The Whitsundays

We made an early start this morning as we had a reasonably long distance to travel today, to get to Airlie Beach.  We stopped in at Bowen to check out the Big Mango.

This 10 metre high roadside sculpture is the biggest mango in the world!  It was erected in 2002 at a cost of almost $90 000, with the aim of revitalising the local community and boosting tourism. 

In 2014 the Big Mango was involved in a heist where it mysteriously disappeared overnight!  The case of the 'missing mango' made global headlines within hours.  The stunt's publicity value exceeded $13 million!!  It turned out that Nando's was responsible - in light of promoting their new mango and lime flavour!

We arrived at the Big4 Adventure Whitsunday Resort about lunch time.  It was a surprise for Jack for his birthday tomorrow.  We'd told him he'd be spending his 9th birthday at a bush camp!  He was pretty excited when we arrived - this place is the bomb for kids.

It has a great playground, heated lagoon pool with waterslides, two jumping pillows, a giant chess set, mini golf, ping pong, tennis & basketball courts, outdoor movies and a kids club.  Oh, and really cool ducks!



So, once we had settled in the boys had a swim while I ducked off to get some supplies for the big day tomorrow.  Then Bruce and Jack shot some hoops while Fletch, Jarrah and I had a game of mini golf.

 

We finished the day off with an outdoor movie and a bag of Triple Butter Popcorn!  The movie playing tonight was called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  Weird name but it had Steve Carrell in it and the little kid from Paper Planes and the part of it that I saw was really quite funny.

 

Now the boys are all asleep it must be time for present wrapping and balloon blowing....

Big Crystal Creek

After giving my joggers a few days off I hit the track this morning before the rest of the family was out of bed.  It was a peaceful 5 km run to the Rock Slides and back – very lumpy terrain but perfect conditions for running.  I am glad to report that the sun is shining again!

 We all enjoyed a hearty cooked breakfast before heading off on our day at the local rock pools.  The native bush chooks (Australian Brush Turkey) seemed quite taken with our cooked breakfast too!

First on the agenda was the Rock Slides.  Bruce, Jack and Jarrah headed out first on their bikes, and Fletch and I followed up in the car with bathers, towels, beach balls, noodles, snacks, drinks, sunscreen, aeroguard and the myriad of other items we must carry with us at all times!!!

According to local knowledge there wasn’t a lot of water at the Rock Slides, but we certainly made the most of the water that was there.

Unfortunately, the long swimming pants that Jack and Jarrah love so much had their final wear today.  Both boys wore a huge hole in the backside of their pants, sliding down the rocks.  Baring their butts didn’t seem to bother them too much, in fact they seemed to enjoy it!  Some very funny photos were taken but have been withheld for modesty reasons!

After a few hours at the Rock Slides the troops were getting hungry, so we headed for home, collecting some fire wood along the way.  After a short break for lunch, it was off to Paradise Pool – a short 200 metre walk from our camp site.

There was no shortage of water at Paradise Pool, and the boys had fun jumping from the rocks and trying to bombie on the fish.

 Although it was mid afternoon by this stage, the boys were keen to head back to the Rock Slides to check out a different section that we didn’t get to this morning.  The rock pools were in shade by this stage, but the boys didn’t seem to mind!

We dragged them away, shivering uncontrollably, about 5pm.

After a BBQ dinner, Jarrah again amazed us with his culinary skills, by producing an award winning Nutella damper for supper.  Yum!

Paluma National Park

This morning the weather Gods were kind to us, allowing us to pack up our soggy belongings without further downpours.  We hit the road about 9am, headed for the Big Crystal Creek campground in Paluma National Park, stopping only briefly for a wee and an icecream at Maccas at Ingham.  

The weather was grey and overcast, but the rain held off, so after helping to set up the kids explored the campground by bicycle while Bruce and I got 10 minutes for a peaceful cup of coffee.  As it wasn’t really warm enough for swimming, we headed up the hill to Paluma Village.    Paluma Village is 18 kms up the mountain range on a narrow, windy road through the spectacular Wet Tropics rainforest.   



 It is quite a surprise to get to the top of the mountain range and find this very isolated little township.  And we thought Keysbrook was remote!  Apparently the town was first settled when alluvial tin was discovered in the area in 1875.  There was some bullock droving and logging in the area and during WWII Paluma’s altitude was seen as strategically attractive and a secret radar station was set up.  The mining and the logging in the area continued to be quite successful until the 1980s when the price of tin collapsed and the introduction of the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area put a sudden and permanent stop to logging.

Unfortunately, the boys missed the cute little village and the sweeping views of the valley from the top as they were all sound asleep!  On the way back down we stopped at Little Crystal Creek and woke them all up for some rock hopping and a look at the picturesque stone arch bridge built in the 1930s depression.

But of course it started raining almost the very moment we got out of the car!  (This recent weather has brought on some serious discussion about returning to Darwin!)

On arrival back at camp, it was all hands on deck.  Jack, Fletch and Bruce built a fire while Jarrah and I whipped up a magnificent garlic, herb and cheese damper to have with our creamy pumpkin soup for dinner.  Yum!

A bit of guitar, harmonica, singing, red wine, marshmallows and laser light show around the campfire, oh, and just a little more rain, and we were all tuckered out once more.

Babinda - The Boulders

We broke our own world record this morning by being packed up and ready to leave by 7.30am!  All three boys were a fantastic help (inspired by the promise of two free lollies if we could be ready to roll by 8am.)  Jack and Jarrah worked really well together moving large items like the Waeco, the portaloo and the chairs and tables, while Fletch worked on smaller things like moving the apples and mandarins.

 

We were sad to say goodbye to our beautiful beach, campsite and our now great friends Lyndyl and Daniel.  We were more than happy, though, to put some distance between us and the caretaker’s pet funnel web spider!  We were also pretty pleased that we had managed to nurse Fletch through a few nights of croup without an emergency dash to the hospital.  That would have been a challenge when the car ferry doesn’t run after midnight!

There was no wait for the ferry at 8am, so it was smooth sailing back through Mossman and then Cairns where we stopped for a few supplies, and some more gas (not running out again!)  Then it was off to Babinda.
We were lucky to get the 8^th and last spot at a lovely Babinda free camp.  Unfortunately, though, it started raining just before we arrived about 11am.  The boys decided to brave the rain and ride their bikes around the campground.  After 15 minutes in the pouring rain it was time for a change of clothes. 

 
I’m afraid Fletch is going to need a little more training in dressing himself.  Yes, they are Jack’s jocks!

Being optimists, we still thought it might just blow over so we donned our wet weather gear, boots and hats and went to see the nearby popular swimming and picnic area known as The Boulders.

 

The Boulders is in the tropical jungle in the foothills of Bartle Frere (Chooreechillum), Queensland’s highest mountain – 1622 metres.  The Boulders are a series of huge spheroidal outcrops of granite strewn along the Babinda creek amongst volumes of sparkling, cascading cool, clear mountain water.

 

The area has an exceedingly high average rainfall of 4616mm and has recorded falls of 600mm in a 24 hour period.  Thus the surge of water in the creek as it thunders through the Boulders adds to the wild beauty of the region.  Even as we stood at the lookout this afternoon in the bucketing rain it was quite spectacular, so I imagine it would be quite a sight to see in the wet.

 

So, by 3.30pm it was back to the caravan for a(nother) change of clothes.  This time it was straight into pjs for an afternoon of tea, fruit toast and A Fortunate Life on DVD.

After a feed of burritos for dinner out came the playing cards.  A few games of Uno first up then we finished the night off with Donkey.  It got really interesting when we swapped the coins for marshmallows, but we had to put a halt on the game before (1) someone spat their chewy because they didn’t get a marshmallow or (2) all the small people got overdosed on sugar.

 All in bed by 9pm and it is still raining!!!!! 

Note:  free lollies are those lollies that are not preceded by a general knowledge question.

The Resort Life

We’ve spent our last two days at Cape Kimberley doing precious little.  Well, as little as is humanly possible when you’re the parents of three energetic young boys!

Each day we have walked/ridden the 6km return journey along the beach to the mouth of the Daintree River.  I love walking on the beach, but I’ve got to admit it was pretty cool fun riding our bikes along it, too.  The sand is almost as hard as concrete. 

 Not so good for building sand castles without a shovel.  Believe me, we tried!

When we got to the mouth of the river the tide was out so there was a large expanse of exposed beach and lots of huge puddles.  The boys made the most of those!

 

It was after we had been playing in these puddles for some time that I noticed the myriad of crocs tracks all around us….

The locals and the crocs up here seem on the whole to be quite indifferent to each other.  I just don’t ever feel entirely comfortable amongst them, myself.

There was more fun with cane toads.  We moved on from toasted cane toads to cane toad bombies in the resort pool.

This was a tough little guy but many, many bombies later the deed was done, the Johnstons reigned supreme!  Of course it was then back to cane toad toasties…

 On Saturday we made a deal with the boys that if they went to bed nicely we would treat them to another visit to Cow Bay.  Unfortunately, they had to learn the hard way.  They did learn, however, and on the following night there was not a peep out of their end of the caravan after 8.15pm.  So, it was back to Cow Bay for us on Monday morning!

We all had great fun again on the coconut palm swings until the inevitable happened.  Someone made Jarrah laugh in full flight which made him let go…landed flat on his back from a drop of about 6 ft.  Ouch.

As it turned out we had needed to go out anyway on Monday as we ran out of gas during our morning cuppa.  We do have two small gas bottles, one of which ran out just before we left Palm Cove.  Bruce wanted to back track a short way to get gas before we left, but I convinced him we’d be fine with one full gas bottle.   Oops.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have slow cooked that curry….and he didn’t even say “I told you so.”  Even when we had to pay a small fortune to get the bottle refilled at Cow Bay!

 

We did discuss just using the gas in the camp kitchen at the resort, but I am guessing that the state of the camp kitchen might have had something to do with the resort closing down in the first place…ewwwww…I didn’t have enough personal protective equipment to tackle that one so we had to pay the super-inflated prices and be done with it!

We had plenty of time to play cricket, pool, Uno and Donkey.  The boys caught up on some school work and Bruce and I even had time to read.  Fletch caught up on some sleep!

 

We enjoyed spending time around the campfire with our lovely Tasmanian camping neighbours Lyndyl and Daniel, and of course enjoyed the obligatory Happy Hour pre dinner canapes expertly prepared by young Jack.  We played music and sang and Jarrah exceeded all expectation by baking the best damper yet!

Cape Tribulation

This morning the boys and I enjoyed a leisurely walk/bike ride on the beautiful Cape Kimberley beach while Bruce cooked us a scrumptious pancake breakfast.  The large croc tracks that we saw going from the beach to the mangroves only a few hundred metres from our caravan were a little concerning.  We can't say we weren't warned, though!

The weather was glorious again today so we got school work done and headed out for some more sight seeing.  Our first stop was Thornton Beach, but Fletch was asleep (10.30am!) so we had a brief look at the beach and continued on.  Our next stop was the Maardja botanical walk where we saw mangroves and rainforest happily coexisting side by side.

The mangroves thrive in the salty, waterlogged (stinky) mud of the lower bank while rainforest grows in the rich, organic, salt-free soils of the higher bank.

I love so many of the rainforest plants but I think this fan palm (below) is one of my favourites.  Their large, circular, splayed fronds, each up to 2 metres in diameter, can reach 15-20 metres into the rainforest canopy!



We had a picnic lunch at Mason's swimming hole and then the 'kids' had some fun on the rope swing.

Our final stop for the day was Cape Tribulation.  Cape Tribulation was named by Lieutenant James Cook in 1770 after he experienced a great deal of tribulation - "here began all our troubles" - it was here that he damaged his ship The Endeavour on a nearby reef.

 

 The Johnstons had no such tribulations!  We enjoyed a beautiful afternoon walking, chasing crabs, racing each other, and wrestling (I didn't do this bit) on this beautiful north Queensland beach, which we pretty much had all to ourselves!  Love, love, love this place!

Cape Kimberley

It wasn't until I returned from my rainforest run this morning that I remembered the pegged cane toad.  I checked him out and he was happily doing 360s around his tent peg.  Ewww.  So, after a great cooked breakfast (for us, not the toad), his time had come.  Cane toad BMX hadn't worked, but rally cane toad seemed to do the trick.

 



We spent the rest of this beautiful sunny morning on a leisurely walk along the beautiful Cape Kimberley Beach.



We chatted to a local guy while the boys threw the ball countless times for his border collie.  We splashed in the water and chased the Bubbler Crabs.
.

These little guys are really cute.  They live in burrows in the sand, where they remain during high tide.  When the tide is out they emerge on to the surface and scour the sand for food, forming the sand into inflated pellets.  These little pellets are cleverly formed into beautiful patterns.

The rest of the day was spent playing cricket under the melaleuca paperbarks, playing pool in the bar, reading books, completing school work and building the camp fire.

Incidentally, Johnstons 3, cane toads 0.  We've now discovered the camp fire works much better than the Hyundai.

Cow Bay

This morning I wasn't quite quick enough to sneak out on my run before the family woke up, so with Fletcher on my back and Jarrah on his bike, I walked the 5km rainforest track along Cape Kimberley Road.  We didn't manage to catch site of the elusive and critically endangered Cassowary (there are barely 1200 left in the Wet Tropics) but it was still a marvellous way to start the day!

After brekky, a bit of Donkey and Skip Bo we threw a picnic together and headed out to do some exploring.  We stopped in at Mt Alexandra lookout where on a clear day you get a great view of Snapper Island, the mouth of the Daintree and the distant Port Douglas.  Today was misty but it was beautiful all the same.



From here it was off to the Discovery Centre and then on to the Jindalba Boardwalk.  After a picnic lunch, we donned our wet weather gear and spent some time wandering through the magnificent Daintree rainforest.



The Daintree rainforest has the most complete record in the world of the evoluation of plant life dating back to the beginning of life on earth, some 3.5 billion years ago.

We saw some great examples of Australia's largest fern, the king fern, with fronds as long as 5 metres.  Australia's largest frog, the white-lipped tree frog, is also found here.   Sadly, not a sign of him today.  Perhaps that could have had something to do with the high pitched squeals of laughter as three young Johnstons delighted in shaking the palm trees in order to spill the accumulated raindrops on any unsuspecting traveller on the boardwalk?

Our next stop was Cow Bay.  As we'd driven right past the icecream factory, the kids weren't too excited to get out for a walk here, until they came across these great coconut palm swings on the beach.

The Aboriginal name for Cow Bay Beach is Kaba-Kada, which means rain a lot.  We weren't disappointed today!  Apparently the sun only shines one hundred days a year here.  The rain did nothing to weaken the boys' resolve to eat ice cream, however, so on the way home we stopped at Floravilla Ice Cream Factory - supernatural, biodynamic, organic and super expensive. 

The ice cream was better than the coffee (which was out of a machine) and the flowers were pretty too!



As we headed for home we realised we'd been out for five hours and had travelled no further than 35 kms!  A far cry from our recent travelling days in the Northern Territory!  We arrived home in the late afternoon to find we'd been coned!

In the evening all weary travellers at the Koala Daintree Resort gathered for an impromptu pool competition and muso jam/sing-a-long.  One fellow even brought along his pet funnel web!  Arghh!

It was great fun but late by the time we finished up.  Now you'd think the boys would be exhausted, but no, on the way back to our campsite there was great excitement when we came across a large cane toad. 

One hundred cane toads were brought to Australia from Hawaii in 1935 in an effort to combat the cane beetle.  I'm not sure who did the research on this one, but the cane beetle lives in the top of the cane, and cane toads can't jump very high.  Hence they didn't eat the cane beetles.  They did, however, have a marked effect on Australian biodiversity.  And as the females can lay up to 25000 eggs at a time, it was recently estimated that the cane toad population in Australia is now around ten billion!

Thus, with a thought for all the native lizards, frogs, birds, crocs and snakes (not to mention plenty of domestic dogs and cats) who have died at the hands of the cane toad, the boys commenced a game of cane toad BMX.  After about 10 minutes of this caper, the amphibious, flat, freak puffed himself back up and started to hop off!  No way, we weren't standing for this.  So Bruce stabbed him with a tent peg.



  Good one honey!

Daintree River Crossing

This morning we left our home in Palm Cove and headed north once more.  The drive was short but spectacular!  It's the only place on earth where two World Heritage Areas meet - the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest.  It's a breathtaking coastal drive journeying through pretty, pebbly beaches with rainforest clad mountains on one side and the Coral Sea on the other.

We arrived at the Daintree Ferry Crossing just after 11 am along with everyone else on the planet!  While waiting in the car queue we read the information brochure we'd been given last Saturday, advising us to travel outside of the peak times of 11am to 12.30pm.  Oh well, it was a nice view and we had access to a packet of Butternut Snap biscuits!  All was good!

The Daintree Car Ferry has been retained as a unique gateway to this special region.  The wait was about an hour, and the crossing was fun in the car with the caravan in tow!  It was actually the first river crossing we've done where Jack wasn't scared stiff!

Winding for 140 kms, the Daintree River is one of the longest on Australia's east coast, providing diverse habitats for many species.  Once across the river, it is reported to be one of the most scenic drives in the world, and I have got to agree!  The road is narrow and winding and the canopy of the trees on either side of the road almost touches overhead to make it feel as though you're driving through a rainforest tunnel.  The dappled sunlight and swirling mist that occasionally filters through the canopy made it feel like we were driving through the enchanted forest!

The Daintree Rainforest is named after Richard Daintree, an Australian geologist and photographer (1832-1878).  It is the world's oldest surviving rainforest with examples of plant species that existed millions of years ago! 

We didn't have far to drive on the north side of the ferry crossing before turning off the main road  to travel the 5 kms of dirt to get to our new home at Cape Kimberley.  Cape Kimberley forms the northern boundary of the 12 km wide bay into which the Daintree River flows. Between the river mouth and the cape is the 3.5 km long Cape Kimberley Beach. The Koala Beach Resort that we now call home is at the northern end of the beach, directly opposite Snapper Island (2 kms offshore).

The  circumstances seem a little unclear, but the resort has pretty much closed down.  When I called to book a site the fella advised me that the place is closed for renovations "but you're welcome to stay and use the facilities available in return for a donation."

This appealed to us as it meant that we get the to stay beachside in this fantastic location with pretty much nobody else!  There are a handful of other campers/workers here, but it really does feel like we have our own rainforest and our own beach.

So it was that we spent a relaxing afternoon setting up house among the melaleuca paperbarks and making a camp fire in preparation for the Daintree damper and marshmallows that were to come....