The day started out, for me, bright and early with a walk around the rainforest trying to catch a photo of the Cassowary we keep hearing. No luck though.
Toyota that didn’t make it
Archive for September, 2011
Day 84 – Cape Tribulation
Sep 30
Day 83 – Cape Tribulation
Sep 29
Welcome to the Daintree, where the rainforest meets the sea.
We got a complimentary snazzy breakfast of pancakes courtesy of the park this morning. Had a chat with some fellow Victorians, also with an Expanda, also towed by a Prado … and then we were on our way to as far north on the east coast that we’ll be going on this trip. Cape York will need to wait for another time.
The drive up to Cape Tribulation is pretty slow. 60kmh for most of it leading up to the ferry. 40kmh after that with a bit of roadworks thrown in too. But what’s the hurry?
Day 82 – Cairns (Day 5)
Sep 28
Today was all about waterfalls. A bit of other stuff snuck in at the start of the day though.
I was up early and grabbed a nearby geocache at the top of the hill behind the park. It was a bit silly walking through knee high grass around here, but I survived. Everybody was still in bed by the time I got back. Not for long though, Kel & Hannah were doing water aerobics at 9am. Blake stayed at the van and helped me put out the washing and do some research.
Once everybody was back from the mornings activities we set off for a drive to see a few of the regions waterfalls.
Today was Kel’s idea, but she forgot that we had to drive back up to the Atherton tablelands to get to them all … not a pleasant drive at the moment with all the roadworks going on. There was a bit of car sickness going on by the time we got to Malanda. It’s an awful lot of twistery to tackle at speed in the Prado. It doesn’t rock around like a boat much cos the suspension is tight … because its tight when it detects corners, it becomes really harsh instead and super bumpy. Either mode isn’t pleasant thru the corners when ya in a hurry.
First stop was Malanda Falls, where we had some lunch.
Day 81 – Cairns (Day 4)
Sep 27
The day started bright and earlyish, as usual. We’d booked yet another cruise/tour for today and it left at 8:30 from the Cairns Wharf. This is only 6km away so no big hurry was needed.
The cruise was set to take us out to Green Island for a few hours and then take us to a pontoon on the Great Barrier Reef for another few hours before taking us back to Cairns at 5:30. A bit of a full-on day. Three boat rides with plenty of activities in between tired us all out. Some more than others.
Day 80 – Cairns (Day 3)
Sep 26
Today was all about hanging out in the park and the van.
Kellie went and did a food shop at the crack of dawn, but that was just about the only useful thing she did all day. (Good thing too! There’s more than enough useful stuff going on as it is.)
Blake & Hannah got stuck into the water park first of all. I got stuck into trying to fix the van fridge, without much success. I made the mods I wanted to make, but its made no difference whatsoever to the temperature of the fridge.
Day 79 – Cairns (Day 2)
Sep 25
Kel was quick off the mark when we arrived last night and booked us in for the SkyRail / Kuranda train combo before she went to bed.
We started at SkyRail at 11am and had a couple of stops along the way at the landing areas. At each of these you can get out and walk around. At the first one there was an interesting guided tour with the ranger.
Day 78 – Cairns
Sep 24
It wasn’t supposed to be a big days drive today. We were going to travel about 370km to get to the Undara National Park. We even took our time leaving Normanton, much to Wazza’s dismay, and had a good look around the historic railway station.
Largest ever authenticated croc replica
Day 77 – Normanton
Sep 23
We survived the bovine horror of Mary Kathleen and woke pretty darned tired with lots of light upon us … yes we’d slept in BIG TIME.
With 500km to go and nothing much to see on the way it wasn’t a real big deal.
Kel grumpily said goodbye to our friendly neighbours and we got settled on the road. There was a monument to Burke & Wills along the way, so the kids got a history lesson. Everybody settled in for the long drive.
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Day 76 – Mary Kathleen
Sep 22
We left Banka Banka at a good time. Managed to get a little bit of a sleep in.
It wasn’t long before we were crossing the border into QLD. The very first thing we did on crossing the border was get breath tested … Welcome to Queensland!
Day 75 – Barkly Homestead
Sep 21
Quick post cos I’m running out of batteries!
Today started out as a short day, only 300kms, but ended up being one of the biggest at 645km.
Down to Three Ways in a shocker crosswind, then down via Tennant Creek to Wycliffe Well. Then a sudden burst of enthusiasm took us back up to Three Ways and across East to Barkly Homestead.
Kel enjoying the endless drive
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