The Grey Nomad.The Wife and the Australian Dream
Events have slowed down a lot due to this gout!! me being the grey nomadic adventuring pensioner has had the brakes put on !! My long suffering missus has been a brick making sure all is well and stopping boredom taking over .How she puts up with me (as all you Social Trainers will vouch for I can be a pain in the bum ,Americans read ass) is beyond me The Australian Dream of navigating around Australia will hopefully resume tomorrow as we head further North We have completed over 21000 km and have been lucky enough to have seen fantastic places In an attempt to keep the blog interesting I will add pictures that have absolutely NO relevance to this trip !! Normal services will be resumes ASAP
The Tropical Forest and Kuranda
This magical place gets lovelier by the hour altho I was fortunate enough to walk down to the Barron Falls this bloody gout has confined me to the bus for 3 days The scenery here is brilliant at the Waterfall site (which also has a railway station !! the Skyrail Cabs can be plainly seen going over the rainforest roof top .To get to the top of the Kuranda the railway is the better option giving fantastic views of the falls Annie has been very patient while I have been in this painful situation BUT the worst is over and tomorrow we travel on to either the Daintree with its crocodile infested river or the Atherton Table Lands to view more exotic scenery The rain has been a real boredom breaker and all sorts of animals are wandering around completely oblivious of the weather or we humans !!
Kuranda and the Tropical Forest
This is a superb destination for nature lovers, bird watchers and bush walkers!
We are close to World Heritage Listed Rainforest and the walking tracks of the fantastic Barron Gorge National Park.This unique rainforest village is near the terminal for Skyrail and Kuranda Scenic Rail and the gateway to Atherton Tableland (Cairns Highlands) and the Outback (Savannah Way and Cape York Peninsula). The road to the top of the Kuranda mountain is exceptionally good and our caravan park is set in the rainforest Annie had her visit to the Butterfly farm which is full of brightly coloured insects! Kuranda village is a hive of activity at weekends and has lots of “markety” shops that delight Ann,but not me !!Shopping is NOT my forte !We are a short walk from the Barron Waterfall that is breath taking and I will talk about trains and skyrail in my next blog.This place is purely magical and well worth a visit
Cairns and the Gout
Cairns turned out to be a bit of a disappointment.The town looks old and worn out It is the start of school holidays and the local radio station had organized a fun day on the town centre oval Sadly it wasnt well attended ! We caught the bus and the Driver was brilliant ! very courteous and a credit to his firm (which we located and informed them) The camping site was atrocious,ablutions vandalized,laundry machines not working and other complaints too numerous to mention ! However Annie did ask for our money back (after one night,we had originally booked 4 thanks to a Camping site book recommendation)and we got our money back.We headed for the Kuranda and have booked into a very pleasurable site More on the Kuranda later.I am now suffering with a severe attack of Gout sat at my computer @ 6am .Today I will be confined to the bus area with nothing to do except sit outside in this dense tropical forest watching the wild life go by The pain is being eased by the sheer ambience of this place !!Cairns does boast an enormous statue of Capt Cook who was a brilliant British explorer.The replica Endeavour was in dock also (at Cairns) which in turn was built in Fremantle and I have been lucky enough to view it in Fremantle/Sydney and now Cairns what an epic voyage that must have been !!It is truly a magnificent tribute to the Craftsmen who built it
Order of the Boot in Sugar Land
We have landed in Inisfail a short drive away from Cairns This place is sustained by the HUGE sugar cane industry and boasts the record rainfall in ONE year hence the “Wellie”(in suburban Tully)which depicts the amount of rain fallen !! These sugar factories are common in FNQ ( Far North Queensland) and small trains deliver from field to factory !! the main roads are criss crossed with train tracks The industry is active from May to December and the fields of CANE are a sight to see (sadly 135 Cane Toads were introduced a lot of years ago to control other pests They in turn have BECOME the pest ! killing other wild life and poisonous if eaten by other animals Being released by authorities in 1930s they are now in the millions !! Locals in Qld spray them with Dettol which apparently kills within seconds !! Annual Musters are held in an attempt to cull the frogs !! COMING UP…in and around Cairns in pictures !!
Bowen and the Freebie
Still pushing on toward Cairns we ventured into Bowen &one of the best viewing platforms so far in Queensland .The views are breath taking and over look the start of the Coral Sea In the previous Blog I mentioned Ron who was travelling in his amazing bus .We have met quite few very interesting people on this trip Hopefully that trait will continue Australia has SO many beautiful places mostly unspoilt and that can only be put down to the small population As for the freebies? Campsites that have the basics ie a Toilet !!! and every stay saves around $30 !! Some people take advantage of these site as a 24 hr stay is the usual LEGAL norm Selfish campers have stayed for days on end sometimes making it difficult for travellors to “fit” in as they become sometimes a little crowded starting mid afternoon !!
I Found One of These on the Beach and don’t know what to do with it?
It just washed up on the beach?
Magical Bus Cos we out Bush Ive stuffed this days blog up a bit !!!
V8 Engine
Lucky to spot this
Fantastic Bus/Grand Lad
Lucky to spot this
Time to leave Sarina
we have now left Sarina and heading for Mackay where we will have final warranty work completed Dennis the owner at Sarina once again had a BBQ and once more we met different people (this nomadic adventure see different neighbours on a daily basis) IF we pass that way we will definitely re visit !! After a photo shoot along the way including the Giant Mango we visited Bowen and THAT place has some wonderous views from atop a small hillock We are a few kilometres away from Townsville and Cairns.
Out of Signal Range
As we travel further North we are getting intermittent signal drop outs and Blog entries may not be regular BUT be assured they will still keep coming ! Here are a few pictures that I was unable to put in earlier more on places we visited coming up
Watch me play Didgeridoo
Geoffs Life After Work ! 