In and around Cairns

Lovely views in Cairns

We had such a good time exploring around Cairns over a couple of days that we decided to stay an extra night. The area has a lot to do, a lovely friendly vibe, beautiful scenery and great weather.

Actually, scrap that last one because just as we decided to spend some extra time enjoying the outdoors in Cairns the weather gods decided it was about time our adventure finally saw rain again. So we've sadly packed up today and continued our journey south.

But I can tell you the things we enjoyed doing before the rain set in!

The drive from Port Douglas to Cairns has got to be one of the most stunning stretches of road in the country. Forget the Great Ocean Road, I'd rather do this one. Would be nicer in a sports car of some sort, but Suzy Q handled herself pretty well and loved the vistas of beach, rainforest and mountains.

First stops for us before hitting Cairns proper were Skyrail and the Armour and Artillery Museum. At first glance, both seemed rather touristy and I wondered whether we were going to feel as if we'd had a genuinely unique experience. Much to our delight, we ended up loving both!

The Skyrail carried us along 7.5 kilometres of cableway in a gondola up over the mountains to the town of Kuranda. There were lovely views over the top of the rainforest along the way and two stations where we jumped out to do walks through rainforest with kauri pines that are hundreds of years old and to view Barron Falls.

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Kuranda itself is basically a town setup for tourists and we had just a fleeting look at the typically cheap markets before heading to the butterfly sanctuary for a beautiful hour or so watching tropical colours flutter around us. Evie was so excited when a Ulysses butterfly landed on her despite not wearing her butterfly outfit that day. Fun stops together with the sheer excitement of riding on a cable car, proved to be a wonderful day out.

As did the Armour and Artillery Museum. Lukas found the brochure for this at the chocolate and cheese factory in the Atherton Tablelands and, to be honest, I probably would have given it a miss had we not seen it standing tall next to Skyrail.


It was setup by an individual with a passion for collecting cool things like tanks and surface-to-air-missiles and who must have very deep pockets to privately finance it all. Everything has been beautifully restored and apparently most of it is actually in operational condition.

We eagerly booked in for the ride on the APC which was seriously good fun as it rumbled through the carpark out into the back paddock and took us up, down and over hills, creeks and anything else in its way. We scored the museum unanimous 10/10s and I surprised myself with the amount of photos I wanted to take of tanks and guns!

Jami and Pa came along for the APC ride too

A genuine Russian surface-to-air missile on the back
of a truck, would have loved to seen the paperwork for
importing this one!

 

Racing thongs at the waterpark

 And in the centre of Cairns we had a ball (before it started raining) exploring the waterfront. There was gelato, there was a fantastic waterpark and there was the most beautiful lagoon surrounded by parkland perfect for barbecues and picnicking. The big boys loved the vibe of the city and were terribly sad that the rain bought an end to our exploring. Definitely a place to remember for future travels......

Pick the real children.....

Gorgeous fish statues in the lagoon

From the rainforest to the reef, with a little surprise along the way

After visiting the World Heritage listed Daintree Rainforest, the natural next step was to visit the World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef.

Views from Port Douglas out to sea

So we headed to Port Douglas to do a cruise out to the reef. Or so the kids thought.....

There was a big surprise waiting for them at the pub that night when two people that looked remarkably like their grandparents sat down at a table near us.

I have never heard two boys giggle quite as much as Dylan and Lukas when they realised it actually was Jami and Pa, who had flown to Port Douglas to see us all. What an awesome surprise.

Beautiful ocean-themed stained glass at
St Mary's of the Sea

So our adventurous gang grew by two for a few days as we explored Port Douglas and the reef.

We spent one day as a lovely quiet day around the hotel (yes, we were upgraded from Suzy Q for a few nights - lucky us!) swimming in the pool, exploring the vistas and walking down to the local playgrounds.

Another day was spent on our reef cruise which was great, apart from the rough seas. Lukas was sick on the way there, but doubling his seasickness medication on the way back seemed to do the trick!

The reef was beautiful and, while not as accessible as Ningaloo, there seemed to be a greater concentration of fish in one spot. We thought the colour of the coral would be much brighter, kinda like the tourist brochures, but the general tone is much more muted.


Included in our cruise was mooring on a floating platform for a few hours of snorkelling, an underwater observatory and short rides on a semi-submersible boat with viewing windows.
We've decided that it was close enough to a submarine that we've officially ticked that one off our 'vehicles we've travelled on' list.

Dylan snorkelling

So all of that packed into a busy day made for a rather tired tribe at the end of it all.

But there was still another experience that we just had to do while in Port Douglas and we weren't about to let tiredness get in our way.

Our 'submarine' experience

After some revival pizza, we headed to Iron Bar for the famous Cane Toad races. They are run by a very smart guy who does a brilliant job of playing the classic Aussie pub character, taking the piss out of pretty much everyone in the audience and himself as well. With names like "Camel Toad" you probably get the level the humour is pitched at, but it's pretty entertaining for adults and kids alike.

One lady piked on racing her toad, Pidgeon Toad, and offered it to Dylan who bravely took up the challenge. He held it, kissed it and received great cheers from the crowd when he placed a podium finish for the bronze medal.

How do you race a cane toad I hear you ask from across the internet? They simply get tipped out of a bucket and the competitors blow on them with those retractable party horns.

Never knew I wanted to see cane toad racing, but I quite enjoyed it!

Cassowaries in the Rainforest

You may have noticed from previous posts that the kids and I have enjoyed building up a collection of photos of our favourite signs. So it was pretty exciting to find this one as we approached the Daintree:

Yep, definitely hadn't seen that in Canberra, but then again Canberra isn't renown for its tropical rainforest. Which is where we've spent the last few days, exploring the region from Mossman Gorge to Cape Tribulation.

We were all surprised that it wasn't nearly as hot and steamy as expected. The walks that we did through various parts of the rainforest were all undertaken in low-twenties temperatures and the only intense periods of sweatiness weren't as a result of intense humidity but from intense rugby-playing between the big boys and their new friend from New Zealand at the campsite.


The ferry ride across the Daintree River, which is surrounded by pristine forest from bank to bank, made it feel as if we were entering a secret place, despite the fact it is pretty much accessible to all.

The landscape was just as stunning as I expected it to be and the pristine images from Where the Forest Meets the Sea are spot-on.

Evie spent a good half-hour one morning selecting her best butterfly-attracting attire hoping that she could encourage a bright blue Ulysses butterfly to land on her during our walks through the rainforest.

Clashing floral shorts, top and a bright
spotty hat is apparently the best outfit
for attracting butterflies!

No luck on that front unfortunately, but two hours of productive beach combing at Cow Bay proved just as exciting.

And the cassowaries? Yep, we saw them. A dad and baby strode out of the forest near our camp each morning to pick up and swallow whole bright blue berries the size of Max's fist. Another animal ticked off our 'see in the wild' list.

Max beach combing at Cow Bay in splendid isolation

Happy in the Tropics

Our day started today with smiling faces. First up, an hour riding scooters at the skate park in the morning.

The big grins came five minutes out of Ravenshoe, where we had stayed overnight at the old railway station, as we climbed up the hill to be greeted by a lushly green mountainous landscape. It's nice to be in a tropical landscape again.

Max found himself a new family at the station at Ravenshoe!

We had a great day touring around the Atherton Tablelands, a region that reminded us a lot of Margaret River.

There was Windy Hill Farm where we got up close to the huge windmills generating electricity and the waterfall 'circuit'  - three beautiful waterfalls on a 15km loop that easily rivalled those in Tasmania.

A stop at the dairy and chocolate factory helped keep our tummies happy around lunchtime, as did finding the avocado capital of Australia at a roadside stall where we snapped up ten avocadoes for $4.

Next find was the crystal capital of Australia in the main street of Atherton. It was one of those places that could have been kitsch - a series of fake caves created by one man to showcase his crystal collection - but was actually kind of cool. Donning hard hats was fun and Evie in particular loved the glittering colours. She purchased her very own amethyst necklace which she has worn proudly all afternoon.


















And here's the view from our campsite tonight:

That's right, we're at a drive in at Mareeba where we get to watch two movies and then have a sleep over. None of us have ever been to a drive-in movie before, so a brand new experience!

And Mareeba just happens to be home to numerous coffee plantations so I predict some delicious tasting tomorrow. For me anyway :)

The Queensland Outback

Sometimes you need to look quite hard for interesting. And when there's five people with different ages, interests and temperaments to consider, it can be hard work!

In the Queensland outback, I've found that sometimes I've had to try and convince the kids of the 'interestingness' of things. Like the WWII underground hospital at Mt Isa that I thought was great, Dylan ad Evie enjoyed but Lukas thought was average and Max just wanted to get out of. Or the little museum in Cloncurry where we saw Burke's drink bottle and learned about John Flynn on the $20 note. This historical significance really wasn't as interesting as the little playground next door that provided a much-needed reprieve from driving.

Or the promise of amazing dinosaurs at Kronosaurus Korner in Richmond, which had cool models on the outside but proved to be full of fossils of marine creatures that weren't that easily discernible as dinosaurs to a four year old.



I had to talk hard to convince the big boys of the significance of standing next to a 160 million year old fossil in pristine condition found just down the road from where we were standing.

They eventually agreed, but were disappointed when our own archaeological dig outside of town (in the hot sun using improvised tools) didn't magically turn up our own dinosaur.

But then sometimes interesting just finds you.

 Like the camper opposite us at the free camp at Julia Creek who provided the best entertainment of the day by walking around in rainbow-striped underpants and a giant white cowboy hat and serenaded us with the beautiful wafting sounds of the didgeridoo as we ate dinner.

Or Julia Creek in general, a tiny town with a population of 368, whose amazing visitor centre puts bigger towns to shame. We learned about the Julia Creek dunnart, endemic to the area, and watched it running around and eating. We also watched videos about the region and life in the area, so convincing that we all thought a cultural exchange to this town for a year would be great.

An overnight stop in Charters Towers erred on the generally un-interesting side as we walked around trying to find a funky cafe. Usually our radars are very good at picking the semi-trendy places in town with decent food and decent coffee (we found against the odds in Parkes, Katherine and Alice Springs) but not this time.

The nice buildings didn't rate on the interest radar for the kids, but at last we unearthed a gem or at least some gold, in the form of the mining cottage. Basically an old house filled with way too much hoarded second hand stuff (interest factor low) but where the dedicated old man running the place let the kids pan for gold - interest factor and fun factor high! We now have some gold flecks safely stowed in Suzy Q and new gold pans that will accompany us on the rest of the trip so we can stop at creeks to test out our new skills and make our fortune.

And that's our Queensland Outback experience. In a nutshell, interesting if you spend some time looking but expect some shrugs of 'yeah whatever mum' along the way.

You know you're in north-west Qld when.....

The kids couldn't understand why I stopped to take a photo!

An afternoon exploring Mt Isa today.

We found a big mine with a stripey smoke stack that reminded us of the lighthouse in Geraldton, a visitor's centre with a big sandpit and dinosaur and a really great adventure playground with a flying fox and scooter course which strangely enough was almost abandoned on a perfect-weather Saturday afternoon.













We got the vibe that that was probably most of the highlights so we'll continue the journey east along the Barkly Highway tomorrow morning.

Barring any celebrity photo moments with famous politicians of course. Is parliament sitting this week?
:)

Reality check - life on the highway

Just in case you thought that every day of the last five-and-a-bit-months for us has been filled with life-changing experiences and dream-like holiday adventures, we thought we'd journal one of our boring days for you.

Life on the road, by definition, involves a lot of travel. And sometimes there's just long days filled with driving. Like, for example, when you're finished with the Northern Territory and trying to get to Queensland from Alice Springs. So here's our day yesterday as we drove from Tennant Creek to Camooweal, just past the Qld border........

• This was our view for most of the day as we traversed the Barkly Highway. Fascinating landscape for about the first 200 metres!
• Spot the Queensland signs. These started just outside Tennant Creek at 471 kilometres and we saw them every 10km for the rest of the day. I thought it was boring seeing them so often, the kids liked the reassurance of knowing we were getting somewhere!

• Singing. Early on in the day I started a sing-a-long, thinking it would waste half an hour of time. Wrong. Mid-way through Old McDonald having a chicken Evie's screams of stopped drowned out our attempts at tuneful singing and so it was over in two minutes. Bummer

• Queueing for petrol with all the caravans. Driving in a headwind at 130km/hour uses a lot of petrol so there were multiple top-ups. It was us with dozens of caravans at most stops.

• Barkly Homestead Roadhouse. This was our lunch (and petrol) stop. As far as roadhouses go, and we've seen a few, it was up there with the best. The floor wasn't greasy, the toilets were clean and I even felt confident enough to let the kids choose some food! We hung out here for a while and played some race car games to break the monotony.

• Army trucks. These provided a good opportunity for counting, we must have passed more than fifty throughout the day. They also provided a good opportunity for story-telling as we all made up stories about why the army was on the move towards Alice Springs. We eventually settled on the fact that they were setting up a new headquarters at the SA/NT border to prevent any more grey nomads with caravans from migrating north for the winter. 

• Selfies. Nothing like letting the kids loose with the camera for an hour or so. The only rule was that I needed a selfie of everyone by the end of it. We decided it was safest if Dylan took mine!

• Toys. Pretty much every toy we have in Suzy Q was taken out and played with over the course of the day. While a motorhome is noisier and a rougher ride than the car, at least the options for entertainment is greater when you carry all your belongings with you and there's a table to sit around.

• Border crossing. Gotta love a good border crossing to add excitement to an otherwise boring day. Unfortunately this one was covered in graffiti and told us we're not allowed to go 130km/h anymore.

So that's how the day unfolded. We left Tennant Creek at 8:30am and arrived at Camooweal at 4pm, only to find we'd lost half an hour coming into Queensland and it was now 4.30pm. After a quick refuel and play at the playground we found a campsite next to the local billabong (which was code for dried up river with a couple of big puddles in it) and felt happy to have arrived.

Brian is flying back to Sydney and then onto Canberra to go back to work, but the kids and I are really keen to finish the loop so we'll be continuing the adventure. We've dubbed this second part of the adventure: "Embracing the Chaos Two - Just Keep Truckin"

Now, to find a truck........

Alice Springs - there and back again

We've just completed the trip from Alice Springs to Uluru and back again, six days in total.

The first sighting of Uluru came around 40kms out, after a false sighting by Dylan and Lukas of Mount Conner along the way. It sounds funny, but it's pretty easy to do: it's on the same highway as Uluru and is a huge rock jutting out from an otherwise flat landscape.

After his slight embarrassment the first time around, Lukas pretended to be unimpressed when the real Uluru appeared, but the rest of us were impressed by its size and excited to be close to such an Australian icon.

The first time Max saw it and I asked what it was he excitedly replied 'a big pile of dirt'. As we watched the sunset over Uluru from the campground evening and I asked again he replied 'Wave Rock' - it must get confusing being such a well-travelled two year old!

The next couple of days were spent driving out to Uluru for a closer sunset experience and doing walks at both Uluru and Kata Tjuta. This gave us a strong appreciation of the different faces, colours, shapes and textures of both landmarks and helped the kids see beyond the classic souvenir shots.

A walk with an Aboriginal ranger was interesting in understanding the spirituality of Uluru but initiated Dylan's first ethical dilemma. He had come with the firm intention of climbing the rock but after listening to the ranger was deeply unsure about whether he was doing the right thing. In the end he decided to touch the rock, walk a few steps up it and sit down for a moment of quiet solitude.

And then there was everything that the resort-style town of Yulara had to offer. Despite being somewhat touristy, the setup was actually really good and with plenty of free activities on offer, all within walking distance of our campground, we jumped at the opportunity to do as much as we could.

The big boys threw spears and boomerangs, tried playing the didgeridoo and jumped on stage with the Aboriginal dancers.

Evie loved watching the Aboriginal women paint and was really excited to do a dot-painting workshop where each of the kids painted their own 'story' using elements of Aboriginal symbolism.

A night-time astronomy tour was the perfect way to see the outback stars and some of the planets through telescopes.

The trip back to Alice Springs included a side trip to Kings Canyon, definitely worth the extra few hundred kilometres. Opting against the famous rim walk, which takes three hours, we embarked on the less arduous two kilometre walk at the bottom of the canyon. It involved a meander up a dry stone river bed dotted with stunning river red gums, towered over by vibrantly red cliffs. For me, this was one of the best walks of our whole journey.

So a lovely trip down into the red centre. And it's red, definitely red. In fact, I think I am now officially over the red sand. It's beautiful and it's iconic but it also stains clothes and shoes and prams and bodies and motorhomes. Luckily the beauty along the way was worth it!