Cairns – Canberra and back again 28 Jube - 18 July

So we arrived in Cairns but this is a leg with a difference.  For a number of family reasons we have been planning a trip back to Canberra and this seemed the best (and cheapest) location to do it from.  We booked the van in for a service and a few minor repairs (we had managed to break a seat, a flywire window and a few screws were now loose) and the same for the car.  We stayed for a couple of nights in a convenient but ordinary van park – but our focus was on two things: getting ready for a trip back and a most serendipitous visit with one of my long standing great friends who lives in Melbourne!

We met up with Maureen and her family on the esplanade in Cairns.  As we have discovered northern Queensland towns have invested in seaside water parks and Cairns is no exception.  We all met up at the lagoon for a nice long swim.  The day was overcast and rainy, but hey it was warm rain and the humidity was enough to make a swim feel nice.  We then hung out for an icecream before all too soon it was time to part ways with a promise of a longer catch up when we reach Melbourne. 

Before leaving we had an afternoon in Cairns city, ending up with dinner and some shopping at the night markets.  I will admit to having seen many better markets – but for the kids they had light, colour and many things that they wanted to buy.  We settled on a family set of small cute pistachio nut magnets made to look like Pokemon and local animals. 

I am not really going to blog much about Canberra – it was all about family.  I will say that the temperature difference of about 25 each day in Cairns to -7 one night in Canberra was stark.  But we must be truly acclimatized Canberrans because it didn’t feel that bad after a couple of days.  I would like to say thank you to everyone who helped us with our stay, with accommodation, extra clothes and toys for the boys and for all the catchups.

We arrived back in Cairns to some sunny weather and stayed at the Cairns Coconut Holiday Resort.  After so much time with their friends and family we thought the boys would be missing company so opted for a caravan park that would help distract them.  We had one comment on the first day about wanting to go back, but after 5 minutes in the heated pool with a slide and the promise of so many more activities the next day we never heard anything again.  I will admit we have had to do quite a bit of thinking about how the boys will and do react to the various parts of our journey and we try hard to envisage how they will react and work with that.  Sometimes with success, as with this occasion, other times maybe not so well.

We spent a whole day just mucking around in the caravan park – the boys trying most of the activities (including a free snorkelling lesson), David and I resettling back into the caravan and the tropics (away with those winter clothes!!!!). 

We had put a trip to Kuranda on our to see list a while ago. Kuranda is a small, tourist oriented village in the mountains behind Cairns.  But it isn’t actually Kuranda that is the main attraction it is the vintage scenic rail trip up and then the amazing Skyrail trip back.  The train climbs up the mountains through the rainforest, over a waterfall, near another one.  The views back to Cairns are amazing and we were lucky that it was such a beautiful, sunny, clear day.

What a view

Whilst in Kuranda we took in the Butterfly Sanctuary which was an interesting comparison having seen one in Coffs.  Maybe it was that we had already been there done that a bit or maybe it was that we had had the Coffs house pretty much to ourselves as we sheltered from a massive thunderstorm waiting for the deluge to pass.  But while Cairns is bigger, but we liked Coffs.  It should be said that the butterfly house here does have more of the amazing Ulysses and Cairns Birdwings, the former is almost impossible to photograph as it never never seems to sit still.  I will mention that one of the things I have learnt on this trip is to look for the deals. We had used a great one to see the theme parks at the Gold Coast and here too they have a four ‘park’ pass.  For a reasonable sum of money we could see the Butterfly House, the Rainforest Station, Cairns Zoom and the Port Douglas Wildlife Habitat.

 The elusive Ulysses

A Cairns Birdwing

We finished the day off with a nice lunch at a Kuranda café and a long stroll through the markets as the boys weighed up the merits of each of the cool necklaces all the stalls had to offer before finally buying themselves one each.  We meandered through the galleries and other shops.  Stopped for an icecream before heading to the Skyrail station.  

As usual the boys find new friends wherever we go

We loved the Skyrail ride but the queue to get on was really long (considering it was a quiet day at Kuranda) which was puzzling considering you get a booked time.

The next day we went to Cairns Zoom.  Now this is a wildlife park in a dome on a casino (after all what else would one do with ones roof if one was a casino).  The wildlife aspect was a bit well naff and aimed at overseas tourists, although I thought the albino kookaburra was cool.  

In contrast the Zoom aspect of this place was cool.  We paid the extra money for the boys to do the only rope course their height currently qualified them for and they LOVED IT.  As a second round wasn’t too much more we let them do it again.  I have a feeling that they will now be traversing Australia looking for activities such as this one to do again, and again and probably again.

Summing up Cairns – it’s a great base with a few activities that you want to do from Cairns but it isn’t my favourite place.  However, as we had travelled nearly 3000 km we weren’t finished with the region yet.  We wanted to spend time in Port Douglas, the Daintree and the Atherton Tablelands because this is an amazing area with so very much to see.

Mission Dunk Island - Mission Success!

We are going there!

By David

So one day Tracey asks “do you think we could spend a night camping”.  When we started out on our lap of Australia we had always planned to do the odd night camping away from Cool George, so of course I answered yes.  But then she added, what if we camped on a tropical island could we possibly manage that?  Ahhhh sure, well I think so, maybe, most likely.  And that is how our first camping adventure ended up on a tropical island.

By Tracey

I was more than a bit nervous.  We aren’t really campers, we have done a bit with family but not much by ourselves.  In fact until this trip we weren’t caravanners and we are definitely still learning how to do that. Could we pull this off?  But the other side of me said – start with one night if its super bad just sleep the next few days. How much could really go wrong anyway?.

We packed up all our gear (hoping we didn’t miss anything crucial because there was no going back), thought through in our heads how this would work, what could go wrong, what would we need then.  We had three things that made it easier, it was one night, the island had a working toilet and water and it was the home of the repeater for Mission Beach so had great mobile reception if things went pear shaped.  Then we watched the forecast and hoped the miserable wind and rain would just take a break.

By David

How lucky were we.  The day arrived and the rain disappeared. We arrived at the water taxi at 11am and loaded our gear on to a sort of trailer, we then had to wade out to the boat (my mid thigh, Tracey’s well bum and the boys up to their waists) and load our gear on to the water taxi.  Getting off the water taxi was interesting, Dunk has a jetty and our boat pretty much rammed itself gently up the stairs with the driver gunning the engines to stay there.  The day trippers got off and then us – me handing the stuff to Tracey on the stairs, her hoisting it up on the jetty (no help other than the boys who tried so hard to be helpful). 

We lugged our stuff to our campsite.  It was a treat – beautiful view, path right to the beach.  We couldn’t believe this was all ours for the princely sum of $23.95 per night (+ the taxi of course).   Setting up camp wasn’t too hard – it had been a while since we set this tent up but the brain cells still worked and in not too long a time we had our set up for the next 28 hours.

Our view! 

Us set for the night.

By Tracey

We had brought an esky which we filled with ice just before leaving and basically picnicked through all our meals.  Our table was a bit too sunny so we used nice shady one next door.  For dinner we chose another spot with a better view of the sunset, for breakfast a different vantage again.  As it turned out no-one else had booked a site.  Our own tropical island for $24 hard to believe.

By Mr L

Dunk Island makes me feel happy because there were so many butterflies and we found some wings on the ground. It was the best day we ever had, because we did camping on the beach. At night we saw toads and frogs, they were easy to see because they were gold, green and brown. They made me feel a bit grossed out because they were all over the place.

You should go to Dunk Island because it is so beautiful, you can snorkel and see coral and fish, build rock towers and swim in warm water.

The ground was a bit hard to sleep on I would prefer to try our stretcher beds next time.

Mum and Dad let us have a midnight (around 8pm) feast consisting of biscuits and special treat fruit chew lollies and we played UNO by torch light.

By Mr C

Dunk Island is AWEMAZING!  I would recommend it totally. I liked the beautiful butterflies that were everywhere on the island.  We were the only ones camping there it was like we had the whole island to ourselves.  The beaches were excellent and there were no crocs near here.  We swam in 3 different beaches and they were all beautiful, we even found some kids at one beach.  I really liked camping there. We got a great site with a little sand walkway right from our tent to the beach. I also loved the trips on the water taxi they were amazing.  On the way back there were lots of waves making the water fly against my window and wash into the back of the boat.  The ride to the mainland was better than a theme park ride!

The Beaches

By the time we had set up and had a leisurely lunch it was time to head to a beach – but which one.  We decided on Muggy Muggy which was down the beach in front of us and through a short rainforest walk.  As we headed to this beach all the day trippers passed us heading back to the jetty.  By the time we arrived we had a deserted tropical island beach all to ourselves.  The water was warm, but unfortunately the last few days of wind and rain meant that it was murky making our snorkelling there a bit difficult.  Still over the next two days we all had a good practice and we got to see some coral and tropical fish.

Muggy Muggy Beach 

Brammo Bay Beach

  

A Ghost Town?

Most of you probably all know that Dunk Island was once the setting for a major resort (in fact I stayed there with a friend many years ago).  Unfortunately Dunk and Bedarra Islands were also the epicentre for the landing of Cyclone Yasi in 2011.  From the beach the ~500 people resort appears abandoned and deserted.  The once premium beachfront accommodation is wrecked and vegetation is beginning to claim it bit by bit.

But a bit further along the beach was the main entrance to the old resort and it and its signature Ulysses butterfly pool were pristine.

We were perplexed by this, and only Mr C and Mr L were able to solve the mystery.  As I have said before kids love kids and ours are not unique in this.  As we swam on the beach in front of our campsite two kids and their mum started walking along the beach.  In a minute one of the kids had their clothes off and was in the water with ours.  Mums of course then chat as we watch kids swim.  It turns out there is a small staff at the resort which was sold after the cyclone.  The owners use the resort for private functions and are planning to turn it into a 6 star resort in the future.  For the present some accommodation off the beach has been restored and the landscaping is being reinstated.  There is also a café near the jetty which is open Fri to Sun.  However, all this information didn’t stop the place having an eerie feeling especially later in the evening when the resort was mostly dark. 

View from our campsite to the resort

Night time on the island

Dinner was a relaxed picnic with us still in our swimmers, but with magnificent views and a superb sunset.  We got to shop around for our dinner table so of course chose the best one.  After dinner we decided to do a night walk on the beach and went down to the jetty.  To our surprise there were people fishing and apparently they had heard us laughing our way through our dinner (the boys were doing silly voices).  They said it made them really smile.

We went back to the tent for our tropical night feast instead of dessert.  I won’t say it was a restful night of great sleep.  But it was a beautiful, warm tropical night.  The breezes were soft, the stars were out and there wasn’t a drop of rain.  Really can it get any better than this.

Sunset Café

The next morning we were up with the sun and the birds, albeit a bit stiff and sore (well David and I were the boys seemed fine).  Again we had the choice of the island for our breakfast table so went in search of some sun to warm us all up.  We found a lovely table next to the Sunset Café near the jetty and to make my life totally blissful the chef turned up (turned out he was the father of yesterday’s kids) and offered me a cup of tea.  I had been wrong, life had just got even better.

 Sunrise on Dunk Island (after all we were up with the sun)

 

We went for a nice long morning walk on deserted beach after deserted beach.  We tried to get the boys to do the mountain walk but all they wanted was to go back to Muggy Muggy beach and do more snorkelling and rock tower building.  Who were we to argue?  The morning taxi arrived at 9 so after that we actually had to share the beach with other people (the cheek of it). 

We lunched back at our campsite – this time at our own table.  Packed our things up and went swimming again.  We all indulged in an icecream from the café and then it was time to go back to Mission Beach.  The taxi was totally full (fortunately a passenger or two helped us on this time) and the ride was bumpy.  The boys loved it!

All of us loved the feeling of being on a tropical island and would love to do it again sometime.

And in answer to the earlier question, yes we can handle camping away from the caravan and actually can’t wait to do it again.

Mission Possible - Mission Beach 23 - 27 June

A crazy idea yes indeed, out of our comfort zone and the rest of the ball park, could we pull it off I wasn’t sure, but hey let’s give it a red hot go.  This trip is about taking risks, finding new things, getting back in touch with ourselves while exploring the country in an 18ft tin box, so what we did next made sense, sort of.   Our next destination was Mission Beach and just off Mission Beach is Dunk Island.  Did you know you can camp on a large number of the Queensland national park tropical islands – no? well I didn’t either.  But you can and we did.

So we got off to a bright and early start from lovely Rollingstone (pretty unusual for us) and in order that we didn’t end up in Mission Beach hanging around waiting for our caravan spot to be ready we decided to stop in at the Tyto wetlands in Ingham.  We had a pleasant if warm walk (the temp was 28 degrees by about lunchtime) and spotted a few birds and even some large tadpoles – it is probably a much better place to go early or late in the day.  Still we had a lovely time and did try to get through to the kids that sightings of birds is pretty dependent on the noise level from our group (not always effectively).  Strangely for a somewhat manufactured wetland our friend the crocodile warning sign was hanging around, not that we saw any.

I love these birds – they are crazy.

We arrived in Mission Beach and stayed at a really cute caravan park (the Tropical Hibiscus Caravan Park).  It wasn’t on the water, didn’t have stunning views of the islands or any of that kind of thing.  It was run by a lovely couple who told me their philosophy was to incorporate the things they liked to have and to do and boy did that work.  They had drinks every evening (and people turned up), but best of all they had a pizza oven and on Monday, Wednesday and Saturdays you bring it they cook it.  So for two nights while we were there we dined on our own handmade pizza while conversing with people not just from Australia but the world (there were quite a few backpackers staying here).  We loved it. Might have to look at installing a pizza oven back at home.

Our main mission here was Dunk Island and we built our time around that.  But we still managed to do a number of walks including Bicton Hill, Lacuala Fan Palm Walk and even went to the ‘Monster’ Mission Beach markets (maybe not quite as big as Eumundi).

 Such small spiders up here!

 Unfortunately not the real thing and we didn't strike it lucky and spot a cassowary in the wild.

 But our real mission here was Dunk Island - but you have to read the next post for that story.

Paluma - Rock Slides and Paradise (lost?)

So we had more rain and more wind (but hey we're getting good at that).  The boys tried to watch an outdoor movie at the caravan park (most are too late but this was at a good time).  They sat huddled on their camping chairs under their blankets (the breeze was cool and strong) but even with their valiant efforts (it was Speedy Gonzales after all), they couldn’t make it.  They couldn’t hear the movie for the wind and were more than a tad chilly when they returned to the van.  The next day, because of the weather, we opted for a mostly driving vs walking day and headed for the township of Paluma.

The road is a narrow windy road which wends its way up through the rainforest – it reminded me very much of the road to Dorrigo National Park.  Part way up the road you come across the first of the crystal creeks – little crystal creek.  With no rain falling we jumped out of the car to explore and were glad we did. It was a beautiful area.  Firstly, the bridge over the creek which was constructed between 1930 and 1935 as part of the Unemployment Relief Scheme during the Great Depression. The bridge was constructed with concrete but faced with stone and has a Roman quality about it. At the point the creek flows under the bridge there are cascades and rock pools you can swim in (not the right day for it).  It was absolutely lovely and I can imagine on a hot summer day many people would want to escape the Townsville heat and come here.

We continued our journey up the mountain and arrived in the very small and very quaint village of Paluma.  We were greeted by this sign and were glad we didn’t break these rules as neither of us had a pound on us.

We stopped for a yummy afternoon tea – Mr L had a slice of apple pie almost the size of his face and finished it (impressive).  And then we explored some of the short rainforest walks in the village. 

 Gotta say I love a good fungi - I am really such a science nerd

 Really they are happy, they did enjoy the walks.  Please believe me.

We also explored the village (which was very small and didn’t take long).  There were a couple of cafes, some holiday rentals, and some local artists. In particular Mr L wanted to visit Paluma Pottery which we did.  The kiln was set up in the front garden (actually took up most of the front garden) with the show ‘shed’ down the back.  We liked many of the pieces we saw (especially some of the bigger ones which would have worked beautifully in our garden) but alas budget and carrying anything big in the caravan prevented us from buying anything but a small rememberance of this village in the clouds.

Not the pieces we wanted to but of course, but they did match the spirit of this village

Big Crystal Creek

The next day, the rain had eased so this time we had our swimmers on as we set of to investigate Big Crystal Creek and two cool sounding places, Paradise Waterhole and Rock Slides.  We drove past Paradise Waterhole and headed straight for the rock slides (at the insistence of our boys).  After a short walk from the carpark we arrived at a sensational stretch of the creek which cascaded and cascaded over magnificent rocks falling into crystal clear pools – eminently swimmable. We worked our way up the cascades and found the rock slides which the boys enjoyed as much as they had thought they would.  David and I less so because we kept having to haul them up from the bottom of one slide back to its top to slide all over again. The next day I remarked to David that I must have slept very strangely as I had such a sore right shoulder until he reminded me of this very activity which was of course done with the same arm and shoulder for so very many goes.

After our swim here we were really looking forward to Paradise Waterhole and had even brought our snorkel gear to check out the fresh water fish that apparently you can see here.  We leapt out of the car eager and keen and with every step towards Paradise it rained harder and harder.  If I had been there by myself I would have been in like Flynn (but my family knows that at sometime I probably had some dolphin genes inserted).  The rest of the clan were less than keen, actually they were keen only to get back in the car which we did.  So in summarising our trip in the future I can say we did amazing and super cool things – but we did miss out on Paradise.  Maybe we might have to add Crystal Creek into a future winter holiday in Townsville (mmmmmmmm?????).