Trying to escape a very wet South East Coast

Sapphire, a town where people are still searching for (and finding) Sapphires in a whole range of colours, yellows and pinks as well as the traditional deep blues.  Eck and Suki have set out to do a bit of fossicking around, so now I am happy to report that they have found a number of stones that look absolutely fabulous cut and polished.  Congratulations!!

I must admit that this kind of activity is not really my personal preference, so I am happy to leave that to those that do enjoy it.  From Sapphire its back to Emerald for some shopping and then a drive on to Duaringa, on the road to the east coast, where I spend the night at the town’s lovely rest area.  In the morning I continue to Rockhampton and on to Yeppoon to put up camp at a nice park right on the beach.  Great to feel a cool breeze coming off the ocean while I spend time chatting with my neighbors.

Back on the road through Rockhampton where I remember their perfectly timed traffic lights all the way through town.  After waiting at a traffic light to change to GREEN I get to the next light to turn RED right in front of me, every time.  Great for traffic flow, if start / stop is what you are after, but then, why would you hurry ?  Queenslanders are so lay-back.

A great camp spot on the Caliope River

There have been extensive rainfalls in the area, so the landscape is green, a sight I have not seen a lot of during my travels across Australia.  My next stop is right by the Caliope River, about 15km west of Gladstone, a great spot, where I intend to spend at least 2 nights.  The weather report advises rain all along the east coast to my south, with some heavy falls north of Brisbane in excess of 200mm in just a few hours.  I best wait that one out!

 I am also enjoying my stay at Caliope River

Just a bit more beach, then heading back in-land for less humidity

From Mission Beach I drive back into the foothills of the Tableland, threading my way along backroads, fields of sugar cane and the many narrow gauge railtracks used by cane trains for the transport of the harvested cane to one of the many sugar mills.  Eck had recommended to come see Paronella Park, a private property that has been developed by a well to do man from Spain.

 José Paronella’s dream was to build a castle.  He chose a special part of Australia and created Paronella Park.  On 5 Hectares beside Mena Creek Falls he built his castle, picnic area by the falls, tennis courts, bridges, a tunnel, and wrapped it up in an amazing range of 7,500 tropical plants and trees (now a lush rainforest!).  It opened to the public in 1935.

Various cyclones and floods have done major damage to a large part of the property, being in the Wet Tropics obviously adds its own measure of destruction as most of what is left standing is covered in green moss and lichen, also adding to a sense of eeriness.

I have spent the night at their Caravan Park but leave the following morning to head once again closer to the ocean, to the town of Ingham. While I am at Ingham I drive back into the hills to take another look at Wallerman Falls as it is more than 2 years since my last visit there.  Its a steep and windy road that takes me to the top of the Falls and I am rewarded with a much larger amount of water rushing to drop about 270 metres into the valley.

 Wallerman Falls

I stop at Balgal Beach, about 45km north of Townsville, staying for two nights.  During the day, a Minibus arrived with about a dozen geriatrics, probably from a home for the elderly. They were accompanied by two ladies who worked with them, throwing a ball to one at a time and them having to do simple arithmetic calculations, like adding 10 to the previously called number.  Obviously there were a number of variations to that game and it looked as if most of the oldies seemed to enjoy it.  Eck and Suki had also arrived and we all had a good laugh with the players.

 "Oldies" having a bit of fun with a ball

I have had some difficulties with my house batteries not holding proper charge, so the first thing I do when I get into Townsville, is to drive to Battery World the same company I had bought two new batteries from back in Sydney last December.  Turns out that one of the two was not holding charge and they replaced it under warranty.  It also turned out that the 240V power unit supplied with the Motorhome only has an output voltage of 12V, not nearly enough to properly recharge my house batteries which require about 14.2V.  I invested in a new power supply to take care of that part into the future.

 

The battery on the left is new

This is my wonderful new power unit

The following morning I drive by the Post Office to collect my forwarded mail and leave Townsville for Lake Carlyle a fairly large lake, about 120km south off the main highway to Charters Towers.  Two lazy days above Burdekin Dam in a near empty Caravan Park provide a good opportunity to give my Motorhome a good wash on the outside, finally getting rid of a lot of dust and grime.  Being Friday, by late that day quite a few new neighbours arrive, all of them with large powerboats in tow and all of them setting up large tents for their families.  All of them are really looking forward, to a day of water skiing on the lake. 

 Damm wall at Lake Carlyle

A very colourful character strolling around the park

The drive to and from the lake crosses several cattle properties, as I count 22 cattle grids which separate different property pastures.  There is lots of green grass after the recent rains and also many stray cattle all over the road at various places.  I keep an eye on my speed as I do not want to end up with a dead Bull across the front of my vehicle.

The "Tablelands - Wet Tropics Beaches - Tablelands" Yoyo

The locals tell us that it seems as if the wet season has arrived a bit early, after returning to Cairns to have my vehicle serviced, re-fill my German Beer supply and also having the other front wheel bearing replaced, I again head for higher ground, meaning, to drive buck up into the Tablelands as Cairns is very hot and very humid, even though the sun seems to be mostly hiding behind heavy clouds.  This time I drive to the other, the northern shore of Tinneroo Lake and stop at a Scout Camp, right at the shore of the lake.  The sky is blue once more so the decision to drive back up here seems to have been a good one!?

A great spot right on the lake front

Beautiful local tree blossoms

By the following morning the rain has started up here as well and after another night, I decide to drive back to the coast, this time a little south of Innisfail, a place called Mission Beach.  A wonderful spot I remember well from my visit there last year.  Beautiful sweeping views along a palm line beach front, looking out to Dunk Island, just off shore.

 Dunk Island as seen from Mission Beach

 Works of Art formed by the thousands of small 

Sand Crabs when they clean out their burrows before the next tide.
The small hole in the centre is where one of them lives.

It does rain overnight again but stays nice during the day.  It is still warm and humid but there is a lovely cool breeze coming from the ocean front that makes for a much more pleasant experience than the hot-and-sticky ambience at Cairns.  Well, I stay for 4 nights, sharing two in the company of my friends Eck and Suki who have also arrived.
more about Mission Beach..
We are definitely in the Wet Tropics, as a reminder, the towns of Babinda and Tully along the coast record an annual rainfall of about 4200mm.  Water certainly is not in any shortage in this part of Australia, naturally a great part of the county to grow Sugar Cane, most of the land seems to be covered with it, apart from many Banana and Papaya plantations.

Is this really the "Dry Season"?

The sunny weather at Etty Bay did not last, quite wet with a lot of drizzle overnight, the Flying Foxes in the tree above my Motorhome did not improve the quality of my sleep either. They were at it for most of my last night, eating the plum-sized purple fruits, then dropping the walnut sized kernel on my roof with quite a bang.  In the morning I have to climb onto my roof with a garden hose to remove a heap of leaves, fruit kernels and bat shit from the roof and the top of my awning.

Clouds rolling in at Etty Bay

Lots of heavy tropical rain clouds are moving in from the ocean with plenty more rain.  When I drive out I 
head for the Tablelands again as the low clouds probably get stuck against the mountain range.  By the time I get to Yungaburra, about 720m above sea level, the sky has turned blue once again and I can see heavy clouds hanging all around the mountaintops.  Looks like my plan has worked for me.

View from my backwindow

Morning light at Yungaburra campground

It is a lot less humid up here with rather pleasant temperatures that come with the altitude.  I make my campsite close to the side of Lake Tinnaroo, just beautiful!

From the Tablelands back to the coast

After a lazy week at Mareeba Rodeo Grounds its time to get back on the road.  My Laptop had died on me some weeks ago, leaving me with only my small screen stand-by machine.  One of the big suppliers had been advertising a new machine for a quite reasonable price, so I had driven down from Mareeba to Cairns to buy one of these Laptops.  Naturally, a new Operating System (Windows 7) as against the old and trusted "Windows XP" I have been using for several years now.  As a consequence of the new OP System my broadband unit does not work on the new machine (yet) so for my Internet work I am still relying on my little toy machine until the problem has been solved.

When we leave Mareeba, Eck and Suki have decided to drive north again to Cooktown, while I want to head south toward the coast.  Mareeba was about 420m above sea level and I am surprised to see that when I arrive at Atherton, about 45km away, I am at an altitude of 750m even though I did not realise that I must have been going steadily uphill.  From Atherton I drive through Yungaburra, close to Lake Tinaroo.  It is a truly wonderful landscape along the lakeshores.  Too bad the weather is still on the wet side and due to the altitude I find myself near the prevailing cloudbase, accompanied by light drizzle of rain.

 Skydivers landing at Etty Bay

The road that takes me through Gordonvale onto the Captain Cook Highway which connects the towns along the eastcoast.  I had planned to stop at a rest area at Babinda but find the place after all the rain during the previous week, wet and soggy, drive a little further to Bramston Beach where I stop for the night at the beach.

 A big Goanna roaming the campground at Etty Bay

The sky looks as if it will be clearing during the day so I look forward to stopping at a place I remember from my last visit, last October, Etty Bay, another small campground, right on the beach, a little south of Innisfail.  I am allocated site no.6, directly opposite where I stopped last year.  It is still agreat spot, the Cassowaries and a couple of large Goannas still roaming around the campground, just like last year.