Cairns Road Trip Day 7 Kuranda and a Barron Fall

 Safely reunited with my family the night before, we headed up the skyrail, across tall rainforests to the township of Kuranda.

 In Kuranda, we toured the rainforestation nature park and the markets and stalls of Kuranda, where Liam scored an authntic boomerang.
 after lunch at the Kuranda Train Station, we took the scenic Kuranda rail back down to Cairns

Cairns Road Trip Day 6. Eagles, falls, volcanoes and the burger to beat all burgers.

 

Drove up the Gregory Development Road, across the lava plains and highlands towards Cairns. Again I saw many Wedgetailed Eagles, and other eagles and kites. The landscape was littered with many termite or ant nests, which changed colours as the soil types changed along my journey. I stopped at the Oasis Roadhouse at the Lynd and bought an Oasis Whopper for lunch. I think this burger beat the Clearmont King Burger. The egg was light, fluffy and very tasty, and this burger had both a mince burger AND a piece of steak, as well as all the trimmings.


Continuing on past the turn-off to the Undarra Lava Tubes, I eventually came out on the tablelands. I did a quick stop at Millstream Falls, and also The Crater, before continuing through and down Kuranda and onto Trinity Beach.

Cairns Road Trip Day 5: Virgins, gems and burgers

Got up early to try and spot a platypus, but no luck. Eurasian Coots where still there, but that's all. Had a nice hot shower, had breakkie and said goodbye to the two guys I met the night before. Left the campground at 7:45.
Passed a war memorial on the way out, consisting of the remains of an American plan which crashed in bad weather in the area. Back on the highway I saw many Wedgetailed Eagles, a lot of them quite close up perched on a roo carcass at the roadside. They always flew away when I got too close, so no good photos.
I even spotted a dingo crossing the road!
I missed the turnoff to the geocache at Springsure, but saw the virgin rock from the roadside. It could almost have been carved!
Emerald was quite a big town, and I listened to John Laws stir up the masses with his emotive arguments on the radio as I continued North. Filled up here after waiting for a Winnebago to refuel. This was only my second Winnebago, but I had seen countless caravans, undoubtedlly baby-boomers doing their around Australia Trip. I'm determined to do mine long before I hit 50! My entire walk of Carnarvon Gorge I passed only one person below 40, and only another 2 below 50.


Emerald, as well as nearby Rubyvale and Sapphire are named as this is gemstone country, so I must come back here one day with James and do some fossicking.
I had good mobile coverage all the way pretty much from Emerald to Clearmont, where I stopped in town and bought a King Burger. What a hamburger. I ate it beside the Hoods Lagoon, relaxing as the ducks glided past. I was going to stop at Belyando Crossing, but a number of people where already stopped there, and there didn't seem much water by the river so I continued on, leaving the family there to enjoy the company of the Apostlebirds in peace.
A few hundred kilometres of often very straight, and also at times quite narrow road later and I was in Charters Towers. The red and white microwave tower on the south side of town, my only memory from a visit 20 years prior.
I got to the QP&W Office just as they had locked up right on 4:30, but they opened up again for me so I could pick up a camping permit for Dalrymple NP.


30 minutes further along the road, after filling up I came to Fletchers Creek Camping reserve, which was quite busy, full of those BBs in the caravans behind Landcruisers.
I continued down the sandy track to the Burdekin, a nice spot already taken by the river but I found a nice secluded spot at the end of the track where the Fletchers Creek flows slowly into the very low Burdekin. Much of the sandy riverbed is exposed, with the river slowly snaking its way from one side of the bed to the other.


Some swamp wallabies were enjoying my chosen campsite when I arrived, but quickly moved on as I parked the car and set-up the tent. I have weak mobile reception here too, which is good. It's quite warm tonight. It's amazing the difference a 1/2 to 1 day's drive can make. My first night was sub zero in the Warrambungles. In Carnarvon Gorge it was about 9 degrees over night. Here at Dalrymple it's very warm; even a little muggy. Looking forward to catching up with my family tomorrow afternoon in Cairns.

A Long Weekend Camping at Mitchell River National park

We returned to Mitchell River as Michelle had said it looked quite nice from the photos she had seen from our Christmas Trip here, and it was going to be a hot weekend, so a nice cool river was the perfect place to be.

Our trip down proved eventful though when I looked in the rear mirror only a few kilometres from the campsite to discover that the bikes were missing off the back of the car! The tube holding the bike rack had snapped cleanly off. We turned around and headed back to the end of the road, but there was no site of them. I figured the next most likely place they had fallen off would have been some 50 kilometres back, so the chances of them still being there would have been very slim, so we continued down to Angusvale.

Our previous campsite was taken, and there were no river spots left at Angusvale so we headed downstream and set up camp near the river ford after discounting a few other spots. It was a lovely spot, and a good place for the kids to swim with the river quite shallow and cool as it flowed over the cobblestones.

We were relaxing around our campsite when a guy drove across the river. This was fine, but then he decided to go driving up the river. he had forgotten to lock his hubs and had become stuck. He had to jump out of the car in a metre of water and lock his hubs before he was able to drive out. of course he, and his car was soaking wet. I was surprised he didn't stuff his engine. This was our first clue of the dreadful night that awaited us.

He was joined a short time later by some of his mates, who set up camp across the river. Everything was fine till evening set in and the alcohol they must have been consuming in vast quantities took over.

They drove across the river a number of times, and as it got later they drove up and down the river banks and throughthe campground, beeping their horns and being a general nuisance to everybody.

They knocked over a few trees by the side of the track, and whilst hoonign around at the top of the hill, they must have hit a tree and damaged one of the cars. This resulted in an all out brawl back at their campsite only quieting down when one of them threatened to get his rifle out.

In the morning the 4WD club that had been camping down at Rock Creek came through and sorted them out, taking their rego plates and reporting them to the Police and Parks Vic.

As Rock Creek was now vacant, and we had no idea if could expect the same again tonight, we went without breakfast and moved our campsite. Thankfully the trouble makers moved on and we were able to enjoy the rest of our weekend.

We spotted some huge carp swimming in the river, and wee spent the rest of the hot afternoon relaxing in the water. We had a little bit of excitement after lunch when Liam came splashing towards us with a look of pure horror on his face as a snake went skimming across the water behind him!

As the afternoon passed on, we spotted some mountain goats high on the cliffs. It was amazing watching them make their way across the cliff face with absolutely no fear of heights. Makes me shudder just to think of it.

Apart from the snake we spotted yesterday, Michelle also saw a huge goanna make it's way off into the bushes, and the kids also found a baby dragon. As we were packing up, we also found a huge Huntsman Spider which we made sure didn't hitch a ride back with us.

Geocaching

I'd heard about geocaching a while back, but suddenly got the bug to actually give it a go, and what a great new activity. Geocaching is simply using your GPS to locate hidden caches that others have placed, sometimes at the specified co-ordinates, and other times you need to follow multiple coordinates to build up clues. Our first caching trip was a success, taking us to a familiar location, though down a walking track we hadn't tried before. We spotted an echidna and a kangaroo along the track as we were hunting out the cache. Not only did we find the cache, but it also contained a Travel Bug. A Travel Bug is a tagged item, whos progress from one cache to the next can be followed over the internet. They also usually have an objective or mission. Our first bug is a rainbow trout, who has come from New Zealand and wants to return to Alaska. We'll take him past some nice trout streams as we set him on his way!

Our next location was in Warrandyte. We'd planned on our first geocaching adventure to look at caches in our local area, of which surpisingly there are quire a few. Our second hunt was also successful, and also showed us some nice walking tracks along the Yarra River we'd not known about.

Our 3rd cache was also in Warrandyte, and was another multicache like the first, requiring the visit to a number of locations to gather the clues to the final cache. Not only did we find the cache, but we also spotted a koala in a nearby tree! We were finding as much wildlife as caches today.

We continued downstream of the Yarra, finding another cache in a location we had passed over a number of times, completely unaware of the "treasure" hidden beneath.

We'd had som much fun, that we went looking for some more on Sunday, even managing to drag Mum along as well. Wouldn't you know though, the first one that Michelle comes on proves impossible to find. We spent ages looking around at ground zero, but eventually had to give up. The Park location was fantastic though, and we will return here for a BBQ.

One of the greatest finds though was our last cache for the day; hidden in the original cemetary in Heidelberg. We had no ideas that this 1/4 acre burial plot was hidden in among the houses.

We returned to our failed cache attempt again, but even though we determined we'd misinterpreted one of the clues we still came up empty handed. We returned to a cache we'd been to earlier to pick up another travel bug, Myrtle the Dancing Turtle and then did one more cache on our travels back home.

Mallee and the Border Track

We had an early morning walk to The Lookout, which was an enjoyable walk through the desert. I spotted a large kangaroo on the way back to the campground and we also spotted some emu tracks in the sand.

We had bacon and eggs again for breakfast, well at least I did, I think the kids had cereal. It was just before 10:00AM and we were packed up and heading off down Centre Track. We had changed our original plan to drive along Border Track based on the advice Peter had received. I was sure it was most likely OK, but I didn't fancy being stuck on my own in the sand if the worst happened, nor did I fancy my chances of being able to find a decent tree to be able to winch off. Even though we later found out the track would have been fine, I really enjoyed driving along Centre Track, which had great views as the track seemed to endless pass into the horizon as we climbed the top of each successive sand dune.

We stopped off at Nanam Well along the way, a 58 metre deep well which was used to water 61,000 sheep which were grazed here in the 1870's

We joined back up with the Border Track, travelling up and down a number of dunes. I checked the roofrack a number of times as I could hear some noises, suspecting that something had come loose but found everything tied down securly. It was a few minutes later that I was to have the whole roofrack slip forward and come off, scratching and denting the top of the car, and causing nearly $4,000 worth of damage. It wasn't much fun removing everything and refitting the roofrack again in the heat and persistant flies either, but it wasn't able to put a damper on such a great trip.

We spotted a goanna as we got back onto the track, and Peter and his daughter passed us as well, generously offering to help out and letting us know they met up with a convoy who had done the Border Track without any problems.

We stopped in at Red Bluff campground, intending to have lunch. We weren't really hungry at all, so we had a quick look at the Bluff, said our farewells to Peter and Melissa and started on our homeward journey. The last portion of the Border Track before Blue Hills Road was very rutted, with numerous BogHoles but we were always able to find a bypass track. I hopped out of the car to inspect the first rutted area to find a way through but gave up on the rutted track ahead, due to the soft sandy subsurface, which would very likely have resulted in the car slipping into the deep embankment, which a previous car had already done judging by the blue paint on the embankment wall!

We eventually left the Border Track, pumping up the tyres and heading into Nhill to refuel, only to find the Shell Service Station closed! So we continued to Dimboola to fill up on diesel as well as dinner before our long trip back down the Western Highway to home.

Mallee and the Border Track

We packed up camp early and were in the car driving across the island by 8:00am. I had wanted to visit Kulkurna Cliffs, but according to the map it was about a 20km trip and we would have to come back the same 20km, so we left them for another time. We passed a few kangaroos along the track, including one with a very cute joey.

We started off our trip down the border at Border Fence Road, which we missed to start with as the border to South Australia was unmarked. Curses not having my laptop! Next time we travel along here we'll start right from the top near Border Cliffs, and do the full border navigation, as we had to divert from the Border Track further along, as detailed below.

The track surface had changed from the slate grey of Lindsay Island to a desert red/orange as we headed south along the border. We pulled off near a tree to cook up some breakfast; the kids were starting to get sick of bacon and eggs. Well, James doesn't even like eggs, but I guess a few days of bacon sandwiches does get boring, though we did have porridge with honey one morning.

As we continued south, the track surface changed from the dark orange, almost red to soft yellow sands.

You could really appreciate the powers of irrigation and how much the farmers had changed the land with the native vegetation and desert on the east of the track, and the cleared green pastures on the west of the track.

We diverted from the Border Track near Berrook, and headed east along Sunset Track to visit the Underbool Green Opal Mine site. We had a little trouble finding it at first; damn that laptop again, but after 20 minutes exploring the desert in the heat and flies we returned to the car and headed back along the track, this time spotting the correct turnoff.

With shovel in hand we set off for the walk across the desert to the mine site, battling the flies which were swarming in their thousands. After a couple of kilometres, the mullock heap was visible across the dunes, and it wasn't long before we arrived at the mine site, the shaft collapsed but visible. We spent some time here looking around for opals, finding some interesting rocks with the green colouration, but no real opals to speak of. Still, it was interesting and worth at least one visit.

We continued down Underbool Track and Sunset Road to the highway, which we followed into Murrayville, to stock up on ice and drinks. The kids had earlier asked about seeing camels in the desert, so I explained to them they may spot them in the Simpson, but not around this area, only to see a camel in a paddock on the edge of town!

We rewarded our hot desert walk with an icecream each, and picked up a 24 pack of Pepsi Max for $23, normally $10 at Safeway in the City! and joined up with the Border Track again. The track was getting really sandy and soft as we joined the Border Track proper.

We visited Scorpion Springs where the kids dug down through the sand looking for water. They wanted to stay here for ages, but we had to think about getting to the campsite at Pine Hut Soak, which we did at about 5:00PM. There was another car setting up camp here at the campgropund, and after chatting found out it was the same car we had passed on the banks of the Murray at Ned's Corner. Peter was travelling through the Big Desert area with his daughter Melissa, and they had planned to travel the entire Border Track, but had heard in Murrayville that the section near Scorpion Springs was impassable after rains, which we had experienced a little of.

We had a simple dinner tonight of Hot Dogs and bread, followed by pancakes for desert, then shared the campfire with Peter and Melissa.