July 30-31 (Day 181-182) - Laura to Coen

July 30

Although we'd only been at Laura for a couple of days we'd grown quite fond of it. As mentioned it is quite basic, but it's cheap, reasonably quiet, has lovely cool evenings, and plenty of sun for charging the van's batteries. Nonetheless we wanted to continue on our journey, particularly as Mim had only bought about a week's worth of food, on the assumption we'd be up and back in about a week (ho ho...!)

I made some adjustments to the voltage and current meter I'd installed - it had been supplied with an oversized current shunt, which meant the current gauge read far too low. Fortunately it was just a matter of hacking away enough metal from the shunt to increase resistance to the correct point so it read accurately. This done, we quickly calibrated it, us three boys had a haircut, and we were off. I guess it would have been about 12pm by the time we left.

July 27 - 29 (Day 178-180) - Cooktown to Laura

Monday 27 July

Today's the day we start making our way up the Cape God willing! We packed up our campsite and headed into town to the post office and supermarket to make sure we have enough supplies for the next week and then also to the library as we had books we needed to return from the Mossman library and also renew one the kids hadn't quite finished reading yet. Much to the kids delights, we were able to spend some time there while Greg did a bit more business work.

We then went down to the foreshore and had lunch before heading back out to Lakeland and started up the Cape.

Jude's lovely flowers for me.

July 24 - 26 - (Day 175 - 177) - Mount Molloy to Cooktown

Friday 24 July

We were intending to stay at Mount Molloy for 2 nights, but ended up deciding to move on to Cooktown. The rest stop wasn't the quietest place, being close to a road, although it was certainly quieter than cane trains rumbling past 30m away! However the cane trains, noisy as they were, were a constant sound whereas traffic is more variable.

The main reason, though, was that we'd bought a couple of power meters on eBay and these were waiting for us at the Cooktown Post Office. We figured Friday would be a better day to try to collect those than trying to do it on a weekend when it might be closed (which we later discovered was correct). So pack we did and on our way we got!

As we travelled we suddenly noticed the scenery had changed from rainforest to savannah! We had been told by the lovely council guy yesterday that we would notice quite a contrast once we had driven past a certain point but hadn't actually noticed straightaway. It might have been because we were distracted on other things like listen to a Sherlock Holmes but none the less we finally did notice the stark difference.

July 23 (Day 174) - Mossman to Mount Molloy

Our final morning in this lovely quiet spot!

Honestly, I will say again that this was the best wrong turn we have taken on this trip. We've stayed in some nice spots, but I reckon this one takes the cake! The only one which would compare would have been Inverleigh in Victoria
which was really nice too. This water is definitely clearer, there's more firewood; whereas Inverleigh was definitely quieter as there was no train line or road nearby.


We enjoyed a morning swim, and amazingly found for the first time that there was a log we could jump off into a deep-enough water hole! Here for a week and we only just found it!!

Morning swim

July 17 - 22 (Day 168 - 173) - Mossman

Friday 17 July

Quiet day today. Started off with a lovely coffee while watching the cane trains go past.  We then spent a few hours getting school and business work done. Then had a refreshing swim. It's such a beautiful quiet spot. We have the occasional car come past and go through the river and some come near where we are camped and turn around and go out again because they don't want to pass through the river. It's not that deep at the crossing, probably up to my knees at some points but mostly below.

The kids had great fun collecting more bamboo and turning themselves into warriors with different coloured clay.

July 16 (Day 167) - Cairns to Mossman

After leaving the caravan park we refuelled at what was shown as the cheapest station in town for diesel, but it also turned out to be a full service station! What I mean by that is that, it was a true 'service' station, where the attendant came out to pump the fuel for you (well he was busy when we fuelled up so we did it ourselves), but they also had a mechanical workshop attached, which was full of vehicles being worked on!

It was very much something 'out of the past', but was still working very well and obviously making a dollar too, so we were very glad to have given them our business!

July 14 - 15 (Day 165 - 166) - Cairns

Tuesday 14 July

The original plan was to spend two nights at the caravan park in Cairns (i.e. Monday night and Tuesday night), spend Tuesday looking around Cairns, then check out on Wednesday, go to Bek's orthodontist appointment and then move straight up the coast towards Pt Douglas (we later extended by one day).

Lots of 'things to do in Cairns' were actually in the general Cairns area rather than Cairns itself, or activities to do with the Great Barrier Reef which we saw on our last trip. So we decided to visit the Cairns Aquarium as it was a while since the kids had been to one, and it was sort-of reefy!

July 8 - 13 (Day 159 - 164) - Atherton Tablelands - Part 2 (Kairi to Cairns)

Wednesday 8 July - Kairi to Ringers Rest RV Camp (near Mareeba)

It looked to be a beautiful day today so Greg and Matt went for a morning run while the rest of us slowly made our way out of bed. :) The free camp had been a nice quiet spot to stop for the night and the kids enjoyed the playground across the road.

A gorgeous Birdwing Butterfly!

When we were packing up we discovered this beautiful butterfly, which we later discovered was a 'Birdwing Butterfly'. Most butterflies that we have got close to to try and take photos have flown away so we wondered if this one was maybe a bit injured. It looked ok but didn't seem to want to fly. It was fairly windy outside so it may have found it a bit difficult. But we enjoyed it all the same. (We have since found out that it could make you fairly sick if you don't wash your hands after touching it, thankfully we didn't have any adverse reactions).

July 4 - 7 (Day 155 - 158) - Atherton Tablelands - Part 1 (Innisfail to Kairi)

THE ATHERTON TABLELANDS - IN A NUTSHELL

The Atherton Tablelands is located about 100km inland from the Queensland coast, running roughly parallel with Cairns at the northern end, down to Innisfail in the south. Having spent several days in the Atherton Tablelands, it's fairly easy to summarise what it's like.

Firstly you're up in the mountains, so it's considerably colder than down in Innisfail or Mission Beach. Most mornings were around 15-18 degrees C, although daytimes were pleasant. Given there are all these mountains, and you're in a tropical area that gets about 2.5m of rain per year, there are lots of rivers and waterfalls criss-crossing through the region, so there are plenty of very pretty locations, although the water is very cold!

The roads in and out of the Tablelands go through areas of rolling hills, which are well used for farming animals and fruit, so these parts are beautiful in their own respect - similar, we felt, to parts of country England.

The Atherton Tablelands is also the main, if not the only, place in Australia where coffee is grown.

We imagined the Tablelands would be a fairly rough, untamed area - but surprisingly we found most of the roads have fully-fenced private farms running either side of main the road - in this respect it's a bit like driving through parts of the Adelaide Hills, e.g. from Mt Barker to Strathalbyn. This means there's not all that much 'scrub' or 'state forest' where you can just pull off and find a spot to explore or sleep. The few which looked promising often turned out to be private driveways! So the road is pretty well just a corridor to get from one town to the next and enjoy the view along the way, rather than presenting many opportunities to duck down bush tracks and explore a bit more deeply. We also found there were a lot less free camps than we had imagined.

For all these reasons, the Atherton Tablelands gave the sense of being a bit more 'built up', 'tourism-oriented' and 'controlled' than the fairly rough, untamed place we'd imagined. That said, it was still a place with some truly stunning scenery and the odd place to still squirrel oneself away!

Saturday 4 July - Innisfail to Zillie Falls

Normally when arriving in a new town that we want to explore we go to the information centre to find out the what things there are to do and any other interesting brochures that could be useful for the surrounding area or our next stop. We got given heaps of brochures from this information centre and realised the Sugar museum was very close by that may be able to tell us more about how all this sugar cane is processed and then turned into the sugar we use today.

July 2 - 3 (Day 153-154) - Abergowrie State Forest to Innisfail

Thursday 2 July

 Yesterday and last night it has rained pretty continuously, some lighter and some heavier but pretty constant. I'd noticed a small wet patch on the floor when the kids went to bed but didn't think anything of it because we had a water container on the floor that we had used so I thought maybe some had spilt.

Well...! In the morning that patch was a lot bigger and had gone into the whole back tunnel and the shoe cupboard and into the walk way and ruined boxes that we had packed stuff into! :( So out it all came so that we could dry and work out where the leak might have been coming from.

Pulling EVERYTHING out of the back tunnel
before we left Abergowrie State Forest

We think it might have been running along the poptop and down the side and into some crevice that needs a little more silicone but can't be absolutely sure. So we made some arrangements to stay in a caravan park in Mission Beach so that we could wash & dry everything that we had used to mop up all the water. Also to be able to have power to use the hairdryer for drying the carpet and other spots before putting everything back.

So we got packed up and farewelled our little spot in the bush. What a gorgeous place to spend a few days...

Our little slice of paradise.

Setting up camp

A couple of days ago we shot this video showing how we set up camp.

COVID travel plans update - 2 July 2020

Hi all,

About 10 days ago I posted an update about the different travel options we have ahead of us based on which borders open and don't. The situation has developed since then.

Yesterday the QLD Government advised Cape York would open on July 10, which was great news for us, as we're currently in Abergowrie State Forest about 120km north of Townsville on our way to Cairns. But only six hours later they decided to bring it forward a week, so the Cape is now opening from midday tomorrow, July 3!

So we are leaving the forest today, intending to look at Mission Beach, Innisfail and then through the Atherton Tablelands before coming down into Cairns, then up to Port Douglas and into the Cape. This fits well with the first step of our plan outlined last week.

-- Greg

June 30 - July 1 (Day 151 - 152) - Abergowrie State Forest / Damper Creek

Tuesday 30 June

We headed off about 11am and headed into Townsville itself to buy a few bits and pieces for the caravan and the car, then refuel the car (and ourselves!) and headed out of town.

Given we didn't get on our way proper until after 1pm, we wanted to try to crack on and get a good distance covered. So we drove fairly solidly for a couple of hours, and took a rest at Hinchinbrook Lookout, which looked north east across to Hinchinbrook Island