Home again

Hello all friends and family. We're back in Ferny Creek which as you can see is looking pretty good. We had a great trip and loved seeing outback Queensland but there's no place like home! Hope you are all well and happy. Signing off now. Anne and Steve.

Role models

This lovely couple in their eighties ride out each day for nine km. Might be steve and I in a couple of decades!

Annes Blog- Cobbald Gorge

Stayed at a camp here and went on a walk over the top to look down on the Gorge then went on an electric boat which silently drifted through the narrow passage between the rocks. We could touch both sides. Big fish in the water.

Rainforest

Atherton Tablelands

Annes blog-Atherton tablelands

We've found some patchy sun and are enjoying rainforest walks and mighty waterfalls. These are the Millaa Millaa. Falls 18.3 mtrs drop formed 1.5 million years ago. Looks like we'll be dodging the rain for quite a while. On the weather map this morning Mt ISA was the only place without rain. Guess where we are heading?

Annes Blog

Cooktown - what bad luck! The weather got steadily worse as we got nearer and by the time we got there we were in a howling gale with palm trees bowed over and sheeting horizontal rain. Lying in bed at night with the van being buffeted from side to side and the wind shrieking! It's a shame because it is a lovely little town with a beautiful harbor and old picturesque buildings. We spent all of our one day there in the museums learning all about James Cook and his Voyages of Discovery (interesting) but not what I'd imagined we would be doing. We turned tail and fled inland the next day as the forecast is for more of the same. We are having to rethink our trip home as all this rain will have made the Outback dirt roads impassible.

Pandanus along the river

Beside the Mary River

It runs along the side of the organic cattle station we're camping on and there are tiny forest kingfishers here.

View from the van

Over those hills are Port Douglas and Mossman

Gone fishing

Annes Blog 4

GULF COUNTRY-FNQ

Normanton was HOT especially in the laundromat with the driers going. Really getting some heat now and our first taste of humidity nearly knocked us over. It was the first cloud we'd seen for weeks and with it came about 100% humidity. We were on a long 500 km stretch of dirt road from Kurumba on the Gulf east in a huge arc to Chilligoe. We had two nights in the bush one by a waterhole and I got the jitters about crocodiles and spent a lot of time 'watching for crocs'! There were a lovely family of brolgas to watch too and rainbow bee-eaters and a tiny Little Kingfisher. We're about to explore caves here in Chilligoe which is surrounded by amazing rock formations. Time out from camping with a couple of nights at the converted Old Post Office has been a pleasure. Lovely people in this one horse town. Hope to pick up a nugget of gold tomorrow. Love Anne.

Leichardt Falls

Overnight Camp on the way to Normanton. Fresh veggies for the first time bought at the Post Office in Bourketown. Delicious! Anne

Adels Grove Campsite

Used to be a botanical garden here which sent out seeds worldwide.

Adels Grove Campsite

Near Lawn Hill National Park. Both deserve Bucket list status.

Overnighter in bush

30+ pigs came by at dusk!

Hello from Gulf Country

We love it up here! It's so different to the whole tourist scene. Space, Friendly people, sunny. Don't expect a good coffee or meal out though. Just had the only available lunch at Bourketown. A 'barraburger' at a kiosk outside the caravan park. He looked in horror when we said grilled not deep-fried. That's shit he said. Why we asked. Because I hate fish that's not deep fried! It was adequate.
We have been camping at Adels Grove and then Kingfisher Camp. Both really good. Highlight was a hired motorboat on the Nicholson River where we saw freshies, lizards, lots of birds and magnificent rocky gorges and sandy beaches. Still enjoying it. A night in the bush was interesting with about 30 wild pigs coming down to drink at the waterhole. no supermarket here only a few groceries at the post office we're running out of food! Love to everyone. Anne x

Me (note earrings Julianne!)

Steve's new hairdo

Gregory River campsite

Us!

Annes blog 3

Outback Qld Gregory River

To all our friends and family. Hoping this finds you well and happy. Tomorrow we leave this beautiful campsite which has been the crowning glory of our trip so far. It took quite a bit of driving down rough old road to get here but was worth it. The river is constant and spring fed crystal clear and green from the moss and reeds. There are plenty of birds. Red wing parrots restless flycatchers and rainbow bee-eaters swooping down over the water. I watched one through the binoculars demolish a huge black and white butterfly, bashing it in the branch over and over then struggling to get the whole thing in it's mouth.

We are surrounded with pandanus and paperbark trees, river pebbles underfoot and we have the whole place to ourselves apart from some little grey marsupials who come down to the river to drink and paddle at dawn and dusk. There are big greys too and pigs but they are shyer and stay hidden, though I did watch a big black sow over the river yesterday so still with her eyes shut for ages-I swear she was asleep on her feet!

Walking fishing drawing cooking, bathing in the river - it's good!

Anne

Anne's blog 3

Vast grasslands

Outback camping

2. Outback Queensland

Anne's blog 2. Outback Queensland. Well we haven't travelled very far north since I last wrote, in fact I think we are probably south of Winton here in Boulia, who's claim to fame is being Min Min country, a land of strange and some say supernatural lights seen at night. they may not be seen very often but Boulia is milking them for all they are worth. We went to the Min Min 'Experience' and for once it was worth every cent, with lights,eerie noises, talking outback characters, graveyards and all the rest, done really well. Only a little less frightening than the grocery bill across the road. We are staying in the caravan park here washing shopping and planning our next move. It couldn't be nicer with a tree lined river right behind our van. We needed to stock up as we have been in the bush for seven nights, first at a cattle station called Carysbrooke Station where we were camped by a dam in the middle of nowhere sitting by our camp fire, watching the brolgas and driving to the top of the nearby Mesa to watch the sun go down, then on to Diamantina National Park where we alternately shood the flies away and enjoyed the seventy odd pelicans parading in front of us on the river, gliding along, fishing, fighting, flying in low and jumbo-like, and fighting with the other birds, spoonbills, cormorants, and herons. There were good people to talk to and the pleasure of watching flocks of budgerigars wheeling and soaring in their hundreds, the sun catching their bright green wings as they turned. We are still heading for Adels grove but this part of Queensland is very nice to dawdle in - plenty of water and vast grasslands.

The Knowledge Tree at night

a Memorial to the Shearers who stood up for better pay and conditions in the eighteen hundreds, being the beginning of the Labour Party and the union movement.

2012 Cooktown Trip

Hi All, we are in Winton Central Qld. we've been through some incredible rain but are now drying everything out and basking in the first really hot sun of our trip. We came up through Cobar and Barcaldine, to avoid the coastal rain and seem to have been immersed in history wherever we've been, on the Kidman Way and also the Mitchell Hwy. They are very proud of their history and we've spent many hours browsing through the first pastoralists, the Unions and Labour Party and the Shearers strike in Barcaldine and the Drovers at the Stockmans Hall of Fame. Then we headed into pre-history with the fossil remains of the granddaddy of all known crocodiles in a little place called Isisford, and here in Winton we are about to see the footprints of a dinosaur stampede so many millions of years ago! All delicately scented with sulphur as this whole area is the Artesian Basin and there are spas everywhere. We've had some cracking pub teas and some average ones, and last night the caravan park we're in put on a roast diner followed by a 'Bush Poet' who was a good laugh. We've seen plenty of wildlife, emus and Roos galore and thousands of wild goats, wild boars, echidnas and hundreds of camels, but they weren't wild. favourite bird sightings have been Brolgas and double-barred finches. we've met some nice people, one a lady who looks after baby joeys whose mothers have been killed on the road. she bottle feeds them and keeps them as pets who like a good cuddle, then when they feel ready they hop off on their own and return every now and then to say hello. we are taking a round about route to Cooktown through the Gulf Country and are hoping the road to Adels Grove is open as we would like to spend some more time there. hope you are all keeping well, Anne and Steve.

Heading North 2012

Hi to any friends and family who want to follow our trip to Cooktown 2012. We are getting things sorted packed and generally creating mayhem! We'been delayed for a couple of weeks with one thing or another but are hoping to leave next week, around the 22nd May 2012.