It has been a while since our last contact but we have been in some very remote areas and e-mail connections are an unheard of thing!
Last Friday we went out on the Great Barrier Reef and did some snorkling - great fun!! The trip out to the outer reef was just over two hours and a wee bit rough but the trip back in was worse - extremely choppy - and some very green looking people on the boat - I'm proud to say Mike and I held our own. We were snorkling around and watching a turtle swimming when a grey shark cruised past very deeply under us - didn't appear at all interested in us thank goodness. It was a full day and I recommend it to anyone heading over this way.
Saturday morning we headed up to Port Douglas - neat place - very set up for the tourist but some fantastic shopping etc. We then carried on up to Mossman to catch up with Judie and Joe Sciacca (they were host parents to Amy on her exchange at high school). It was great to catch up with them and Joe gave us a fantastic tour of the sugar farm they have and burnt off some of the waste cane in the fields while we were there. There is a lot more to growing sugar cane than I ever thought there was - really interesting.
We spent a day tiki touring up there and went up to Cape Tribulation - right up to the beach at the end. The thing that amazed me the most was there a huge signs warning of crocodiles on the beach and when we walked onto it there were kids playing in the water and people sunbathing on it - I sure didn't feel to comfortable on the beach but the scenery if beautiful with the rain forests all the way up there and the beautiful beach with white sand and super blue water at the end of it.
We then went and had a look at the Daintree village which is really cute - would be a very kicked back lifestyle to live there I'm sure. We then went for a ride out to the Mossman Gorge which is a dead end (unlike the Waioweka Gorge) but is really fantastic with crystal clear water and huge rocks in it. Joe was saying there are a few fatalities in it as when the we season comes people don't heed the warnings and swim in it with all the rocks etc they get caught up and that's it - but on the day we were there it was great - there were alot of people swimming in there - must have been all kiwi's as it would have been to cold for the locals.
On Monday we shot off to Mareeba and stopped at the Coffee Works there - they grow there own coffee and process it on site so you are guaranteed a very fresh cup of coffee - shame I don't drink it but Mike was pretty happy with his. We went on down the track threw Herbertson, Ravenshoe (Queenlands highest Town), Mount Garnet then stayed the night in a motor camp attached to a BP Service Station at The Lynd Junction. It was funny as it was literally in the middle of no where with nothing around it and it was as dry and dusty as possible - just like you see in the movies of Aussie outback.
We moved on this morning and are now back in Townsville and just set up at the motor camp for a couple of nights. The road we were travelling on was a loop road and only had one strip in the middle of a lot of it that was tar sealed and then big gravel verges, which was fine until you came across one of these massive truck trains - a cab then four trailers - gee they are huge and we just had no option but to pull right over onto the gravel and wait for them to pass as they didn't seem to move off the tarseal strip and hey! who were we to argue with them - they win!!
The weather is super hot here at the moment with 28 degrees outside and warmer still in the caravan so I think we will stop all this raving and go for a swim!
You were all the way up here and you didn't call in the Cairns to say g'day? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Anyway you sound like you really enjoyed the country this region has to offer. Did you call in to Milaa Milaa dairy up on the Tablelands? Smooooooth cheese and chocolate. Mmmmmmmm. Just enjoy safe and happy travels. Cheers Chris
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20ft Roma caravan - Mercedes Benz Sprinter - SA-based at the moment. Transport has no borders.
Management makes the decisions, but is not affected by the decisions it makes.
