Off to Bunnings this morning to pick up some supplies for the ongoing renovations plus a coffee to start the day. Back at the house we go for a walk out the back gate and onto the beach at low tide, the beach is so wide & so long it seems to go on for ever. The water is very shallow for a long way out and is sandy due to the strong wind action over the shallow sea.
The rest of the day was spent dismantling, cleaning and painting the pool fence supports then re-assembling. Around 5 pm tools down & it is time for sun downer (a sailing folks’ term for drinks & nibblies). It is a lovely relaxing time to chat with our good friends. Another great dinner from Tereza washed down with some nice wine. Another great day.
Up bright & early as the car is booked in for a service at 8am in Townsville city. Our friends drive in & pick us up from the mechanics then take us down to the marina. They want to check over their catamaran moored at the marina after all the rain to see if it leaked during the downpour. A hatch leaked onto a bed so off with the sheets to take home & wash. We walk along the Strand at Townsville along the beachfront looking over to Magnetic Island, there are lots of people out walking & jogging. We drop into a café for coffee on the seafront looking out at Magnetic Island, it is a nice view & the coffee is good. I also have eggs benedict with salmon for breakfast, very tasty.
The walk back to the car is pleasant & our friends drive us up to Castle Rock, a prominent very large hill overlooking Townsville. The road up is steep & windy, however, that does not deter lots of people walking, jogging & cycling up the hill, even some women pushing prams. At the top the view is magnificent out over the Coral Sea & Magnetic Island with Townsville stretching off into the distance in all directions. Townsville has grown to be a large & vibrant city. The wind at the top is very strong & cools us down nicely, threatening to blow our hats off.
Back to Bushland Beach & after a nice lunch we help our friends with some work that they are doing on their house. The car is ready for pickup around 3pm and when I get there find that it is all shiny & clean, the first wash since we left home. Back into some more work before Tereza cooks us all a delicious dinner that goes down very well with some wine. Another great day.
During the night it started to rain. Today is moving day, we packed up in the rain and left Mena Creek around 9.30am. We wended our way slowly through the cane fields & banana plantations in sometimes heavy rain, crossing lots of sugar tram tracks, sometimes on corners. The mountains are covered in mist and hidden at times by rain. We have decided to miss seeing Wallaman Falls, too wet & most likely shrouded in cloud. We turn south onto the Bruce Highway towards Townsville, our next destination. There is a lot of traffic heading north, the other way, including lots of caravans. The rains alternate between heavy & light, we drive slowly in these conditions. It seems that others are doing the same, when we get to overtaking lanes they stay well behind us. We stop a couple of times at roadworks and eat our lunch whilst waiting in the queue at the traffic control lights.
We reach Bushland Beach, just north of Townsville, around 1.30pm & park in our friend’s front yard. They have a lovely house on the beach with direct beach access through the back gate past the pool. Sitting in the lounge room downstairs you can see the ocean rolling in over the sand. The main upstairs bedroom looks directly out to sea whilst lying in bed through wide full length windows, glorious views.
We unpack our car into the garage & spend the rest of the afternoon catching up before being cooked a delicious baked dinner, then hot showers & bed, we were tired. Another great day.
Etty Beach is our destination this morning & we are away by 8am to see if we can spot a cassowary, KKOG people have told us that it is the spot to see a cassowary. Etty Beach is only about half an hour away and is a beautiful small beach with a small caravan park at the end of the road. I catch a glimpse of a cassowary on the side of the road as we near Etty Beach, however, it is too dangerous to stop. We walk the length of the beach & admire the large trees growing right to the high water mark. The rocks at the other end are equally as picturesque. We stop at a park bench in front of our car and have our morning tea. There are lots of cars with big caravans lining up to see if they can get a spot here, most are turned away. The caravan park is like a sardine tin already. We go for another long walk then afterwards try out the local fish & chips at the kiosk and again, sit & eat looking out at the sea. Alas, no cassowary.
We take a drive to Mission Beach, another half an hour south and go for a walk on the sand. There are 5 catamarans moored between the beach & Dunk Island that up-anchor & sail off as we watch. Mission Beach is picturesque & like Etty Beach, has warning signs about crocodiles & marine stingers. Every 100 metres there is a first aid kit for stingers. The coconut palms swaying in the breeze make these places look idyllic, no-one in the water tells us another story. We find a large timber sunning deck on the shoreline & lay on it for a while, both of us nodding off.
The scenic drive home past all the cane fields & banana plantations is worthwhile & we head back into Paronella Park & book in for another night tour, it was that good. Back to the van then in no time at all it is time to be back at Paronella Park for the 6.30pm night tour. We meet the owner, Mark Evans, as we pull in and have a nice chat with him. The light show & music is just as good, but this time, afterwards we take a night walk to Teresa Falls down Lovers Lane. Teresa Falls are also lit up at night time and we spot a lot more fish & freshwater prawns in the small creek. The Falls are very special with the lights and we are the only people there. We meet Mark back on the way out and have another brief chat.
Up early and breakfast before a group KKOG photo shoot at 8am. One of the KKOG members has a drone so he flies that & takes some group photos with a row of Kimberley vans in the background. We are in no hurry to pack today, we don’t have too far to drive to our next destination.
We get away around 10.30 am & drive back through Yungaburra, then Malanda & Millaa Millaa before turning towards the coast. The scenery is very green with lots of rolling green hills and farms. Beautiful. The descent down the coastal range off the Atherton Tablelands we take slowly and carefully, there are lots of bends & long drop-offs over the edge. At the bottom of the range we come across one of the KKOG members that left before us, he is on the side of the road with wheel studs torn off the hub, with the passenger side wheel on the ground. He has another KKOG van stopped with him so we keep on driving as it is a dangerous place to stop and there are two cars very close behind me.
We find our way to our next destination, Mena Creek & the Paronella Park paddock is our home for the next two days. We find our spot & as we set up another Kimberley Karavan pulls up near us. It is the person that had stopped to help the damaged Karavan. He tells us that they are OK and have a spare hub to repair the damage. We have lunch & then head over to the Paronella Park office to arrange our day & night tours.
We start our day tour within 15 minutes and our eyes are opened by this amazing story. Paronella Park was built below Mena Creek Falls by a Spanish migrant called Jose Paronella as a way to make money from hospitality. He built impressive buildings in the Spanish style with balustrades and crenelated walls. They provided food & entertained paying guests. He built swimming pools, gardens & walkways plus the very first hydro-electric power station in Queensland to provide power for his enterprise. Floods & cyclones severely damaged the buildings and gardens over the years & after Jose died the family continued on for a while before selling. The site was abandoned before being found & resurrected as a tourist destination. The current owners have done a great job of restoring the gardens, preserving the remaining building structures & restoring the hydro-electric system which provides power for the whole site plus some other buildings in town. We enjoyed the story and seeing the property & imagining how it must once have been. One man’s dream is in sad decay, but still kept alive by clever present day owners with Jose’s story.
After dinner we were back at Paronella Park at 6.15pm for the night tour. This tour is so different, with the grand ballroom lit up as well as Mena Creek Falls, they look even better at night under lights. After this we are taken to the old tennis courts and look back at the old dining room that has lighting showing off the old building to great effect. We listen to classical music especially written for Paronella Park and watch a great light show that is timed & themed with the music. It is very good & finishes too soon. Another great day.
This morning we were at Yungaburra Market Day by 8am and had a very nice wander around the mass of stalls. There were lots of locals wandering around plus lots of fellow KKOG campers. We smade a few generous purchases, I had to walk back to the car to get some carry bags. We also bought some local bananas, tomatoes, honey & jams. My wallet considerably lighter we departed around 10.30am.
Next stop was Lake Eacham, a volcanic crater lake formed around 10,000 years ago, it is about 3km around & 65 metres deep. It is beautiful and we decide to take the path around the lake. The path is surrounded by rainforest & it is beautiful. I am looking up & around at all the different trees, vines, ferns & orchids & nearly step on a big black snake around a kilometre into our walk. Thankfully it let me pass before continuing across the path. The pulse was a little elevated for a while.
Around 2 kilometres into our walk we see a large freshwater crocodile basking on a log in the sunshine. There are lots of small birds flitting around the rainforest plus the usual brush turkeys scratching around the forest, their scratch marks are everywhere. The hour walk takes us a lot longer as we always stop & look at different things, there is one huge fig tree that gets our attention, it is very big.
Back at camp & we have a late lunch then have a few more chats with our fellow KKOG people before it is happy hour & time for drinks & more chatting, they are very friendly people. The Bonadios bring us a sample of cooked crocodile & kangaroo to try, I think it is very tasty. After happy 2 hours the farewell dinner commences in the dining shed, it is a BBQ provided by the Bonadio family, our hosts at the campsite. The food is a selection of chicken, beef & sausages plus salads and is delicious. We are entertained by a couple of inquisitive possums looking for a feed. We are given a film presentation by an Afghanistan war veteran then we all compete for different goods & services that have been donated by local businesses & some KKOG people. The proceeds are to support the Afghanistan Avenue of Honour in Yungaburra & our group contributes more than $5,000 to the cause. Next is the cake celebrating 10 years of KKOG plus a 60th birthday for one of the group members. Dessert is cake plus local ice cream & strawberries, very tasty. Time went so quickly it was 11.30 pm before we knew it, we had such a good time chatting with all our new friends and sharing memories. Another great day.
Today we stayed at camp all day more leisurely getting out of bed& breakfast, even on holidays we have to wash & do a bit of cleaning in the caravan. The rest of the day is socialising – talked to the other KKOG people, having a look at the modifications they have done to their KK vans and talking about problems & fixes. Everyone is very generous with their time & knowledge. Every KK van is different in some way or other, either by year of manufacture from the factory or by the modifications they have considered important enough to do. Tereza sits with a group of ladies for morning tea & breaks for lunch around 2pm.
Happy hour is again around 5pm until we break out at 7pm for dinner. Another great day, though not one photo to share today, only a couple of under the KK van looking at particular small modifications, very unusual for us. We met a lot of lovely people. Another great day.
It is a misty overcast morning when we gather at 8 am sharp for another drive day with the KKOG, this time around Lake Tinaroo. We drive out through Yungaburra and out the Cairns road and turn onto the Boar Pocket Road towards the Gillies Range Lookout. We turn off & drive along a rough dirt road with forest closing in on either side. Before we start on the road all the drivers are advised to change to 4 wheel drive as there are some tricky uphill sections. Our car has permanent all-wheel drive and we leave it in high range as advised so that we don’t churn the road up too much. I raise the suspension height on the car so that we have enough ground clearance and set off in convoy with twenty other cars. One hill is particularly steep & slippery with a little bit of wet clay making the car slide back a little before we get grip and keep climbing. The track winds around through the forest & eventually we get to the Gillies lookout and the view is spectacular, though a little foggy, looking over towards Mount Bartle Frer & the Bellenden Ker Range, the highest mountains in Queensland. On the way back out to the road I change down to low range to make the slippery downhills easier and it worked very well.
Our next stop along is the Cathedral Fig Tree and it is a really big tree with lots of ferns & staghorns in the magnificent open spreading branches. The multi-faceted trunk is a network of roots & leaves and there are multiple fungus growths all around on the forest floor.
Further along we stop at Mobo Crater on Mobo Creek, not really a volcanic crater but it looks like a small crater amongst the forest. The walk along the creek & around the crater is taxing, but beautiful & refreshing. We walk past a large brush turkey nest before we get back to the car & onwards again.
The Chimneys rest area is our next stop for morning tea, this park has two 7 metre chimneys standing next to each other, all that remains of a sawmiller’s house built in 1924. A brown snake is coiled up inside one of the chimneys soaking up some warmth. The forest trees surrounding here look stupendous.
We continue on & drive along the shores of Lake Tinaroo & to the dam wall. This is a really big dam & is more than 50 years old. Apparently it was forecast to take five years to fill once complete leaving plenty of time to remove houses and other infrastructure destined to drown. The dam filled in seven weeks so lots of houses were drowned and other infrastructure lost. The dam is nearly full and the outlet is spraying an enormous amount of water out of the base plus water is draining from the top for irrigation for the surrounding farmlands. Near the end of our Tinaroo Dam travels we stop at a 4 wheel drive test track & two of the group decide to test out their cars going up the very steep incline, then down the equally steep slope. They were both successful and it added some further excitement to the day. The Kauri Pub is our lunch stop and the cars of our group fill the street in front of the pub in this very small town. The food is piled high on the plate & is more than enough, it is tasty & we both do not need any dinner again tonight. We drive back through rich farmland to our campsite and take a walk along the Barron River again and we spot some more platypus foraging for their food in the river. They only spend a very short time on the surface before they are diving down again. Back to the camp for happy hour & a chat & a drink around the campfire. Another great day.
Yungaburra township was our first stop today to explore the small town and look at the shops. There are some very interesting shops with quality goods, the artists are very good. We also had a good look at the gem shop, also very good. There are flowerpots hanging from baskets around the town & an old wagon full of flowers, it is all very neat & tidy.
At the end of the street is Peterson Creek & there is a platypus walk along the creek & a viewing hide. The creek bank has been revegetated over the years and there is a 15 minute walk (QLD time, the time we know is a lot longer than theirs) to a small suspension bridge that we take. There are small birds everywhere and we spot some elusive platypus. The walk is very quiet and beautiful, you forget you are next to a town & near a busy road.
On our drive to Herberton we spot a fire on top of a small volcanic hill sending plumes of smoke into the sky. The Herberton Historic Village is an amazing place, we spend around four hours exploring the 16 acres of buildings & relics & that is not enough, we missed some of the displays. There are over 60 buildings (we really tried hard to see most of them), many have been moved from old towns or rural properties & relocated here. Even an old sawmill has been relocated to here. The display of fully restored & running John Deere tractors is amazing, the sound is unbelievably loud. The displays of relics & items in common use from the 1800s & early 1900s is amazingly comprehensive, there are lots of items I can remember from my grandparent’s farms and houses. Also very many items I have never seen before. Some items I can only guess at what they may have been used for. It truly is an extraordinary place to visit & we wished we had more time. We had to leave because we had to get to our appointment with our KKOG group for supper. This village is all museum, the only place that is used for eating/drinking is the old Bakerville pub (relocated to here) and set up as a museum showpiece where we enjoyed a vegetarian lunch. There are not many people visiting this museum at all, we can only imagine how busy it must have been pre-covid as it is such an extraordinary place.
On the drive to Lake Barrine we drive past two small fires, both cleaning up rubbish in farm paddocks. Lake Barrine is a perched crater lake on the road to Cairns from Yungaburra & the Tea House on the shore was our destination this afternoon for supper with the KKOG crowd. We sat on the deck & sipped on home-made Kombucha that was very tasty and chatted to others in the group. The finger food was also tasty along with the local cheese selection. The very proud owner Steve Curry told us the story with lots of photographs about how this establishment has survived 4 generations (he has some children who are keen to keep this wonderful place going). We watched the sun set over the lake before heading back to camp. Another great day to be alive.
An early start with a drive with the KKOG around the Atherton tablelands on a sightseeing tour. We gather at 8am & start off at 8.15 with 24 cars in convoy, all in communication with 2-way radio so we know which way to turn and which road to be on. The Atherton tablelands are a very rich agricultural land and the grass is so green & lush, the cattle are fat and the crops & orchards all look very good. The hills & mountains are all evident of volcanic activity and there are lots of volcanic plugs & crater lakes around. We drive in & out of tropical rainforest, it is like flicking a switch.
We stop at a number of lookouts plus Millaa Millaa Falls, our cars fill the carparks & overflow them. We drive down all sorts of narrow back country lanes, paved & dirt, crossing small creeks & rivers many times. The Peeramon Hotel is our stop for lunch, a large old hotel in a small town. The hotel is normally closed Tuesday, however, they open the hotel especially for us. Lunch is roast pork or chicken with roast vegetables & all the trimmings, with salads as well. We all queue & help ourselves to the food, everyone is full at the end of the meal. Back into the cars & convoy back to Yungaburra & a drive to Tinaroo Dam. This is the end of the tour & it is back to camp.
We then break from the convoy & go to see the Curtain Fig Tree, a truly massive fig tree that towers over everything else in the rainforest. It must be seen to appreciate how big this tree is. Back to the camp. Happy hour (that lasts for a few hours) a catch up at the fire pit & chats with other KKOG members, they all have different stories. Another great day.
Trekkin 