created where we can show you where we have been, in case geography is not your greatest subject. It is linked to this blog, so to view it you need to click the link on the 'Map' page. Also, I have added a 'Quotes' page, which is fairly self explanatory.
That's all from the Maynes at this point in time, hopefully we will write again soon!
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Farewell, Salted Peanut
Cleaning the house, well that was fun
Setting up the van, not forgetting nothin'
We've packed up our bags
Reels, cameras, tools and rags
And set off for Summer in the sun
Hello open road, horizon and Australia
Goodbye Kingaroy, Peanuts, we will mail ya
We're out on the road
(and aiming for toads... ;))
Searching for fun, fuel and adventure!
Already ahead of schedule, left a day earlier than planned
Sitting around waiting we just couldn't stand
So the van was hitched up
The house was locked up
Gone wherever now - and already of the travelling life we are fans.
Setting up the van, not forgetting nothin'
We've packed up our bags
Reels, cameras, tools and rags
And set off for Summer in the sun
Hello open road, horizon and Australia
Goodbye Kingaroy, Peanuts, we will mail ya
We're out on the road
(and aiming for toads... ;))
Searching for fun, fuel and adventure!
Already ahead of schedule, left a day earlier than planned
Sitting around waiting we just couldn't stand
So the van was hitched up
The house was locked up
Gone wherever now - and already of the travelling life we are fans.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)