5th August 2012
In the afternoon we walked through the
Botanic gardens and took the path out to Finch Bay which was mainly steps
either up or down over the coastal hills to the very pleasant beach. The tide was well and truly out when we
arrived there which gave Foxy plenty of room to explore whilst we walk the
length of the beach. The sand at the
creek end of the beach was very soft and left very deep footprints making the
walking hard work. We returned to the
visitor centre carpark via the gravel road which was no shorter, but without
the steps.
We then drove into town and
took our tourist photos of the array of monuments along the bank of the
Endeavour River before driving up the very steep winding hill to check out the
lighthouse that provides a great view over the town and the river. We decided to revisit the lighthouse as a
morning trip because the sun was not helpful for photographs. Apparently Captain Cook ran his ship the
Endeavour aground in the Cape Tribulation area and after refloating the ship,
came into the mouth of the river to do the necessary repairs. When you look out to sea from the lighthouse,
which was Cook’s lookout, one can see the same sandbars that he was faced with
to get back out to sea, and forced him northward. The lighthouse was built much later in his
honour. In 1885 the town council sent a message to Brisbane requesting guns and
ammunition plus an officer to protect the town from Russian invasion. Brisbane sent one cannon, 3 cannon balls, 2
rifles and an officer. Fortunately the
invasion didn’t happen.
6th August 2012
We did a walk through town and took a few
more photos and included a drive out to view the jetty and then revisited the
Lighthouse for a morning view of the town and river which now had the tide
in. In the afternoon we left Foxy at
home and went to the Cook Museum which is worth the visit with plenty to
see.
7th August 2012
We left Foxy at home once more and drove
northwest for about 30kms on a combination of bitumen and gravel roads to the
Endeavour Tourist Park where one obtains permission to walk through the private
property to Endeavour Falls. It
obviously hasn’t rained for a while up here as there wasn’t a great amount of
water in evidence so our photos don’t match the photos in the local literature
that where obviously taken in the rainy season.
The same applies to the Isabella falls about 10kms further up the road
but were still impressive as the road crosses the river via a ford beside the
Falls. Unfortunately on this trip, our 3
month old windscreen collected several stone chips and a crack.
8th August 2012
In the morning we visited the Cemetery
purely because it on the tourism listing but it did give an indication of the
history and how tough life was in the 1800s in this area. There is a 300 metre walk ay the back of the
cemetery that leads to a Chinese shrine as there were a lot of Chinese in the
area during the Gold rush days. In the
afternoon we returned to the Botanic garden and walked most of the way to Finch
Bay again but turned off up the track to Cherry Tree Bay which is a secluded
bay that can only be reached by foot. It
was a rough track with a lot of steps, some of which were quite high and
difficult and littered with fallen leaves that made them slippery. The bay is quite small with boulders adding
to the picturesque view but still has the threat of crocodiles. There is an alternative track that leads up
to the lighthouse but added to the distance from the lighthouse back into town
and out to the botanic gardens was not practical. We returned the way we had come and combined
with the cemetery walk would have been about 3.6kms for the day’s exercise. Foxy did particularly well as most of the
numerous steps required her to jump and must have used up a lot of energy as
she waited to be lifted into the car which she can usually just manage since
having the suspension raised to give us greater ground clearance under the body.
9th August 2012
Another gruelling trip to a waterfall but
this time heading back down the Bloomfield Track to Home Rule Resort were we
obtained permission to pass through their land out to the waterfall. The track was good for a while and then got
rough and uphill and then became very rough following the pipeline that runs
from the falls to the homestead, and included some very steep stretches.
The end of the track revealed the best
waterfall that we have seen in Queensland.
The main falls are a 4 tier arrangement with the top 2 tiers coming
forward and the third tier sideways to the right and the fourth tier forward
again into a pool, but by moving around the pool to our left as we look at the
falls, another smaller stream of water also drops down 3 tiers before joining
the bottom tier of the main falls. From
the pool the water drops through several minor falls before dropping into an
almost sheer sided 4 metre granite crevasse to a lower pool, and the
creek. It is a really beautiful place in
the middle of nowhere with only the sound of the water and birds which made it
hard to leave, and the thought of the arduous return trip didn’t help. It took us about 2 hours to complete the
journey including the time taken to achieve all the photos we wanted. We had our packed lunch in the car when we
arrived back where we had parked it and then returned to Cooktown. It was a bit too late in the day to turn off
to Trevathon Falls as they are reportedly hard to find and we didn’t have time
to search for them or the inclination for another long hike to reach them. We accept the fact that we will not get to
see every waterfall in the Queensland, just as we know we missed at least 2 in
Tasmania. At the moment we have visited
24 in Tassie and 39 in Queensland and know of several that we will not get to
visit.
10th August 2012
We packed up and moved back to Mossman
where we were rather lucky to be able to get a bay at the second park we
phoned. The phone cover on the way was
very spasmodic and we only made scratchy contact as we started the steep zigzag
descent from the Tablelands. The bay we
are now in is tucked away in a corner but acceptable and the ablutions are
good.
12th August 2012
Although we were lucky to even get a bay in
the park as they are very busy and the only other park that takes dogs had no
vacancies at all, we have found that the corner we squeezed into has nowhere tp
sensibly park all of the cars, and ours in particular. This means that if are at home and any of the
neighbours want to go out we have to play musical chairs with our cars.
13th August 2012
Now that the weekend is over the park has
thinned out a bit and we have moved to another bay which gives us much more room
for the car as well. This took most of
the day with taking down the annex, dog fence, etc and then re-erecting it but
should be worth it, although we now have some road noise but less noise from
the local sugar cane mill.
15th August 2012
We drove through to Port Douglas for some
shopping and a quick look at the town which is very busy, tidy and tourist
orientated with numerous resorts. We
will be returning for a more thorough look in the future as there is a lookout
among other things to see.
17th August 2012
We had some rest days including some rainy
ones but today we achieved our main reason for stopping here, to visit the
Mossman Gorge. It involves parking in
the large new carpark and passing through the ticket office where you acquire a
return ticket for the shuttle bus that takes you about 2kms to the drop off
point to start the 3.5kms walk with some of it alongside the boulder strewn
river. There are no waterfalls as such
but plenty of rapids for photographs and a lot of rainforest with some elevated
boardwalk towards the tree tops.
The
Gorge doesn’t compare with Karijini or Carnarvon Gorge, but it does have a
fairly reasonable cafe in the new building with a very young garden. Later in the afternoon we took Foxy out to
Newell Beach for a walk along the beach.
21st August 2012
We drove out to Daintree Village to see
what its attractions are which didn’t amounted to much other than a very small,
toured dedicated village with cafes, multiple river cruise options and a very
good wood gallery with some beautiful, expensive items for sale.
23rd August 2012
We took another trip into Port Douglas to
do more a thorough inspection after checking out Cooya Beach on the way, but
that was a copy of the other beaches in the area. At the beginning of the road into port
Douglas is the Wildlife Habitat combined with the visitor centre, and from
there the road is lined with resorts, hotels and other accommodation until it
turn left and continues as the main street through the town which has tree
lined central median strip. Other than
the central shopping centre the rest of the retail outlets are all tourist
orientated with a market feel sprinkled with pubs and food outlets. We initially drove to the lookout which
provided only a narrow view of the beach on the other side of the peninsula so
we descended into Anzac Park where the Sunday Market is held and on into Rex
Smeal Park at towards the end of the point.
This is the river estuary side of the peninsular which has the bank
protected from rough seas with granite rocks, the smaller ones of which are
used by the visitors to build an array of small cairns.
In the park are The Old Court House and St
Mary’s by the Sea, a non-denominational church originally built in 1880 which has
a big attraction for weddings. Instead
of an altar, it has a large clear window showing the palm tree lined park with
the ocean in the background. We then
drove to the other side of the point to the main ‘4 Mile Beach’ that appears to
live up to its name. From the town end
of the beach we walked up a pathway to the top of the cliff for another view
along the beach and then backtracked to the car as continuing would take us
back into town, which was not an option.
24th August 2012
We took a short trip out Hugland Art Glass
to see the display of specimens produced by world acclaimed Glass blowers and
confirm that their work is excellent but way too expensive for us, and not
entirely practical other than purely as ornaments. That tends to sum up art in nearly all forms. On the way there we stopped at a WW2 bomb
site. Apparently5 Japanese bombs were dropped on Queensland and this one in the middle
of nowhere with only one house anywhere in sight. It missed the house but one child was
slightly injured by shrapnel.
25th August 2012
Being a clear sunny day we drove through to
Cairns predominantly to visit Yorkey’s Knob as it is mentioned on TV quite
often, but did continued on to the Jayco caravan agency which to our surprise
was closed on a Saturday of all days. To
get there from Mossman is a lovely twisty road with much of it being along the
coastline with ocean views with a roadside lookout at one elevated point
overlooking a sandy beach. Most of the
other beach area had been stony with rocky outcrops. We drove into Yorkey’s Knob and strolled
along the beachfront and up about 80 steps expecting there to be a lookout but
that wasn’t to be, however, the top of the steps served the same purpose. We retreated into the Cairns seafront area
which is all parkland and had our picnic lunch before taking Foxy for another walk
along the front to the area where dogs are prohibited. Merry continued on into the Lagoon area which
was supported by the weekend market while Barry and Foxy waited patiently in
the shade. We moved on to Clifton beach
which also had steps up to a lookout which we took advantage of before heading
for Palm Grove which had been recommended to us. This allowed another walk along the seafront parkland
strip with resorts and cappuccino strip on the other side of the road with
large paperbark gum trees lining the road.
We walked to the jetty before retreating to the car and heading home
along the coast road.
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