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?????). 

9 - 12 June Miserable Mackay

No matter what the weather there is always time for hugs on our trip.

Mr L is carrying out a surprise ninja style hug here.

OK so maybe that’s a bad rap for Mackay but we had lousy weather the whole time and we didn’t get to see some of the things on our ‘really must see in Mackay’ list (in particular Eungella National Park and Finch Hatton Gorge).  We were in a lovely beachfront caravan park which apparently had great island views – however for the whole of our stay they pretty much looked like this (although David did say he saw a bit of the southern end of an island early one morning):

Yep even in our one sunny hour we still can’t see the island – 

you can almost make out the silhouette if you squint really hard.

On our first day we had lighter rain so took the boys to the Blue Lagoon.  This was the first of a northern Queensland ‘tradition’.  The seas can be dodgy swimming up here for much of the time so they have these free amazing swimming oases usually in the middle of town or on the sea.  This was Mackay’s:

We didn’t stay too long – the boys asked why we hadn’t brought their wetsuits (it’s the TROPICS).  We offered a return visit later in the stay – there were no takers,too cold they said.

So we did some shopping.  The boys got their hair cut – David opted for the easy care tropical look so they both got No. 5s for the first time in their lives.

One of our finds in Mackay for inclement weather was the Sarina Sugar Mill.  Leaving aside any discussion of how much sugar we should or shouldn’t eat, considering the acre after acre of sugar cane we had seen we thought it was a good idea for the boys to learn how sugar is made.  There are a number of full working mills up here that do tours but they are apparently very noisy and a bit confronting.  The Sarina Sugar Mill is attached to, but separate to a working mill up here.  It is a mill in junior and with a range of additional pieces of equipment so that you not only get the story from the cane field to the plate, you also get some of the history of sugar cane farming.  David and I learnt things as well – that Australia exports almost all of our cane crop; that you have to get your harvested can billets to the mill in under about 18 hours; that sugar mills now also make bioethanol and are in fact net energy producers.  The proper mill at Sarina (which wasn’t one of the big ones) produces power for about 1,000 houses. 

 

The Sarina Sugar Mill also makes a range of gourmet sauces, relishes, alcoholic beverages and ice creams.  The entry fee includes fairy floss (which the boys ate with gusto) and tastings for adults, I will admit David and I almost bought their lemon alcohol drink, but settled instead for a very nice lime sweet chilli sauce – I am intending to marry this up to some juicy prawns at some stage.  We then took the boys to a nearby park to play off the fairy floss.

The rain really set in so David took the boys bowling the next day.  At this point with the forecast threatening to stay the same for days we decided to move on.  We had planned to go to Airlie Beach but as the boats weren’t leaving Mackay due to high winds we doubted much would be different there.  We had also read a blog from there from fellow travellers and they had also commented about the limitations of bad weather in Airlie.  So we decided to go straight to Townsville – even if it did continue raining there, there were lots of indoor activities.  Of course having made that decision we got one hour of lovely sunshine on our caravan park and finally got to see the beach we had been beside without a howling gale.  It resumed raining and blowing later that evening.

Cania Gorge – the Walks

  

 Cania Gorge National Park is a small national park with 8 walking tracks ranging from 1 to 22 km.  We hadn’t considered and actually couldn’t do the 22km walk as there was a controlled burn in the area during our stay.  So we selected (with the advice from park staff) the following walks (the descriptions are from the national park info):

 Our intrepid bushwalking twins

Dripping Rock and The Overhang

This pleasant walk starts at the southern end of the picnic area. After crossing the Three Moon Creek the track winds through eucalypt woodland and dry rainforest before leading to the base of Dripping Rock (2.2 km return). The track continues on to The Overhang, where water has eroded the base of the sandstone cliff.

This walk reminded us quite strongly of the Drip Gorge walk we did in Mudgee – the drip part didn’t compare to Mudgee, but the Overhang Section at the end was really lovely. The boys found a few rock towers there which they expanded on making, they said, a whole rock city (with pizza place, palace and gardens). The first two pictures are views from the picnic area, the rest are from the walk.

Fern Tree Pool and Giant's Chair circuit

The circuit begins from a carpark 900 m south of the picnic area and is best walked in an anti-clockwise direction. Crossing Doctors Gully several times, the track passes Fern Tree Pool (2.5 km) and continues at a moderate climb for another 2.2 km up a sandstone escarpment to the Giant's Chair lookout. The circuit returns 900 m to the car park down a steep track and steps.

Crossed Doctors Gully several times hmmm, more like over a dozen, but as there wasn’t a drop of water it was really easy. This was a diverse walk, and they weren’t wrong about the steep track and steps.

More rock towers – these things are everywhere

Two Storey Cave circuit

This scenic walk starts opposite the picnic area. Starting to the left, the circuit meanders upwards around isolated sandstone monoliths. A 20 m sidetrack leads to King Orchid Crevice, a parting of the cliff that has created an ideal haven for epiphytes. The top section of Two Storey Cave is important habitat for insectivorous bats. 

For us this was the best walk – the rocks were amazing the whole way.  It wasn’t particularly strenuous but it delivered some beautiful views which we have tried to convey in these photographs.

 

 

3I May - 3 June Cania Gorge Caravan Park – a story of water, fire and feathers

Getting to Cania Gorge

 

The road to Cania Gorge was an easy drive on the Bruce highway until we followed the GPS to Kalpow road, as we turned the corner the first thing we spotted was a sign stating 'gravel road not suitable for caravans'. While we stopped in the middle of this quiet road (with Tracey looking at other route options, a further four hour trip) a man stopped and asked us if the sign scaring us, he then stated that had had taken bigger caravans down the road and as long as it had not rained (which it had not recently) it would be ok. So down the road we headed slowly……

Bumps, bumps and more bumps, 90km’s of bumps at 25km per hour through what turned out to be state park.  It was so bumpy that I envisaged the 4wd & caravan to be like in cartoons and just simply fall apart around us, some sections required 4wd lock in low range (great with 2.5 tonne behind you). On more than one occasion we crested hills and both Tracey and I took a deep breath before slowly moving down. In the end when we arrived I mentioned it to the caravan park staff and their response…….. do not rely on your GPS out here.  Written by David

Cania Gorge

For us Cania Gorge was all about the gorge and its lovely walks as well as the caravan park.  We decided to stay at the Big 4 and for us it was a great decision.  This caravan park was a story of watery fun, campfire delight and beautiful birds.  

Watery fun:       Firstly, like so many of the Big 4s it had an awesome water park, with the main attraction being this super slide.  Our boys tried out the water park on the first day but it was a tad chilly (even in wet suits).  But not chilly enough to stop them going back again and again and again to slide every day.

Campfire delight:            This caravan park is spacious, and had large grassy shady sites, but the coolest part is that every site has its own campfire.  As we were no longer on the coast the evening temperatures were decidedly nippy.  For our second night we ordered a load of firewood which was delivered to our site chopped.  There was enough for us to have a fire each night for the next 3 nights.  The boys loved it – especially the marshmallow roasting.

 Perfect for the supersized American marshmallows we had carried all the way from Costco in Canberra

Feathery fun:    This is also a super friendly park.  They do a range of things for customers including movie nights, camp oven dinners, Friday fish and chips and fresh baked damper morning teas on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.  But by far the most impressive thing is the afternoon bird feeding which everyone can do.  This is something that has gone on for quite some time so that there might be just a few birds turning up.  Whilst hesitant at first the boys soon got into the swing of it and thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

This cheeky bird skipped the feeding and came straight to our table every morning trying to grab our brekkie.

Finally – on our way to Monto (a nearby town with shops we went to, to top up our supplies for Carnavon Gorge) we found a knight.  Yep and honest to goodness knight in shining armour located at something called Moonford Hall – so we of course named him Sir Moonford. 

 Sir Moonford and his squires