Category: Queensland

Our trip through our state of origin. I’m so sorry for your extended losses NSW… Jack…

We venture into the gulf

We’re now in Normanton and plotting our trip to Darwin. A lot of the roads are cut until late May/June so we will travel via Mt Isa and Katherine. Sealed roads… I’m sure that’s the silver lining!

Tim got a call to do some work up at Normanton, so sadly our time at the tablelands was cut short but at least we got to catch up with a few mates before we left. 

There is so much to do up at the Tablelands and we know we’ll be back, so we’ll just have to continue exploring the Tablelands at a later date. 

The trip to Normanton was rushed but we were able to spend a night at Croydon. What a lovely historical stop that was. Not only to check out the historical precinct, or to walk through the old Chinese Temple memorial, but also as that’s where my dad’s family are from. 

Some of you are understandably confused by this as he constantly carries on about Charter’s Towers being the center of the universe, however dad’s parents came from the Croydon area. Some of you may have seen a photo on our instagram, of the pub that my grandma owned and ran. Well what a little beauty she is. To top it off, it’s the last pub (of 36 pubs) in Croydon that is still up and running! 

I’m hoping to go back to Croydon and visit the tourist information center there and chase up some more goss on our family. It’s pretty interesting finding out little snippets of where you come from. 

Not much to report on from Normanton, other than when Tim isn’t working, we’re busy fishing. Such is life. 🙂 

It happens in three’s.

Just keeping you up to date.

So the last few posts were about what we did (and planned to do) with some mates while they were here.
Unfortunately, while they were here our car was in a small accident. It was hit while parked up. Yep, that’s the third time our car has been hit while parked. Twice now from the accidents and once with a rust issue.
The car was in at ARB Cairns getting some work done. As we went in to collect the car, Tim received a call from the manager advising him a delivery driver had driven into the car.
Now, I’m not sure if we are incredibly fussy or are just unlucky enough to always have bad service (feel free to re-read the posts under ‘before we leave‘), but we can’t fault the service provided by ARB Cairns. As weird as this is to write, it was the best service we have ever had and we couldn’t thank them enough. Yep, it was unfortunate but they dealt with it so incredibly well! Thanks once again to Lachlan, Mike and the team!

Since then, we have had a few issues with the Jayco and since we are a few months out of the warranty period we are waiting to see what happens.  So in the last two weeks, it seems the roof started to leak, our wall has, what it appears to be a pimple problem, there is crazing on the front of the van and the rectifier seems to be on the brink – meaning our fridge won’t swap over to 12volt when it’s not plugged in to 240v.

Aside from the above, the winch broke yesterday. That’s our three. The car, the van and the winch.

So that’s where we are at. Hopefully our next post is to tell you we’ve won the lotto! 😄

Atherton Tablelands

The fun up at the tablelands continues!

We had another day exploring the tablelands and loved it. You may have seen a few pics we posted of the beautiful views when we had coffee, or stunning surroundings from our craft beer/distillery stop. If it sounds like we have fallen in love with the far north, than I think I’d have to agree with you. But that doesn’t mean we’ll stop here. Not yet at least as we still have plenty to explore in Australia! Once the lap is over, then we’ll pick where we want to call home.

Everywhere you look while up at the tablelands, is like looking at a postcard. I swear, it’s heavenly! Whether its raining or bright sunshine, this place is sensational. It has something for everyone! Cafes, museums, hikes, national parks, a dairy that also makes chocolates, exquisite shops and just the friendliest people.

Our day was all-encompassing – we saw some waterfalls, hiked to see some waterfalls, went to Skybury cafe that has a wicked view of the valley,  saw some more waterfalls, experienced a drive-through bakery, checked out some crater lakes before taking in the final few waterfalls and tacking the Gillies Range.

Please don’t take this range if you are unsure or get a little motion sickness as there are over 200 bends, but if you’re ok with that, it offers lovely views!

It was hard picking a few pictures for this post, you really need to come and see this place for yourself!

We plan on spending some time up at the Tablelands next week, so no doubt I’ll be writing more about it!

 

Kuranda, the Daintree and Port Douglas

Just a few pics of what we got up to when we recently spent time in Kuranda, Palm Cove, the Daintree and Port Douglas.

So, interesting title no? Basically, one day we went up to Kuranda, then checked out Palm Cove and the following day we went up to the Daintree and called into Port Douglas on the way back. It’s been a great few days up here!

Kuranda is an interesting place to visit, with a lot of quirk. For example, it has a transgender plane that worked in defence before going to work in the movie industry where it was blown-up and re-located to Kuranda; for no real reason that I could understand. But you know what, it just seemed to be the right place for it.

If you want to come and see Kuranda, why not catch the train up and the Skyrail back – that would be my recommendation as the views are simply spectacular and if you’re not confident driving the range,at least you now know there are other options.

The Daintree never disappoints, even when its raining! From Mossman George to crossing the ferry, seeing native wildlife, stopping off for ice cream and coming home late, it was an amazing day! We even saw some Cassowaries and a croc!

On our way back from the Daintree, we called into Hemingways (a micro brewery) and then had dinner in Port Douglas – again, another place in Far North Queensland that never disappoints. I swear I’ve yet to have a bad experience there.

I’ll fill you in about our adventures up at the Tablelands in the next post!

 

Cairns

Hey. Just a quick note to let you know what we’ve been up too the last few weeks!

We finally said farewell to the Plumbs and left Innisfail. Since then, we’ve caught up with the Ramms, partied at Babinda Boulders, Jodi headed to Jarvis Bay for her sister’s 40th and now we are doing the tourist thing in Cairns with some mates who are visiting from down south. Boy have we been busy!

Now we plan on doing the tourist thing in Carins for a couple of weeks before starting our trip west.
We decided to ease into our week of fun, with a trip to Kuranda followed by a drive to Palm Cove. We have stayed there before and it’s truly a beautiful spot. However, today it blew up a bit so the water was rough but still a sight worth seeing!

The evening insects have just tuned the volume up, so it must be time for dinner!

 

Wrap up for 2016

Hey guys, we will soon be on the move again, and I’ll keep you posted when that happens!
Hope all is well with you and yours!

We had a lovely Christmas with the Plumbs and celebrated New Year at Cardwell – good food, great company, cold beers and freshwater creeks! Life doesn’t get any better!

Rather than go into too much detail, I thought it best to just load a few pics. Sadly the pics don’t do any justice to the locations, but trust me, beautiful spots up here. Oh, and the video is just a clip of Timbo doing some 4wdriving at what we call the Natural Arch (not sure if that’s an official title or not, but it seems fitting).

Before Christmas, we spent a weekend at the Natural Arch, swimming and bush driving.

Over New Years, we went swimming at Deep Water near Cardwell as well as 5 Mile Swimming Hole which was a great place for a hangover, especially as it provided free entertainment to the kids in the form of elevated banks! Yep, the kids enjoyed jumping from trees and the bank, while us oldies enjoyed the refreshing water!

Enjoy the pics!