Port Douglas

Port Douglas is one of those places which began life as a small village, gained popularity with holiday makers and now has a real “resort” feel with luxurious apartments, health clubs, marinas and a plentiful supply of bars and restaurants and has its renowned 4 mile beach complete with net to keep out the stingers.
Like so many of the coastal towns in FNQ it has a beautiful setting and we sat, sipping champagne, in a bar which overlooked the water - sail boats were going back and forth and we were delighted to see a sea eagle swoop down and take a fish. Don’t know if there is any truth in it but we heard that Greg Norman moors his boat at Port Douglas.
It is also a popular place for weddings and there is a dinky little wooden church which has for its altar piece a plate glass window that looks out to sea. We were there on a Saturday and they closed the church because a wedding was about to take place. The bride and groom arrived together, they not in their first flush of youth so perhaps a second time around. Also no guests, just the two of them and a photographer and celebrant. They disappeared inside soon to re-appear to the sounds of the bells ringing!
We are presently in Cairns and the Suzi is having its service. This afternoon off to Undara and lava tubes.

Cooktown

Cooktown owes its existence to the fact that in the late 1800s gold was found nearby and a port was needed to bring in provisions, a site on the Endeavour River was selected and Cooktown was born. At one stage there were estimated to be 15,000 miners on the Palmer, 10,000 of whom were Chinese, and Cooktown catered for the influx with stores, pubs (50), and the like. When the gold ran out it meant the eventual decline of the town and now the “gold” is in tourism. At this time of the year the weather is warm and comfortable, the scenery is beautiful, plenty of clean water for fishing and generally a relaxing environment and laid back atmosphere.

And of course there is the fact that Cook spent time here in 1770. The town has a very interesting museum which has many of Cook’s artifacts including the original anchor and one of the cannons from the ship.

We have been on a visit to rock art sites in the company of a Nugalwarra Elder, Willy Gordon, who shared with us the stories the rock art depicts and the tour included a visit to an an ancestral birth cave. It was a 4 hour tour with plenty of walking and clambering up and over huge rocks so today our bodies are acknowledging the unused to exercise - can only be good - and we are catching up with chores and plan a visit to the Cooktown Botanic Gardens.

Tomorrow it’s off to Port Douglas, the Suzuki needs it’s warranty service, so it’s back to the Cairns area before we head west.

Market and Goanna

Mossman

Today is Monday 20th July and in Mossman it’s a public holiday - why? - it’s the annual Show. It’s on for 2 days and we went and had a look before we left for Cooktown. Some of the highlights were the show jumping with a bevy of young lasses in tight white jodhpurs trotting around the oval on their frisky ponies which often, when it was their turn to go over the jumps, refused and had to have a smack with the whip - the pony not the rider! Then there was a selection of sugar cane with a prize for the best sample, sheep shearing, wood chopping, snake handling, and of course the flowers, preserves and arts and crafts not to mention the trained ducks. A delightful traditional country show. We also visited the weekend market and bought lots of beautiful organic fruit and vegetables, the locals supply the trendy restaurants in Sydney and Melbourne and the quality of their produce is first class, of course no water shortages here and organic and biodynamic farming is a big feature.
We left the coast and crossed the Great Dividing Range and then headed north to Cooktown, which nestles between Mount Cook and the mouth of the Endeavour River. In 1770 Lt James Cook, in desperate need of a safe haven, beached the Endeavour and named the river after his ship. In later years gold was discovered nearby and the town prospered but languished at the end of the gold rush and has had to survive two devastating cyclones. It has become popular with tourists because of its pristine waters and beautiful scenery.
The average winter temperature here is a high of 26 and low of 20, so it’s pretty nice, just a tad humid at this time of the year. We were just settling in when L spotted some local fauna about 10 metres from our tent, a big goanna, which I am pleased to report seemed shy and promptly ran up a tree.

Daintree Forest

Wonga Beach & Daintree

Wonga Beach is a small seaside town just north of Mossman and south of the Daintree Forest which represents the largest block of tropical rainforest in Australia.
It was a hot day when we arrived so on with the bathers and a swim in the pool and a walk on the beach, people were fishing and had caught a big flathead the day before but nothing while we were there.
Today we took the ferry across the Daintree River (at $20 return and about 25 vehicles a crossing, which takes about 5 minutes, they must be making a bit) and up to Cooper’s Creek Wilderness, an area recently classed as the oldest forest in the world, where L did a 2 hour up hill and down dale guided walking tour (I have been having knee trouble and didn’t go) through the Gondwanan forest.
An excellent guide told the story of the evolution of forests from mosses to giants. The first flowering plant and mosquitos predate the dinosaurs by 200 million years.
There are many other opportunities to walk in the forest, we also took the Jindalba board walk through forest and mangroves and then visited the Discovery Centre where you can climb a tower and view the canopy from above.
Lunch was a de luxe ice cream, macadamia, raspberry, jackfruit and wattle seed flavours! We bought fish for tea, Nannigai - haven’t heard of this one before! - it turned out to be very tasty, firm flesh and mild flavour
Today we are going into Mossman to check out the weekly market and to stock up on perishables. We leave Wonga Beach Monday morning for Cooktown. We hadn't planned going that far north but we have spoken with so many people who recommend going there that we will go but not via the 4 wheel drive track along the coast. We will take the inland black top road which, although it takes longer, is a much safer road for we seniors!

Cairns 2

There have been good times and not so good times in Cairns, we had just finished dinner and I was waiting for a kettle of washing up water to boil when, because I was wearing my headlamp which was pointed towards the ground, I was surprised to see a lengthy snake gliding under the floor of our tent, just inches from the open door. I pointed it out to L, just in case my imagination was getting the better of me, and he was pretty surprised too. So it was into the tent, zip up both doors and close the velcro strips at the bottom and we didn’t emerge until day light!! Apparently we need not have been so concerned as it was probably a harmless (or so the locals say) python but I am still quite cautious.
The good time was the trip we took to the reef yesterday. The blurb said we would get 5 full hours at the outer Barrier Reef, platform offering shelter, shade, sun deck, showers and change rooms, underwater observatory, marine biology presentation, unlimited snorkelling with all equipment and instruction, dedicated dive tender for certified scuba divers, semi submersible tours, hot and cold buffet lunch, morning and afternoon and tea - and we did get all they promised and more. It turned out to be a beautiful day and the journey to the reef not too choppy, the young assistants were full of encouragement and enthusiasm and there was plenty of equipment available. After some consideration we decided to give snorkelling a try, there were steps down from the pontoon so it was a bit like getting into a swimming pool and the recommended area was roped off with buoys. Safety was highly promoted.
It was just fantastic, plenty of fish to see ranging from the tiny to quite large and so many wonderful colours, and the coral is just amazing. We left the park at 8am and didn’t get back until 6pm so it was a long day but so satisfying.
Tomorrow we are off to Wonga Beach which is close to the Daintree.

Cairns

The drive to Cairns was through more lush cane fields and banana plantations all backed by the green heavily wooded hills of the Great Dividing Range, spectacular countryside. We are staying at the Lake Placid camping ground which is in a rainforest setting about 15 minutes drive from the city centre. There is a national park across the road with a river running through it where you can swim and canoe, still a bit too cold for us.
Yesterday we went into town to check out the city scape. We took a long walk along the Esplanade which runs along the harbour, the path is bordered by lawns and landscaped gardens which look out to sea. At one end there is a Saturday craft market and as many beaches are off limits because of stingers and crocs there is an amazing 4800 metre salt water swimming pool designed in the shape of the State of Queensland - it has sandy shores, lifeguards, picnic facilities, the works! We were surprised at the number of people who were sunbathing, perhaps they were tourists but the slip slap slop idea doesn’t seem to have caught on up here.
The street that runs along the harbour behind the Esplanade is lined with coffee shops and restaurants and as it was lunch time we checked out their menus but ended up at the RSL club, not so commercial and always good value.
We have booked a trip to the reef for tomorrow, hope I can remember my snorkeling skills!

F&C at Balgal Beach

Cairns

We arrived in Cairns yesterday afternoon and have been having trouble uploading pictures to our blog - we will keep trying! For those who asked, the fish and chips were very good but not as good as those at Pauls on the Parade! More from Cairns later!

Rollingstone

The caravan park at Rollingstone has beach frontage but also signs warning that swimming is not permitted because of crocodiles - at the moment while the weather is in the mid 20s there is no need to have a swim to cool off, but it must be frustrating in the middle of summer heat having a beautiful beach that you can’t use.
We made an overnight stop here partly so that we could have a meal at the highly recommended nearby Fisherman's Wharf, famous for their fish and chips. We had been told by several people that the cafe served the best f&c ever with a beautiful setting.
The journey here was nearly 500 km and for 75% of that time we were driving through an unbroken landscape of sugar cane plantings, the countryside crisscrossed with train lines used to move the cut cane and every now and then the chimneys of a sugar mill. We passed by Bowen, famous for its mangos, some vegetables growing in that area and now its more cane and pineapples.
Tomorrow we pack up for the relatively short drive to Cairns... H invited me to add a word or 2, so I stepped back & took the photo.You will understand when I say it’s a hell of a life!

Cape Hillsborough National Park

Cape Hillsborough National Park is about 30 km north of Mackay and we have been here for 4 days. Being school holidays the camping park is full and there are lots of family groups, we have been surprised at how many people camp with young babies and there are little ones crawling in the sand and pushers everywhere - certainly the parents of today are more adventurous that I ever was.
The camp is on the shore of Casuarina Bay and the beach is fringed with coconut palms and in some parts heavily wooded with native trees which grow almost to the sand. Cape Hillsborough is the youngest volcanic area in Australia, formed from a series of volcanic eruptions 30 million years ago and there are spectacular rock and cave formations at both both ends of the bay.
At some times of the year turtles lay their eggs here, there are many native birds, brush turkeys, bats and butterflies and at sunrise kangaroos and wallabies visit the beach to nibble on the seed pods that wash up onto the beach.
We went with our neighbors, Dennis and Patsy, to fish from Wedge Island which can be reached at low tide from a rocky causeway - the tide was out and we decided to take a short cut through the water - what we didn’t realize was that the sand turned into mud and was almost impossible to walk through - we had no choice but to go on, but going was very difficult, it was mud up to mid calf and my sandals were sucked off (were there stone fish waiting for me to step on!) and even getting my sandals back out of the stiff goo was a real struggle. And then there was a long walk back over the rocks. We got separated from D & P, they got back after us, by then the tide was coming in and they had to wade back through knee deep water. Needless to say there wasn’t any fish for tea that night but lots of muddy clothes and bodies. The next day L cleaned all the gear and said “to hell with it” and bought some delicious wild barra fillets for dinner.
There are many marked walks in the area, yesterday we took one which started off in Melaleuca woodland, then became a boardwalk over mangrove swamps and ended in eucalypt open forest and vine thicket - there is a very diverse environment here, one thing that is missing is a Telstra signal, so not easy for addicted mobile phone and internet users. If you have been wondering what has happened to this blogger, that is the reason, perhaps I have been taking for granted the easy access to the internet, we will wait and see.

How sweet it is

Sugar has been grown in Queensland since the mid 1880s, the mill at Sarina was registered in 1894, and sugar cane is now grown on farms stretching over a 2,100 kms of coastline. The harvest begins in June and lasts for about 6 months and when we drove through the area it was in full progress, machines cutting the cane, and trucks and small trains with baskets of cut cane heading to the mill. Sarina, which is just south of Mackay, has a miniature sugar mill and distillery which is used for educational and tourist purposes so we stopped off for a tour and learned some of the history of the industry and the innovations over the years. We were able to follow the whole process from planting the “sets” through to the finished product and then sample some of the finished products, fairy floss for the children, alcoholic liqueurs for the adults! The record production was in 1977 when 248,771 tonnes of sugar were produced from this one mill - that’s a hell of a lot of the sweet stuff.
We are spending only 2 days in Mackay and opted for a cabin stop, we needed to do some shopping as our ancient gas camping stove has bitten the dust and we don’t have any cooking facilities. This morning we went to the camping store and now have a shiny new model which even has a toasting facility, what luxury! Speaking of luxury, the cabin has a TV and last night we sat up and watched Lleyton Hewitt slug it out with the A-Rod.