25 - 28 July Atherton Tablelands

So we had left the coast and started by climbing up the road to Mt Molloy and the Atherton Tablelands.  These tablelands are a tapestry of small towns, rich farming country, remnant pockets of rainforest and a myriad of waterfalls, all of which have been formed and built by many ancient volcanos.  Accordingly the Atherton tablelands are like a smorgasboard of diverse things to see and do.  We stayed in Atherton for 5 nights, but you could stay a lot longer as we really only visited a small fraction of what the region has to offer.  On the tablelands the days were a bit cooler, but so were the nights making it a comfortable temperature range even in winter.  However, we did, as usual it seems, have a good couple of days of rain, one of those providing our thickest fogs yet as we drove over the gentle hills to visit volcanic craters and waterfalls.

Remnant rainforests with giant trees

Once this area was carpeted in rainforest, now it is reduced to small pockets, sadly many of these can no longer support species such as cassowaries and musky rats.  The pockets are often built around amazingly large and old trees.  We had seen so many strangler figs on our journey – the boys love them.  It was therefore fitting that we saved the best and biggest for last.

Curtain Fig

Cathedral Fig

A northern leaf tail gecko spotted by Mr C in the Cathedral Fig – 

no mean feat considering the density of the vines

Crystal caves on the mainstreet

A crystal cave on the mainstreet of Atherton – you must be mad.  But no. One of the shops in the main street opens into an amazing labour of love or madness – an artificial set of caves, home of a serious crystal, mineral and fossil collection gathered from all around the world.  This one man has built over 250 metres of false caves and grottos to show off his amazing collection.  If you are looking for natural caves – this is not the place to see them.  But our kids had a great time exploring all the nooks and crannies, reading about the different rocks and crystals and trying to complete a tricky questionnaire.  We had a great time!

A gallery roof of backlit agate slices

Riding ducks and throwing boomerangs

We also had the opportunity now to complete the last leg of our 4 park pass bought so long ago when we were in Cairns earlier and visit the Rainforestation in Kuranda.  The boys had really been looking forward to this visit because they are massive ‘Bushwacked’ fans and when we arrived in the area they had rewatched the Cassowary episode.  The Bushwacked boys had taken a ride on an army duck as part of their hunt for the cassowary and Rainforestation was where the army ducks were.  I will say this place is aimed strongly at the overseas tourist market.  The station is a large property and the price of your ticket gives you access to a number of activities including a guided tour of their animals (which include kangaroos, crocodiles and two feisty, fighting Tasmanian devils), the Pamagirri Aboriginal experience which includes a dance performance and a tour with local indigenous guides and of course a ride on their army ducks (the former army ducks were built between 1942 and 1944 and brought to Australia by the Rainforestion).  The boys had a really good time, they loved the duck ride but equally they enjoyed really learning about boomerangs and didgeridoos.

Craters and waterfalls

The Atherton tablelands have been formed by volcanic activity now obviously extinct.  But there the land was shaped by repeated volcanic eruptions over time, leaving a legacy of hills, crater lakes and fantastically rich soil which supports a wide range of agriculture.  We visited three waterfalls and the smallest crater on a couple of walks.  I would like to add we spent some time getting out of the rain at the Malanda Falls information centre, we popped in to pick up a brochure or two and stayed well over an hour after we discovered it had a wonderful kid and adult friendly interactive centre of information about the region.  This included a volcano the boys could make erupt but taking it through all its stages and a fantastic game about the local tree kangaroos.

Millaa Millaa Falls

Dinner Falls

Malanda Falls

Mt Hypipamee Crater

We drove off from Millaa Millaa falls through rain and dense fog – little did we know that this was the last rain we would see for a very long time.  We were now heading for the outback.

And finally the Great Barrier Reef!!! 22 - 24 July

Two very happy, excited ninja, dancing, snorkellers ready for the reef!

We left the Daintree for our shortest move yet, all of 30km (although you do have to wait for the ferry across the river).  But saying that it seemed a much greater move in time and connections, as we felt like we were returning from the lost island of Daintree to the mainland and main life of Australia today.  There are two reasons we didn’t move far – first we had unfinished business in this area that we didn’t want to have to cross the Daintree every day and secondly all the van parks in Port Douglas were booked out.  It is PEAK season up here in far north Queensland.  The latter wasn’t a major issue we just stayed in a van park north of Port Douglas on a lovely tropical beach (with crocodile warnings).  We left the Daintree on a cool rainy morning (pretty much like every morning) we arrived at Wonga beach to full sun and about 28 degrees.  After a shop at nearby Mossman we were back to the van park and into the pool!

We had three things we wanted to do here: visit the Port Douglas Wildlife Habitat, finally get to the reef and visit the famous Mossman Gorge.

Port Douglas Wildlife Habitat

This is a pretty cool ‘zoo’ which does have many of its animals wandering amongst the humans in open area enclosures.  We have now seen a ‘zoo’ or two but still thoroughly enjoyed this one with its emphasis on FNQ environments and wildlife.  The tours which are included in the ticket price were great, the boys as usual could be found less than a step from the guide lapping up every word and asking a million questions.  For me the highlight of the visit was the chance to see black neck cranes incubating eggs – even more special we got to see the change over from female to male minding the eggs and the rather cool ‘dance’ they did as part of this ritual.

The Great Barrier Reef!

The largest reef in the world, visible from space, stretching approximately 2300km and we have been driving alongside it since 1770.  We have had this on our must see list, the kids have been anticipating this trip, as you may remember we started them practicing their snorkelling as far back in southern Queensland.  We decided to do more kids oriented trip so choose Quiksilver to the outer reef as they have a pontoon, underwater viewing area and glass bottomed boat.  This is not a trip I would have done by myself, but kids aren’t able to snorkel for hours nonstop and this was a really great way to experience the reef.  But key to a great reef trip is great weather.  We had actually swapped the Daintree and the Reef in our itinerary with the hope that we could get a good day and boy did we – “best weather in weeks” they said on the boat PHEW.

The day was FANTASTIC, it started with the weather and just got better.  Usually there are no stingers in the water this time of year, but with weather all topsy turvy up here they were still being sited so we did go for the figure flattering (well for the boys anyway) stinger suits.  The boys loved the trip out – this boat goes fast.  Fortunately we didn’t have a problem with seasickness (a touch from Mr L but only at the end, but David had taken preventative tablets).  Once we got to the reef, their excitement could barely be contained, they were literally dancing over the decks and couldn’t wait to get in the water.  Once in they were stupendous.  For those who have done it, snorkelling the reef can be a bit intimidating, the bottom is a long way down, the wind is blowing little waves in your face constantly and there is nothing to hold onto.  The boys both took some time adjusting, but by the end of our day they were snorkelling like junior pros, dashing off through the water to look at this fish and then that.  I had long anticipated taking my family to the reef (having been quite a bit myself over many years) and this trip fulfilled those expectations and then some!!!!!  What an amazing opportunity to share one of the most unreal experiences with your child at your side and them just beaming with happiness, excitement and pride.  

We used our new toy (the GoPro) with mixed success, but this was much more our lack of understanding how to best use it.  I think you will see more and more cool GoPro shots as we get better, but even so we managed a few cool images of this amazing day.

 

Mossman Gorge and then inland

Well we had finished with the coast, having travelled alongside it (on and off) since Merimbula we now started our journey west.  But on our way to the Atherton tablelands we had one final stop the last part of the Daintree we would see and possibly the most well known, the superb Mossman Gorge.

You can swim there and we had taken our bathers, but all the rain had meant that the river was running too fast so no swimming that day.  This didn’t matter - the walks, the rainforest, the scenery were just totally magnificent.  Even our 7 year old boys were awestruck with the beauty (well for parts of the walks anyway, then they discussed one of their electronic games).  After the walk we went back to the information centre (an aboriginal run enterprise) for a light lunch before we started driving up the hills and away from the sea.

I will leave you with our best photos that still do not show just how beautiful Mossman Gorge is.

 

 

 

Life on the road Part 1 – Kids 24/7 in an 18ft tin box

So even from the title you can see – this is not a usual post.  When I was in Canberra I asked friends what they thought of the blog (thank you for the positive comments guys) and how it could be improved.  One friend suggested that it would be good to see a bit more of how we actually live on the road, not just the locations.  So this is the first of possibly a series of blog posts on how we live in a caravan travelling around Australia.

I thought the obvious topic for the first of my new style posts is the kids.  It was the number one question we were asked before we left, it is the number one question I get when I catch up with family and friends and a question about the kids is still the number one question we get asked on the road.

ARE WE THERE YET??????

So there is even a book now with that question and I am sure for every parent it is a familiar refrain. I was also expecting us to have to say – quiet back there or there will be no insert treat if that behaviour continues, OR Boys just stop fighting right now!  Really nicely we have not had to resort to much of this at all J  No our boys are definitively not angels and we don’t administer sleeping pills for the journeys.  Our secret – AUDIOBOOKS.  I LOVE AUDIOBOOKS!  We wisely (well in retrospect) bought a small blue tooth speaker I thought for having music in and around the caravan.  The speakers biggest use is in the back seat of our car.  We run audiobooks through my Ipod and Ipad and we can decide whether the parents in the front seat actually want to listen or not.  Mostly we do because the hours of driving are a bit boring for us as well. 

Where do we get all these audiobooks (because already we have gone through hours and hours and hours worth), firstly the generosity of family and friends and then the library system of the ACT.  We had borrowed a number of hard cds and copied those for use before the journey, but mostly we use the online aspect of the library.  From anywhere in Australia (where we can log on) we download ebooks and audiobooks.  From the time we start a story we very rarely get a peep from the boys until they get hungry.  We often have trouble getting them out of the car before the end of a story.

OPPORTUNITY SHOPS

These are a godsend.  We use them like libraries, buy books at one donate them back down the line, buying the next lot again.  The mix of books we get is obviously dictated by what they have, but that in turn means we pick up books we might not otherwise have thought about.  The other upside is that we are still finding things we don’t need or that we have overused (particularly some of the boys toys as they find new things on the road) so we occasionally donate a bag of our excess goodies as well.

Our other place to pick up books is book sale places in shopping malls.  Yep we still hang out in the odd shopping mall and I do keep an eye out for good sales on books.  The boys are reading a Tashi compendium we found in Newcastle for less than half price.  When we have finished with a new book it still goes to an opp shop with the others.  Although we are very attached to the Tashi so may have to send it home.

SO ARE YOU HOMESCHOOLING?

This has to be our most frequently asked question when we tell people we are travelling around Australia.  No we aren’t and I am glad we are not.  Travelling is exciting, challenging, invigorating, but also really tiring.  It would be a real struggle for us to add in formal sessions of prescribed learning on top of most of our days.  If our kids were older this would be a different story but they are still only 7 and just beginning their formal school pathway.

Having said we don’t do formal home-schooling – we do lots of learning.  First of course is all the learning we do on the road.  We are visiting new and amazing places, listening to guides and rangers, read interpretative signs and pamphlets and looking things up on the internet and in books.  We were recently at the Rainforestation in Kuranda learning how to play the didgeridoo from a local indigenous person.  He asked the boys did they know how a didgeridoo was made – Mr L gave him the full story chapter and verse.  The man was most surprised, as were David and I.  We asked him how he knew so much – he told us from Bushwacked and the Townsville Museum.

We do lots of reading, we read out loud with the boys, they do their own silent reading, and did I mention the plethora of interpretative signs we all take turns reading.  The boys have their own tablets and we have restricted the apps on these so they are educational.  We also play family games many with a strategy and/or maths element.  These include Monopoly, card games, Yahtzee, Scrabble and yep for fun Headbandz.  The boys are earning pocket money for the first time so they have to figure out how much money they have and how much they can afford when we visit markets (they are also starting to learn to haggle from this experience as well). 

The boys get involved in reading maps, working out distances (the how far are we along a walk is a good incentive to work out some maths), constructing material for this blog and are now picking up words in foreign languages as in Far North Queensland we have been meeting kids mostly from Europe.  We have a map on our table in the van and are tracing our journey on this.  We also left a map with the boys class so they can see where we are going.  To add to this and to provide a bit of more structured project work we design and send posters back to the school.  In our recent trip back the boys visited their class and even gave a power point presentation.

If you were to ask me where I think they are at present I would have to answer their reading is great, their general knowledge super, their confidence is excellent.  I will also admit they may end up a little behind in formal maths (you know x + y = z style) and probably physical writing.  I anticipate that next year we might have to focus on some aspects to bring them up to the rest of their class, but maybe not.  We do also have distraction bags in the car with workbooks and pencil cases for times when we stop for food and are awaiting our orders, or having lunch at a picnic table in the rain.

Like our real journey, the boys learning journey is also evolving.  David and I are learning to incorporate opportunistic learning better as we go along.  They boys are learning more so we change what we do with them, hopefully we are learning to be better parents as teachers.  We are about to do much longer drives when we leave the coast and head to the Northern Territory.  I can see an opportunity to expand some of our in car learning activities there (I am not sure even audiobooks will get us through 6 or more hours of driving). 

Hopefully this new style of blog post is of interest to at least some of you.  Please let me know if it is and if there are any other questions you might like us to answer.  You can do this by leaving a comment on this post or by emailing us at tcdstravelling@gmail.com.

I will end with a poem written by the boys (their class had also been working on poetry so they added the poem in some posters we sent back).  You may have noticed that wet weather has been a recurring theme for us on the coast.  So it maybe no surprise that the rain was a key topic for them to write about (this poem was after 4 days straight of rain).

Crocs, Cassowaries and the Rainforest - the Daintree 19 - 21 July

After Cairns we went further north and entirely away from urban population.  We were going to the heart of one of the most beautiful, amazing and oldest rainforests Australia actually the world has to offer – we were off to the Daintree.  The Daintree is divided into a number of sections but by far the largest and wildest is across the Daintree River north of Port Douglas, so we decided to head there.  

When you cross the Daintree River (which can only be done by ferry) it feels like you are leaving mainland Australia and entering a unique island far removed in time, back in prehistory.  We stayed in a caravan park about 16km from the ferry.  It is a unique property being surrounded by rainforest and run by people who are passionate about animals (and keep a number on the property), although I will say neither David nor I found them to be accommodating (in fact abrupt is the polite thought that really springs to mind). But the caravan park is lovely and has its own rainforest creeks and walks.  And in the end our kids ended up playing with theirs very happily.

Daintree discovery centre 

Some friends had recently visited up here and recommended the Daintree Discovery Centre so we started off there the next day.  This is a cool place with a complex network of boardwalks, educational centres and a 23metre high platform aimed at getting you into the canopy.  Part of the ticket price included an audio self-guided tour which the boys (and maybe the parents) loved.  There are two versions of the audio programme one for adults and a different shorter one for kids (I think theirs might have had more jokes because several times they burst out laughing).  We spent hours here and had not exhausted all the material when we left – but we had exhausted the kids.  Your ticket allows you to come back over the next few days but our itinerary didn’t enable us to do this.

For the rest of our time we did a number of walks, hung out on Cape Tribulation beach and took a drive up the 4WD Bloomfield track for a bit.  All of which was beautiful and (in true RAINforest fashion) damp, as we had overcast and rainy weather.

What no ball, no problem.  COCONUT SOCCER!

The best of our walks was the Marrdja botanical walk.  This was mostly boardwalk alongside Oliver Creek taking us from rainforest through mangrove back into rainforest.  The interpretative material was excellent with the signs actually in 3D – the boys were engaged in these and read every one.

 Mr L hung out on the back of a tour group and picked up a couple of really good tips.  The guide had pointed out a Boyds Water dragon and offered a unique aspect for a cool photograph.

This is the inside of a strangler fig tree, the guide had suggested you could put your camera in the tree and this is the result. 

Crocodile, Cassowaries, Musky Rats and Boyds Water dragons

Have you seen a cassowary there was one down the road a little while ago.  Did you see any cassowaries we have had quite a few near the centre recently. Did you see the cassowary that walked through the caravan park.  NO we did not see any of these cassowaries we missed them all! 

One of the things that brings people to the Daintree are the animals.  The big crocs, the reptiles, the birds, the mammals and of course the possibility of seeing one of the most amazing and rare birds – the cassowary – in the wild.  One morning we set out for a crocodile cruise on Coopers Creek.  The day was even more overcast than before with intermittent rain and for the tropics it was quite cool.  The boat driver did not add to this mood by telling us that the weather was not good for crocs and he wasn’t sure we would see any.  It turns out that when the water is warmer than the air and there is no sun to bake in, then the crocs, not surprisingly, stay in the warm water.  By the way this is also why you shouldn’t bother with croc cruises in the wet – the water heats up to a nice bath like temperature and the crocs just stay submerged.  It was our last day in the Daintree – I had this dread feeling maybe we would miss out on the Daintrees’ cool fauna (with the exception of the Boyd’s dragon of course).  But luck was on our side we saw 3 crocs, one little baby who literally fell off the bank into the water, a young adult and then at last a big male.  The boys were awestruck at the latter!

The boys with their CROC faces on. 

Yay at least we saw crocs.  We returned to the caravan park via the Daintree exotic fruit and icecream company where we tried some really different flavours, with mixed success.  David and I were getting dinner ready, packing to leave the next day, the kids had found other kids, it was business as usual in the van.  But then the boys ran up – cassowaries they called, and sure enough we were lucky enough to see not just one but 3 cassowaries that evening.  One individual adult and then later this amazing sighting, a father with his chick eating palm fruits near the cabins.  HOW COOL!

Then while eating our dinner a musky rat came out to join us (ok sort of ran across the back of our van which abutted the rainforest).

Where our caravan meets the a world heritage rainforest

The boys were over the moon.  They declared (in true BUSHWACKED fashion - an ABC 3 television program for those not in the know) this was Daintree mission success!!!!!!!!!!