8th December 2011 to 17th January 2012

8^th December 2011

It has rained for the last 4 days but today is showing some patches of blue sky so we have taken a chance to go for a look at Childers.  This meant stopping for fuel which happened at Maryborough where we also called in to the visitors centre for some local information. 

The information centre is in the very impressive City Hall, and along with what we saw whilst walking there, we decided to stay in Maryborough and explore it more thoroughly with a walk round their heritage walk. 

We had lunch in Queen’s Park whilst watching the local tourist steam train start its short trip through the park and duly noted the unusual vertical boiler.  The walk took us through part of the town alongside the City Hall which was closed off for the local market (unusual being a Thursday) along several other streets with many buildings with grand facades from the 1870 period.

There is a statue of Mary Poppins on one corner, outside the house that was home to the author of the story, which also gives the city the opportunity to have Mary Poppins festivals.  Around mid afternoon we headed for home as the weather appeared to be closing in again and just made it home before the rain started again.

9^th December 2011

Today is cloudy but not supposed to rain so we made another attempt at visiting Childers, which we did with a couple of deviations to Toogoom Beach and Burrum Heads.  Both of these had little to offer other than a boat ramp although Toogoom had a reasonable ocean view but Burrum had a beach full of seaweed and smelt accordingly. 

We headed on into Childers with a drive through look at Howard and stopped as we entered Childers at the Heritage Village which happens to close at noon, just before we got there but we used their park table and seats whilst we had lunch.

We moved on into the town centre which consists of a side road that runs parallel to each side of Bruce Highway with angle parking between the side roads and the highway.  Consequently there is an amazing amount of traffic including huge B double trucks moving through the town with one set of traffic lights for a pedestrian crossing on Queensland’s major road.  

There are a lot of old facades and a lot of history attached to the town but the deliberately lit fire at the Palace Hotel in 2000, in which 15 backpackers perished, is what most people remember about the town.  The Hotel has been rebuilt as the visitor centre with a motel behind it.  We did the Heritage walk around the town and then returned to the Heritage Village for photographs on the way out of town and turned off to Woodgate Beach.  This was a real beach that stretched as far as you could see in both directions with a small township, but offered little else so we headed home.

10^th December2011

It is raining again and is expected to continue for a few days so we will watch the second test match subject to the weather in Tasmania.  The rain which was steady but relatively light suddenly changed into a half hour torrential downpour which didn’t take too long to change the road cover from a good covering to about a 300mm river. 

 It rose high enough to come up to the concrete pad that our annex is on but the people opposite us must be slightly lower than us and had water run through their annex.  Once it stopped raining heavily the water drained away reasonably quickly but there is still ankle deep water on the actual road.  In the mid afternoon we also had a short thunderstorm but no excessive rain and the evening weather report claimed that Hervey Bay had 54mm of rain for the day.

12^th December 2011

The weather has stayed rainy for the last couple of days including another downpour creating a river through the park but not as severe as last time.

16^th December 2011

We were going to use some free camp areas in the next few days but as the weather is uncomfortably warm at night and we have been using the fan and occasionally the air-conditioning, so we decided to go to Gympie which would provide power and allow us to take a look at the Mary Valley via the Heritage railway.

17^th December 2011

We arrived in Gympie around mid day and set up camp with just the awning out but no annex as we are only stopping for 2 nights.  This allowed us to watch the Masters Golf tournament until we disconnected our antenna and connected the park antenna which proved to be a bad move as their antenna provided next to nothing and definitely no golf.  The end of our cable in the connector broke off as Barry disconnected our cable so now we have no golf at all.  The caravan’s wind-up antenna gave us some TV but not much so we settled for recorded material for the evening.

18^th December 2011

We arrived at the railway station at 9.30am to collect our tickets and realised it was the 3^rd Sunday of the month which meant they put on a heritage re-enactment. 

This was the second surprise from this railway as they also allow dogs to travel on board.  The re-enactment introduced the good guys and the bad guys (all in period costumes) and explained that the Gold being carried on board would be subject to a hold-up on arrival at Imbil, our destination for lunch.  We sat around the roped off area to watch as the bad guys held up the police escort to steal the gold using somewhat loud blanks in their shot gun and pistols.  That bit terrified Foxy as we were very close to the shot gun in particular, so Barry took Foxy away before the next outbreak of shots.  After the gold was taken along the ladies jewellery we broke off to have our lunch at the pub across the road.  After lunch and a walk around Ambil we watch the now captured bandits being punished along with some passengers who supposedly misbehaved in town.  They were put into the stocks and the small kids throw pretend rotten tomatoes at them (balloons with a small amount of water in them.  The main bad guy was given a dozen lashes with the cat-o’-nine tails which Barry didn’t see as he took Foxy away from any more gun shots and Merry looked away as she thought the tomato paste on the guys back was blood.  We then boarded the train for the return journey with a stop at Dagun Station for cheese and wine tasting, for those that were interested.

19^th December 2011

We moved on again to the Durack caravan park near Brisbane and found it to be an uninspiring park that is designed more for permanent residence than tourists and comes with a lot of do’s and don’ts in case it upsets the residence, so we may move again after Christmas rather than stay the originally planned 4 weeks.

20^th December 2011

We have now had an argument with the ignorant management so will definitely be moving on Boxing Day.  Barry mentioned the power lash-up with respect to the safety issues as it consisted of a 10metre cable from the power point connected to a 20 metre power cable with a double adaptor draped through 2 cabin carports.  As if by magic, in the late afternoon whilst Barry was outside talking to a neighbour, the neighbour noticed the double adaptor connection on fire.  Barry disconnected the power from the supply and dowsed the fire but the connecting cables plug and socket plus the double adaptor had completely melted and starting to set the carport paintwork alight.  People in caravans are expected to catch their sink water in a bucket and empty it in a sullage drain 20 metres away as there are no sullage drains by the vans.  Ours goes out onto the grass regardless and our water supply is via our drink quality hoses connected to a plastic garden hose but fortunately we can eliminate the plastic taste with our filters.

21^st December 2011

We drove out to look at 3 cheap campsites and whittled the choice down to the first and the last that we look at.  Both are the same price, both have water available plus ablution blocks which we don’t actually need, both allow generator use as there is no power provided and both are situated in scenic areas. We decided on the first one (Darlington Park) that we looked at despite having to travel further for major shopping as there is a small shop on site for bread/milk/ eggs, etc, and will be moving there on the 24^th December to have a Christmas with mother nature.   

23^rd November2011

We did the preparatory packing up including filling the water tanks ready to move out reasonably early in the morning even though it is raining cats and dogs as we have arranged to have the gas hot water heater serviced on the way out.

24^th December 2011

We finalised the packing up this morning in more rain and moved on to Darlington Park after the gas heater service was completed and set up camp alongside the river.  As we set up the camp the heavens decided to open up yet again but it didn’t affect us too much as we had already got the awning up which allowed us to collect four buckets (36 litres) of rain water to add to the 256 litres that we are carrying.  We normally use about 30 litres of water per day so it should last 8 days but we expect to catch a lot more rain water over the 3 weeks we will be here.  We are told that the river water is good enough for doing the clothes washing so we won’t have to waste our water on that.  On the way out here Amy returned Barry’s yesterday call although Merry had to do the talking as Barry was driving but the good news is she is 4.5 months pregnant.  Barry also made contact with Stu and Be who have now moved to the village of Richmond a bit further out of Hobart but a really  lovely area with a convict built bridge over the river with an attractive church in the background.  You just have to ignore the pathetic caravan park that is slightly out of the village as it doesn’t live up to the heritage standard.  This chat with Stu was short and difficult as there is virtually no phone signal where we are which is why our attempts to phone and/or text our Christmas messages didn’t happen. There is no Internet connection at all.

25^th December 2011

Two years ago we were staying with Garon and Sue for Christmas Day and last year we were in Hobart and had Christmas day with Stu and Be along with Be’s parents Michael and Jenny. This year are on our own (if you discount the numerous campers spread out over this campsite, who we don’t know from a bar of soap) with a beautiful view across a small river at the hillside with its trees, kookaburras, lorikeets, cockatoos, cows and calves.  We are actually surrounded by small hills which might account for our lack of internet signal and very poor phone signal along with being 27kms from the nearest town.  We did still manage to have our traditional Turkey dinner without the rain that had been predicted by the weather bureau.  Barry spent some time installing a second 12 volt socket so that we could use the 12v/240v inverter to power up our satellite TV receiver and dish and also plug in the TV as there is no other TV reception out here. This was in readiness for the Boxing Day test match

26^th December 2011

We watched the test match. 

We have two miner birds that seem to be very vain and love watching themselves in our car mirrors which conveniently have extension towing mirror frames to stand on whilst they admire themselves, and do other interesting things.

27^th December 2011

More test match cricket up until a storm came over us with hail, thunder and heavy rain for about 20 minutes during which time we collected about 60 litres of water and took the opportunity to stand in the rain and wash our hair.

29^th December 2011

Barry discovered that the fuse in the cable going from the second battery to the Anderson plug at the rear, which connects to the van fridge when travelling, had blown and tried to melt the fuse holder.  This had happen before and had been replaced when we were in Sarina on the northbound trip.  Barry has traced the wiring and found that it also feeds the power to charge the caravan battery whilst travelling as all of the plugs have been looped from the one cable.  We were under the impression that the fridge had its own cable, so never trust an Auto electrician.  The fridge alone draws 23 amps which exceeds the 20 amp fuse, plus there is the additional current draw to charge to the battery.  He has now purchased the requirements to replace the fuse holder and fuse with a lower rated fused to service the battery charging and run an additional heavier duty cable and 25 amps fuse to the Anderson plug to service the fridge only.  The other advantage of the Anderson plug is being able to connect our solar panels to the charge the secondary battery which runs the Engel fridge/freezer in the car(on its own cable and fuse) when we leave the van and go camping with the tent, or for extra supplies for the Christmas period.  The birds have entertained us regularly every day.

30^th December 2011

We packed up the camp and moved from our river side position to the other side of the park as another caravan was about to move out from what we considered to be a prime position as it placed us near the kiosk, toilets, dump point and the water supply although it this needs boiling as it comes from the river prior to the swimming area.  This didn’t matter to us as we have plenty of drinking water but it is useful for the washing machine and washing.  We now look out over almost all of the park and away from a noisy dog that was next to us.  We went into town in the afternoon (27kms) to do a bit of shopping, a few phone calls and to use the computer to catch up with the banking, etc.  From this we determined that our pension had not been paid into the account on the basis that we had not supplied required paperwork when requested, but when we immediately phoned Centrelink they suddenly discovered that we had submitted them in October whilst we were in Townsville.  The payments will now be payed in the New Year so chew on that without an apology.  Whilst in Town we filled the water tank in the car as it had been previously emptied to the van tanks and will be filled again tomorrow.

1^st January 2012

The noise from the other campers was not as bad as expected, just the usually countdown to midnight and much after that.  There was a kiddie’s cricket match in the middle of the park with a bit of adult help but in general very quiet.  The birds haven’t worked out where we have moved to so that entertainment has ended. We decided it was time to take a photo of the managers Queenslander houe at night when it is lit up.

2^nd January 2012

Barry attached a new cable to the caravan battery with a 10 amp fuse and an Anderson plug mounted under the edge of the van below the outside TV and then put an Anderson plug on a short cable to the TV so that we only need to unplug the cable and take the TV inside the van when we travel.  The park has now had an exodus which has thinned out the campers considerably to about a third.

3^rd January 2012

Today Barry replaced the burnt out 20 fuse holder with a new holder and 10 amp fuse and remade the connection from that holder to the cable going to the all of the plugs on the back of the car.  He then detached the Anderson plug from that cable so that it only feeds the usual trailer plugs.

 4^th January 2012

Another early start to beat the temperature and Barry installed a new heavier cable from the Anderson plug through to the front of the car and attached a new fuse holder to the battery.  He then stopped to watch the second test match.  All that remains to be done is connect the cable to the fuse holder and install a new fuse.

5^th January 2012

The final connection of the fuse holder to the Anderson plug has now been made and a temporary 20 amp fuse installed but will be changed to a 25 amp fuse after our next shopping trip.  This now allows many options along with running the van fridge whilst travelling, run the outside TV from the car, use the solar panels to charge that battery if and when necessary, and we have a cable to connect that battery to the van battery if required.

6^th January 2012

It got hot enough today to run the air conditioner for a few hours until it clouded over in the late afternoon and actually attempted to rain briefly. 

Barry walked up to kiosk to check out the managers beautifully restored 1950 Morris 8 utility (8 horsepower pick up) with removable top to the cabin and artwork on the wheel rims.  The doors are hinged at the rear so open from the front which was common in that era, and the seats are immaculately leather trimmed.  Neal is not a mechanically minded guy and couldn’t confirm, or not, whether Barry’s guess that the engine is a side valve unit as opposed to overhead valves, but either way it is a smooth running engine.  The only non-original parts are the added left/right turn indicators which need to be there to be legally roadworthy, but there are no seat belts as they are not required by law as the car came without them.

7^th January 2012

We drove along to the Darlington Connection road and over the hill to Lamington and Burgess Park which is managed by the couple that manage Darlington Park.  We had conjured up visions in our minds of another park similar to Darlington Park but Burgess Park is very small with enough room for about ten tents/campers/caravans alongside a creek that you can barely see, but it does have a toilet block. 

It doesn’t compare with Darlington Park in any way as it can accommodate up to 150 people, but is probably quieter but without the dump point and kiosk is probably used for short stays of a few days only.  On the way back we branched off into Lost Valley which has some lovely scenery but ends at a gate to a cattle property but the views were worth the effort.  Later we took Foxy for a short but energetic walk up the hill behind our camping ground but it is restricted to the campground property by fencing.

9^th January 2012

We had to drive back to a shopping centre near Durack to collect some ordered medication and then drove almost to Brisbane to a large shopping centre to check our situation with Medibank Health Fund.  Whilst there we had lunch in a British style pub but was disappointed with the meal. On the way back we did our grocery shopping in Beaudesert and also caught up with some emails and banking on the computer whilst we had some internet coverage.  We also had a gas bottle filled and bought some more fuses including the 25 amp one for the new cable on the car.

12^th January 2012

Kathy the manageress of the park has had to go to hospital for a couple of days due to an insect bite it is thought as she is prone to problems in that particular arm because of the removal of the lymph gland.  This left Neal with the problem of the daily duties such as mowing/money collection/toilet cleaning/etc plus looking after the kiosk which can’t be done with having to go to Burgess Park to perform the same duties, plus trips to town to collect bags of ice/wood/provisions/etc so we have been minding the kiosk for him when he is away elsewhere.  

12^th January 2012

Neal brought Kathy home from hospital today but she is not to lift anything and must take it easy, but their daughters have come out to stay with them for a while to help out.  Neal gave Barry a ride around the park in the Morris 8 while he did his evening check on camp fire sizes, etc.  

 15^th January 2012

We packed up the bulk of our camp ready to move on in the morning to meet up with Richard and Jack and Rory in a couple of days for another camping holiday and then visited Neal and Kathy to say our farewells in case we don’t see them in the morning.

16^th January 2012

 We moved over to Helensvale which is on the Gold Coast slightly north west of Surfers Paradise and are not too impressed with the caravan park especially at $50 a night (school holidays) as there is no concrete pad for the annex to sit over and is a flood prone area.  The ablution block is in keeping with a $50 a night price tag but at the moment the weather is worth a cracker.

17^th January 2012

It rained torrentially virtually all night to the point that water has covered the grass under the annex so we now step out into water and it also turns out that our 15 year old tent that Richard, Jack and Rory will be using for the next couple of weeks is not exactly waterproof anymore.   We went out and Richard bought a new bigger one and we cut out the waterproof base of the old one and are using it as a ground sheet in the annex.  It did ease off raining in the afternoon to set up the new tent which looks pretty good with a heap more room as the old one was designed for 7 people and this one is designed for 9.  We don’t think it would be much fun with that many people in either of them but that probably depends on who the others are.

24th November to 4th December 2011

24^th November 2011

We finally packed up and left Mark and Jeane to the peace and quiet that we had enjoyed during our stay and headed southwards with the intention of joining Richard in Hervey on the 29^th.  We stopped overnight at a free campsite beside the Bruce Highway at Yaamba which turned out to be the worst overnight stop we have had from the noise point of view, and the temperature was high so sleeping without the air conditioner was not easy.  The morning chorus at around 4.00am from a multitude of Rainbow Lorikeets was not appreciated.

25^th November 2011

We moved on reasonably early in the morning thanks to the early wake-up call and continued to a cheap campground with power for air conditioning to ensure a decent night’s sleep.  The campsite is actually on a private property and nowhere near a town or main road of any kind and was therefore should be quiet except for the morning chorus.  Tomorrow will be a relatively short journey as we are only a bit over a hundred kilometres from our destination.

26^th November 2011

We departed from the peace and quiet of the campsite quite early due to Queensland not having day light saving so it gets light about 4.30am so we had two coffee breaks on the way, one in a roadside bay and the second in a Park by Apple Tree Creek, plus we also stopped at the Hervey Bay visitor centre on the way.  It was very hot when we arrived at Lazy Acres Caravan Park so we only set up the van and had lunch and settled for putting up the annex when it cooled down.  Later in the afternoon we drove to a camping store that happens to be a Coleman agent and arranged to have a broken chair replaced under the 5 year warrantee.   Basically this went well but we have to go back on Monday for the final result as we are hoping to have it exchanged for a different preferred model chair. 

27^th November 2011

This was a fairly hot day, around 32 degrees, so we watched the golf on the TV in the air conditioning until late afternoon when we took Foxy for a walk to the local beach, which happens to be Torquay beach.  On the way there we crossed a road that also happens to be the road in which a friend of Richard lives, and he arrives there in a couple of days.

28^th November 2011

The camping shop called to say that they Coleman wouldn’t let us exchange the broken chair for a different, but cheaper model, and that we needed to go to BCF who have the same model. However , at BCF, as they where exchanging it for the same model we mentioned that the other shop was not able to let us exchange it for a different model but they said they could so we changed it for a more expensive model and paid the difference.  When we bought the original model 3 years ago it cost $109 but is now $139 so we only had to pay an extra $30 for the $169 model which now has a fresh 3 year warranty.

Later in the afternoon after doing some shopping we drove along the length of the bay side road checking out the various beaches to determine which allow dogs on them and those that don’t.  Torquay seems to be the No Dogs’ beach as it is the only stretch of beach that anyone would want to be on.  The others that allow dogs on leash are very rough and rocky, whilst the dogs off leash beaches are diabolical.  The bay side road has residential or shops on the non-beach side and the other side has stretches of parkland and playgrounds between the road and the beach so very few of the residences, if any, offer ocean views.  There are several caravan parks along this strip as well and fortunately we chose the one we are currently in based on price and dog friendly, but apparently the others suffer from people wandering off the beach and helping themselves to anything that takes their fancy.  Our park is a good 10 minutes walk from the beach, is fenced and has a remote operated security gate so we avoid those problems, but being further from the beach also means it is not too busy as beach parks are most peoples’ preference.  We are not beach people and most half decent beaches are not dog friendly so do not need to pay the extra for ocean views.

30^th November 2011

Richard has arrived and he and his friend Sally came for dinner.  As we will not be with any of our family for Christmas we made this opportunity our Christmas dinner with Turkey and all the trimmings.

1^st December 2011-12

We drove out of town to a property owned by the parents of Mel who was Richard’s friend in Perth but she is now in Hervey Bay with her parents.  Richard was also there as he was sorting through his belongings that where there in storage from when he moved to this side of the country chasing jobs.  We spent the afternoon and evening there enjoying a BBQ with them.

4^th December 2011

Nothing of interest has happened over the last few days as we are watching the test match on TV.

8th November to 18th November 2011

8^th November 2011

To celebrate the birthday of the world’s best mum (Barry’s) we drove into Townsville to the visitor centre which totally fooled our Navman as it has moved.  However, we parked outside the Museum and walked to the new visitor centre whilst taking photos in the surrounding vicinity of some of the old buildings.  We also had a bought lunch whilst there and walked back to look over the museum. 

This visit was cut short with a phone call to let us know that Foxy had escaped, found a convenient human in the caravan park and jumped up on his lap.  Fortunately her ID disc has our phone number on it, which is how he knew who to phone.  The park is very poorly designed, and our bay in particular has a fire hydrant with a concrete base right at the end of our concrete pad which stops us pegging the annex wall down to the ground.  This allowed our little troublemaker to get out underneath the wall, but we have now made modifications that should stop her little game.   Originally we were going to stop at a park 20kms south of Townville that claims to be quiet and peaceful but we decided to cut out the journeys back and forth and opted for the one near town.  This was a mistake as it looks nice from the outside but is badly designed making it diabolical to get the van into the allotted bay. Having eventually managed that without damage we found the pad is way too long to be able to put both front and back annex walls up as you can’t peg down the front wall down on the concrete.  We then found out that we couldn’t peg the back one down either, hence our little problem.  Add to that the fact that we had no idea that it is close to the domestic airfield plus a military airfield, a railway and a truck route, so it rather noisy.  There are domestic flights coming and going along with fly in/out mining flights and numerous military helicopters doing their manoeuvres during the day and evening.  On the brighter side, it is marginally cooler and not quite so humid.  From what we have seen of Townsville has assured us that we have no desire to live here but that also applies to all other cities and large towns.  After living in the Pilbara for about 16 years even Geraldton will feel too big by the time we get back to it. The problem will be finding somewhere that suits both of us and is still in touch with a decent shopping centre, medical assistance and suitable weather conditions.

10^th November

The bulk of the day was used for organising the next few weeks and juggling photos between our several external hard drives in the theory that this keeps our computer hard drives relatively free from photos, and if any of the external ones die we still have back-up. 

After dinner we drove into Townsville and up the steep winding road to the summit of Castle Hill that offers great views across the city both da and night, and will be doing it again in daylight.  There are six lookouts around the top of the hill to allow views in all directions and heights, and apparently plenty of unofficial lookouts, as we saw several idiots climbing back over the handrails after checking out the sheer drop.  Townsville is the second largest town in Queensland and as the views from the hill prove, it stretches a long way.  It was quite windy up there which actually made the night photography not-so-good as our tripods aren’t the most substantial units and allowed movement in some cases.

 11^th November 2011

About mid-morning we drove through to The Strand which is the Townsville beach area that has a regular swimming pool at one end and a couple of kilometres of well kept beach stretching out from it.  There is an attractive walkway along the length of this beach area with numerous kids’ play areas and surprisingly allowed dogs on leads so Foxy got to enjoy herself, and had free parking.  It was a very warm, humid day so after returning for lunch we stayed home and watched the Australian open golf tournament during the afternoon. 

12^th November 2011

We drove up castle hill again in daylight to see what we were actually looking at on our night time visit and found that it was still quite breezy at this altitude.  Whilst the views from the top are great they don't match up to the views from Mt Wellington overlooking Hobart.  We visited most but not all of the lookouts that we visited during our night time trip and despite the breeze were able to get some good photos thanks to daylight and faster shutter speeds.

After our descent we visited Queens Gardens, which also allowed dogs on leads, and spent an hour walking through the compact, but lovely, gardens.  We watched the golf again in the afternoon but did go out for some shopping at a large shopping complex with almost impossible parking arrangements.

13^th November 2011

We drove through town to the Botanic Gardens which you can drive through which was just as well as had nothing other than a Lilly filled lake to hold your interest so a few photos later we moved on to the Palmetum (botanic garden) which was totally different to the usual botanic garden, but still not as pleasant to walk around as Queens Gardens.  It has numerous segregated areas for different nationality species including a rainforest complete with bats. e then weaved our way through an upmarket estate along the Ross River to the Rivers Bend Lookout which is nicely presented and overlooks over a weir which at this point of time has no water flowing over it. 

We then drove to the ‘Jupiters’ casino and into the end of The Strand that we didn’t explore a couple of days ago. 

There is a regular outdoor swimming pool that doesn’t appear to get much use and on one side is a kids’ water playground that is fully utilised and on the other side is the war memorial. 

On the other side of the road is small cliff with a hotel/resort/ fancy house on the top with a waterfall down the cliff face to a pond at the bottom.  There is a pump house alongside the pool so we assume the water is pumped back up and probably through the swimming pool attached to the property.  It is very effective, and unexpected, at the side of the road in a town. We then headed home to watch the last day’s golf on the TV as the days is getting hot and humid again.  In the evening we treated ourselves to dinner at the local ‘Sizzlers’ which wasn’t too busy when we arrived but it soon filled out.  We were lucky as they placed us in a room separate to the main dining room which kept us away from the screaming kids so that we could enjoy the experience, which we did until we tried their disgusting coffee, so we left that and went home for some drinkable coffee.

 14^th November 2011

We packed up and moved on to Bowan where we stopped overnight on our way to Jeane and Marks place in Sarina (south of Mackay) were we stayed before. On arrival at the Bowan caravan park that we used last time there was no-one in the office so we retreated to one just up the road which was good from the noise point of view as we were a fair way from the road with no-one else around.  We were almost on the salt flats with no shade so we wouldn’t want to stay more than overnight.

15^th November 2011

We continued on our way to Sarina and arrived at Mark and Jeane’s just after lunch.  They have made a lot of changes to the surrounds round the house, and as expected, the modification that was made to the gate to let us get the van out last time made it very easy to get into the garden area this time.

16^th November 2011

We settled in at Jeane and Marks and did very little other than take Foxy for a walk along Armstrong Beach in the afternoon.

17^th November 2011

We took the Patrol to Mackay for its 110,000kms service and as it was a fairly hot day and we walk the town last time we were here we stopped off for a coffee at a cafe whilst we waited for the cinema to open.  Half an hour later we left and went to the cinema to watch a film called ‘Eye of the storm’ which is a 2 hour film, but we walked out half way through because it was a load of boring rubbish.   We decided to look for somewhere to have lunch and realised that we had left the morning cafe without paying for the coffees, so we went there to make amends but their computer system had nothing outstanding for that table.  It brought up our order as paid so either someone else paid it, or their system is not so good.  Either way it didn’t cost us anything so we stopped for lunch which we paid for this time.   We them walked along to the Nissan Service centre which coincided perfectly with the car being ready and proceeded to Caneland Central (the largest Mackay shopping centre) as Merry had a few requirements needed for her wardrobe, and then headed back to Sarina.

26th October to 7th November 2011

26^th October 2011

Yesterday was spent some time doing some shopping in Atherton and then packed up camp again ready to move on in the morning as the weather has cleared quite significantly.  We headed towards the coast to our pre-arrange destination at Paronella Park near Innisfail. 

Entry to the Park is $33 per person for pensioners and includes a 2 year pass for future free visits and an overnight stop in their caravan/camping section.  The price is the same whether you stopover or not so in effect the stopover is free.  The park was built as a dream by Jose Paronella and includes 2 castles, one for dances, etc, and the other as a cafe to service the bowls and tennis courts plus the house that he and his family lived in. 

The waterfall on the Mena creek was already there but he diverted some of the water in 1933 to drive a hydro-electric service (the first privately owned one in Queensland) to power the Park.  The generator was replaced a few years ago and is now providing all of the electricity to the park again.   He also built a tunnel through a hill on the property and emerged on the other side to find another small waterfall which he named Teresa Falls after his daughter. 

His concrete is not particularly waterproof so the tunnel is quite wet and now has a colony of micro-bats living in there.  It is a 13 acre property on which they planted 7000 trees and also has some ponds and fountains that are gravity fed from the Mena Creek waterfall.  There have been several floods in the Park during exceptional wet seasons and also a fire in1979 that destroyed much of the castle, including the ballroom/cinema.  We did the early afternoon tour which was probably a mistake as Val and Barry (2) did the one after us and they were the only ones on it whereas we has about 15 including an extremely annoying kid. 

We also did the evening tour to try out the night time photography again which was also difficult as it turned out that two groups did the tour and somehow merged so you needed a lot of luck to get a photo without some or many ignorant  idiots walking in front of you.  Barry eventually let them know how ignorant they were and then stood in front of them.  We had a late dinner and then walked round the park with our torches and no other people and collected some good photos and video. 

We also did the lot again in the morning before the rabble arrived and without standing around listening to the history lesson from the tour guide.  It took about 5 years to build the castles, house and gardens but it didn’t take long for Cyclone Larry and a fire to destroy a lot of it, but there is enough to see how grand it must have been in the 1930s.

27^th October 2011

We have now changed from our intended trip south to Kurrimine and turned north to Cairns for a week in order to visit the Botanic Gardens and allow us to see the town.

28^th October 2011

We had a lazy day but we did take Foxy for a morning walk alongside the creek that runs around the extremely nice Caravan Park.  There are a lot of fallen trees, both across the pathway and in the creek, as a result of cyclone Yasi that haven’t been cleared away except for cutting sections out that were blocking the path.   This leaves the creek looking not-so-attractive but is as nature intended, and would cost a lot to clear it even if you could get appropriate equipment in there to do the job.  The walk took us to a park where some of it has been put aside for dogs to exercise and then returned via the road back to the caravan park.  By this time the typical Cairns/tropical humidity had well and truly set in for the day so that we arrived back rather damp and uncomfortable.  The caravan park seems to host a vast variety of birds based on the bird noises, as we have seen very few due to the dense foliage on the trees.  Some of them carry on throughout the night so we have no idea when they sleep, or if they sleep.

31^st October 2011

We drove up to Copperlode Dam and its associated Lake Morris which entailed a slow drive up a very narrow, twisty road over a mountain and into the valley on the other side.  The ascent meant that we were on the outside of the road which provided both horizontal and vertical views, but being the driver Barry didn’t see much of it as he had more important things to concentrate on. We stopped at a lookout on the way up for views over Cairns and out to sea. 

The surrounds of the now closed kiosk and the viewing areas of the lake and dam are attractively done but the dam wall itself nothing special other than the fact that it holds back a lot of water.  It was rather surprising to find that since the kiosk closed the shire council has installed an electric urn and the provisions for a complimentary cup of tea or coffee until someone takes on the vacant lease.

From the Dam, and after our cuppa, we headed down the one and only second gear road to the city beachfront, and were surprised once again when our Navman suggested we turned right in 100 metres at Roberts Road.  We can only assume that would have been the road that we would have landed on, had we turned right into mid-air 500 metres up.  We have found that a lot of the Queensland mapping has been rather poor. 

We had our lunch in much the same spot as on our last visit as it either impossible to find parking space closer to the CBD and the swimming lagoon as it not advisable to swim in the ocean because of jellyfish stingers at this time of the year and the good chance of befriending a saltwater crocodile.   After lunch we walked along the beachfront with Foxy to the edge of the ‘No Dogs’ swimming area where Barry waited with Foxy whilst Merry checked out what the area had to offer.   The beachfront is nicely laid out with plenty of entertainment for young kids with a shallow water area with slides and fountains and also play areas with swings, etc, plus BBQ and picnic areas with well tended gardens.

1^st November 2011

 Another big day for us with a trip to the Botanic Gardens which started with a free guided tour and then left to explore on our own.  This is by far the most interesting botanic garden that we have visited as the variety of plants in flower is huge and vastly different to what we are accustomed to.  

Our visit was timed just right as they officially opened the new visitor centre last Friday which is a spectacular building  with an unusual shape and uses very dark tinted glass as its outer covering which acts as a mirror which makes it quite hard to see as it camouflaged by reflections of the surrounding trees. 

The garden is reasonably compact rather than vast area of lawn which is typical of the wet tropics and includes a wetland boardwalk on the other side of the road, but we didn’t find this part particularly good as we have already walked through this type of country quite often and didn’t appreciate the mosquitoes. 

When we emerged from the wetland area we had our lunch and explored the good side again on our own and got to see a few areas that we hadn’t been taken to on the tour. This included some art exhibitions inside some huge WW2 oil storage tanks but these exhibitions where photos of various wars and their atrocities which we didn’t need to subject ourselves too, so we returned to the gardens.  About mid afternoon when we had seen everything at least twice we headed homeward but continued past the caravan park to Redlynch to get a small amount of shopping. 

On the way we saw a signpost to Crystal Cascades which appealed to us so we gave them a visit after the shopping. 

It is part of Freshwater Creek which is fed from Lake Morris that we visited yesterday, and from the carpark it is possible to walk 1.2km alongside the creek on paved, bituminised and/or concrete roadway overlooking numerous small waterfalls, rapids and pools.  Some of the pools are designated swimming holes with steps down to them whilst other areas which are not so safe have unofficial tracks down to them despite the warnings that lives have been lost in these areas.  This probably happens when the rains cause the spillway at the side of the dam to overflow and allow a torrent of water down the creek which in turn attracts young invincibles to try their luck.  The roadway is eventually closed off at a point where a slightly larger waterfall can only be seen properly by climbing over the safety rail to move to the edge of the gorge in order to see the base of the fall.  It would have made sense to install a safe viewing platform so that people like us don’t need to climb over it to complete the view.  On our return to the caravan park we collected Foxy from a woman who looks after dogs for $10 a day that we had used for this trip.

2^nd November 2011-11

It rained during the night and into the morning so today was restricted to an afternoon trip into Cairns for some specialised shopping after it had cleared up and on our return so we had the chance to pack up the annex whilst it was dry in readiness for our move tomorrow.

3^rd November 2011

We headed south towards Kurramine as intended a week ago but took time out to deviate at Babinda to visit ‘The Boulders’ which we had heard about on a few occasions.   There is a very pleasant picnic area including a kids’ playground alongside a creek fed from the State’s highest mountain that presents a beautiful pebble-bottomed swimming pool alongside the picnic area. 

However, when you walk the 650 metres downstream it becomes a raging cauldron of water as the gorge narrows over boulders and water chutes cut through rock over the years.  It is very impressive and apparently very dangerous (which is rather obvious) and would be horrific in the wet season after some heavy rain.  It has an aboriginal love story attached to its history but that seems to apply to most of these places.

It claims that the several lives that have been lost over the more recent years are young men trying to find the love of the young girl who supposedly threw herself in because she could not have her true love from the wrong tribe.  In truth they where young idiots who thought they could bodysurf the water chutes and had their tiny brains knocked out.  One glance says you don’t go in there, even on a good day.  When we arrived back at the picnic area we were very surprised to have the pleasant company of a cassowary which are apparently struggling since cyclone Yasi destroyed a lot of their natural habitat and sightings are quite rare. 

We travelled on to an overnight free stay just north of Innisfail where we unhitched the caravan and explored the town for a few hours before settling in for the night.  The campsite was rather noisy, as would be expected with it being on a junction of the Bruce Highway and Palmerston Highway, but we managed.

4^th November 2011

We left the free campsite and drove out Flying Fish Point which didn’t inspire us in any way so returned through the out edge of Innisfail and back to the Bruce Highway and took the turn off to Etty Beach.  This turned out to be one of the useful townships that let you drive 20kms to get there and inform 50 metres from town that it is a No Dog area with a second sign saying No Dogs beyond this point.  They don’t have the sense to put a sign up at the beginning of the road and they also don’t have the sense to put in an area where you can turn round at this point, especially with a caravan, so Foxy got to have a look at a most pathetic beach and township.  Its claim to fame was the fact that it was an area for American troops to have R & R during WW2 from the South Asia area.  We moved on after a10 minute stop to visit other beaches but decided to leave out Crowley Beach and continued on to Mission Beach.  We had been led to believe this was a great place but it did nothing for us but it did allow time and an appropriate shop to buy the gear to make and fit a second pole carrier to the caravan.

5^th November 2011

We moved on to have a look at South Mission Beach but that didn’t inspire us either so continued south to Tully.  We called in at the visitors centre to inquire about Tully Gorge, as we had seen a sign pointing to it, and also discovered that a Murray Falls is in the area so decided to stay in the area for a night to give us a chance to check them out.  A free campsite was suggested by the visitors centre staff but on arrival at it (19kms out of town) it actually was dump wanting $13 a night with no power, no water and you can’t run a generator.  We returned to the caravan park in town which is nothing special as it more a work camp than a van park, but closer to the areas we wanted to visit.  However, since our arrival and setting up in the park, it has rained almost continuously, quite hard at times with thunder, so we will do the trips tomorrow all being well, which should show the waterfall at its best, and then stay another night to leave on Monday.  We did manage to fit a new non-return valve on the water inlet so that our pump doesn’t pump water back out from our tanks when we stay in free camps.  We also have to find somewhere to buy a new ‘U’ bolt for one of our ride levellers as it has been damaged clipping a speed hump.  Tully is still struggling to recover from cyclone Yasi with many building still using tarps a s roofs.

6^th November 2011

It rained hard enough during the night to disturb us several times but come morning it has eased off, at least temporarily, but still there is still light drizzle to contend with.  We checked out the town and very surprisingly found a hardware store that was open and bought our new ‘U’ bolt.  After lunch we drove out to Tully Gorge despite more rain. 

We visited Tully Gorge from the Ravenshoe side where the lookout gave a view into the Gorge from the top, whereas today we drove beside and slightly above the river actually in the gorge with a few lookouts tracks down to the water’s edge. 

The road ended at the hydroelectric power station fed from the water that is diverted away from Tully Falls.  At this point is a launching arrangement for rafts for people to white water raft down the river if they so desire ending at the picnic area where we stopped at the water’s edge earlier.  

We then returned to Tully and the main road to head south and then west again to visit Murray Falls which was performing well with the last 36 hours of good rain.  The fall is not especially high, or wide, but makes for a good view despite the light rain, and has a day use area for safe swimming a little further downstream.

7^th November 2011

We moved on to Townsville with a brief stop at Cardwell, which also suffered badly from Yasi as it is a beachfront town, to visit the Old Post office and Telegraph station which was very well presented and interesting.  We also had a very brief stop at Bluewater Park, about 20kms north of Townsville and almost chose to stay at this free camp, but moved on to a caravan park just out of Townsville.