Friday 25th June - Sunday 26th June

Friday 25th June

Set off early to drive up the Karnak Playhouse in the Whyanbeel Valley ,the journey taking us through Mossman and Miallo.  Its really quite a place, it has a huge amphitheatre, a lake covered in water lilies and a cafe all situated in the middle of the jungle.
www.karnakplayhouse,com.au

 Many plays and performers have appeared in the 500 seat capacity amphitheatre over the years which has been as a result of the owner Diane Cilento and her team.

After enjoying a cup of coffee and the cakes overlooking the stage we headed a bit further north on the dirt road to Marie Simberg-Hoglund gallery to see her handmade art glass.

We enjoyed a great chat and learned that Marie had her gallery in Woollahra for a few years before coming to her present location during the northern winter and then during the summer months moving over to New Zealand to join her sons who maintain a gallery there.

                     

 Diane Cilento's house set amongst the 300 acres of jungle

                                                           The Amphitheatre

                                           The Glass Gallery
www.nelson.hoglund.co.nz
Leaving here we backtracked to Mossman to have a look at the Mossman Gorge and see what changes have been made since our last visit 20 odd years ago. A a result of the hordes of tourists that must visit here board walks and viewing platforms have been built to prevent any further erosion  taking place.

We could see where we would have walked down to the waters edge from some of the old tracks that are now no longer used. A tree top sky way walk is also under construction with the cement footing in place for the towers that will carry the walkway. Its construction appears to have been delayed as the notices that are still up say it would be completed by August 2010.
 Having walked the tracks by the gorge and checked out the swimming holes we noticed that where we once swam and jumped off the rocks notices were now in place with warnings that swimming etc is not permitted..

Leaving here we decided we would drive over to The Daintree Village before heading for our home base after a long day of driving and sightseeing.

Cairns 22nd - 24th June 2010

Tuesday 22nd June
Into Cairns and Grafton Street to the Canopy Art Gallery. www.canopyarts.com
1000 sq mts of space that's dedicated to showcasing Queensland's indigenous artists. We had a great chat there with someone who explained some of the stories depicted in the prints and etchings which brought then to life and gave us a whole new appreciation of the art.
Wednesday 23rd June
It rained most of the day so we decided to stay at home reading and a brief walk in between the rain showers. However it was still a warm day.
Thursday 24th June
The weather was much better today with no rain forecasted so set off to Atherton in the tablelands heading for Mareeba where we stopped off for a coffee at the Coffee Works.

                        Beatrice having a taste of the coffee berries from the bush
On through Atherton to Herberton an historical village which we seemed to have missed when we were here last year. Not  many people around so we were able to take our time and wander around the place at our leisure.

Herberton Historical Village     www.herbertonhistoricalvillage.com.au      

Having  had a full day and quite a long drive back to our home base and with the rain clouds gathering we started  the drive down to Cairns which was at least an hour away .

                                                          

Cairns 19th -21st June

Today we ventured up the coast about 60 kms to visit Port Douglas. which is a great scenic drive along the coast and the northern beaches.
Port Douglas was until the 1960's just  a sleepy fishing village when in the 1970's tourism started to develop and ever since then it has gone from strength to strength with it now being the life blood of the place.

We walked around the village and over to the marina, stopping off for a great inexpensive lunch and beer at the wharf.

                                                        St Mary's by the Sea - Church

                                                 View from the restaurant up to the marina

                                                            The Restaurant at the wharf

                                                                  The Lady Douglas

15th June -18th June Cairns

CAIRNS 15th - 18th June
The weather has been perfect for the last days. However it did rain quite hard  on Wednesday evening.

Since last posting we have visited the Flecker Botanic Gardens where we also had a lesson in playing the steel drums and then joined in on a couple of numbers.

           Swimming hole at the Cascades

Visited;-
The Crystal Cascades where we did the scenic walk along side the cascades. Here we had to watch out for the stinging tree.

Also the Tanks Art Centre near the Botanical Gardens.( Read the history as to how they made use of these huge tanks that once held oil to service the war requirements during WW11). It is now an Arts Centre
We also decided to go up to  Kuranda on the scenic railway, something we haven't done for 20 odd years and then return on the Sky rail which  hadn't been built at that time.
Kuranda, aptly named the village in the rainforest which has been listed as World Heritage  www.kuranda.org.

All this has kept us quite busy and we still have lots to do whilst we enjoy this lovely warm climate.
We have also been into Cairns a few times,on one occasion enjoying a $10 lunch deal at the Irish Pub located in one of the original buildings.

CAIRNS 12-14th June

Saturday Cairns

Cairns 12^th June

Drove into downtown Cairns and walked along the esplanade and checked out the night markets. Having so many places to chose to eat we finally settled on the Pizza place.

After a supreme pizza which we down  washed with a glass

of  red we walked down towards the marina.

 I had been looking forward on one of our days here on having a swim at the Esplanade Lagoon but once again it appears as though I will miss out, as I did in Townsville. Wire fences and blue tarps enclosed the whole area as they appeared to be renovating the pool. It didn’t look as though it would be finished any time soon.

Sunday we drove up to Copperlode Dam a drive of 15kms away. We walked to the spillway and to the viewing platforms for some fantastic views .

Friday 11th June

We pulled out of the Caravan Park at 8.30 with Tom Tom set for Cairns about 5 hours away with some stops, that should get us there at about 2 pm.
Stopping at Cardwell for our morning coffee we could see Hinchinbrook Island National Park just across the water. Maybe on our way back down again we might stop off here and explore it all a bit more.

One of the numerous cane fields we passed  on our drive  north, along with the banana plantations that started around Innisfail

There is so much to see and do you could spend years travelling around Australia and still not see it all.
With a slightly overcast sky,  a nice 23 deg and a just a few rain drops it made it quite pleasant to drive.
We drove on up the Bruce Highway through Tully and on to Innisfail and then into Cairns at about 2.30pm.
We chose our camp site and set up for a stay of probably a couple of weeks.

Townsville 10th June

Townsville

We decided to stay another day so we could walk along 
The Strand and have a swim in the Rock Pool which we saw the other day.

Despite the helicopters and the trains we had a good nights sleep and awoke
 to another beautiful day with a temp forecast of 27 deg.
As we drove into the car park by the pool to my dismay
 I could see that it was empty.
 Of all things we had chosen the one day that they were doing the pool maintenance.(We have since found out that it's closed every Thursday for cleaning). What a disappointment. However as we had our lunch and bathers we walked along The Strand and went on down to the patrolled part of the beach and set our selves up under the shade of a palm tree. How could we complain about that! Lunch, a swim and reading our books kept us busy for a couple of hours until we felt we needed some more exercise. Walking down the Strand which goes along the beach front into the city we were impressed with the way the local council had made it so appealing. Great activities for the kids with climbing ropes, water play areas,swimming pools and at least three ice outlets one of which we couldn't resist.

Picking up a few grocery items on our way back to the car we continued our walk along The Strand enjoying the views and the exercise.
Tonight we'll start to pack up a few things ready for our departure tomorrow morning for Cairns

Magnetic Island Queensland

27 deg forecasted with clear blue skies.

So what could be better than taking the ferry out to Magnetic Island, 8 kms off the coast and only 20 minutes away by the ferry cat.

On arrival we caught the local bus and purchased an all day ticket which allowed us to hop on and off as often as we wanted. So to start with we headed off to Horseshoe Bay.

We walked up and down the length of the beach with the warm water just lapping our bare feet in the clean soft sand.

Horseshoe Bay

Here we had our lunch overlooking the bay.

We hopped back on the bus and continued on to Picnic Bay walking out on the original pier and where the boats use to come into from the mainland before the main ferry terminal was built .

Needless to say we had a great day and by the time we arrived back at the mainland and driven back to our little home we were quite exhausted.  If you have the chance make sure you visit this majestic island. The activities that you can do here is almost endless with bush walking, scuba diving, cycling, fishing , sailing, it goes on and on, no wonder it's such a popular holiday destination for Australian families and of course the back packers.

Townsville Tuesday 8th June

We drove into Townsville to do some of the various Heritage Trails that have been set up around the city.

Parking along the Strand we walked down to the Flinders Mall area and was confronted with the whole place being ripped up. It was very hard to appreciate the city buildings as they were mostly obscured by safety fences and hoardings. They are in the process of removing the mall and putting back the two way road (for slow moving traffic) to try and bring back some life into the area with the wide pavements and street landscaping.
On the other Heritage Trails we did see some great Art Deco and Heritage buildings which have been well preserved and put to good use.

We walked over to the Marina and checked out the Museum of Tropical Queensland however having been into it last year we instead decided to drive the length of the Strand to Kissing Point.

 Great beaches along the way and with the enclosed swimming area at the end of the Strand there were plenty of places to swim and relax by the water.
To finish off our days activities we headed for Castle Hill.

Castle Hill is a pink granite monolith standing in the heart of the north Queensland city of Townsville. It rises to a height of some 286 metres above sea level and dominates the city skyline.


We drove up to the top and then walked out to a few of the viewing platforms which provided us with some of the greatest views of the city and surrounding areas.

This climb to the top and back is one of Townsville greatest recreational activities. Hordes of people were either running or walking to the top and back down again. The idea appealed to me but I couldn't get Beatrice interested, anyhow it was getting late and we didn't have our running gear with us.(Also it was time for our evening drinks etc back home)
  With that we decided to call it a day and slowly made our way back down the narrow twisting road ensuring that we kept well clear of the runners and walkers on the sides of the road.

Monday Leaving Blacks Beach for Townsville.

Having been up early we were able to pull out of Blacks Beach at 8.15am. It was another beautiful day with a clear blue sky.

Having driven this road last year we were interested to see what or if there had been any changes made along the way. We found the Bruce Highway was still the same with no major upgrades and most of it still being just two way traffic with very few over taking lanes.
From the Mackay region it was mostly cane fields and with the cutting season just about starting from now until November there were warning signs about giving way to the cane trains that cross the road. With the only indication being lights and bells you had to keep aware of what was happening.

We stopped off for our coffee outside the information centre and the Big Mango on the outskirts of Bowen.
Stopping off for lunch after another couple of hours we continued on to Townsville having checked out somewhere to stay and phoning ahead to confirm that they had a space for us for a few days.
By the time we had set up we felt quite exhausted so before dinner we walked around the caravan park to get our bearings and then read our books and planned what we would do for the next few days.
However we found that our quiet evening was not to be as the caravan park was situated right by the                                            
                                                       RAAF BASE TOWNSVILLE

 RAAF Base and it appeared that they were having night flying practice and those big Black Hawk helicopters make an awful lot of noise especially when they criss cross the night sky right over your head. I 'm pleased to say however that it did all finish just after 10pm so they did have some consideration for the townsfolk. Thankfully the commercial airport flights came in over the sea so they didn't trouble us. We did though have the railway line within earshot and with the train horns and whistles it all added to the noise of the place.

Mackay Saturday-Sunday

Saturday
Birthday Girl Beatrice opened up her cards and her beautiful island bracelet from me.

It was once again a beautiful day so we drove into town to do the Heritage Walk.A listing of 22 Art Deco and historic building around the streets of Mackay.The Walk took a couple of hours under a clear blue sky and around 25 deg. Very pleasant


Sugar was the dominant industry in Mackay in its earlier days, however more recently the hinterland coal mining developments and the tourism have been added to drive the success of this region.
Had Beatrice's Birthday dinner

at the Eimeo Pacific Hotel overlooking the ocean.

Sunday- Walked the beach, visited the orchid pavilion and read our books.

Mackay

Friday 4th June

We drove into Mackay and visited the new Art Gallery and walked around the town.
Drove out to the Marina for our fish and chips lunch and returned to Blacks Beach to sit on the grass overlooking the ocean to read our books and have a quiet afternoon.

Leaving Rockhampton for Mackay

We awoke to rain.We debated as to whether we would stay another day, as we hate having to pack up when its   wet. However the gods were kind to us and by 7.30 the sun came out and it wasn't long before everything was quite dry. We have it all down to a fine art now and having had our breakfast and showers we pulled out at 9.15.
Tom Tom read out was 320 kms and indicated we should arrive by about 2pm without any stops factored in.
               As we had to drive some distances where there very few places to stop for fuel we stopped at the BP Marlborough just after 10 am.to fill up. It had now started to rain which meant that we just had to pull over around 11 am for our coffee stop which we had made before we left this morning along with our lunch.Having to stay in the car I was unable to stretch my legs which is something I like to do every few hours on a long drive. As we continued on the sun came out and the blue sky appeared. Lunch was at a truck stop under the shade of some trees.
The 300 stretch of road was mainly through cane fields and some cattle grazing areas, the only real excitement was when we were confronted by a police car coming at us on our side of the road with its headlights full on and its lights flashing.As I slowed up I had to move over to the grass edge whilst he came alongside me and stopped. By this time other traffic behind me was also pulling over to the side as we could now see what it was all about.

The policeman explained that we should pull over more as coming our way was a truck carry a very wide load that took most of the road up. As it passed we could see it was some kind of generator which had we been travelling along normally would have wiped us off the road. The two or three police cars were continuing travelling ahead of it clearing the way.
The journey on through Sarina to Mackay the( sugar capital of Australia )we decided to go up to the northern beaches and stay at Blacks Beach where we stayed when we passed through this way last year. Its  right on the beach and only a 15 minutes drive out of Mackay.