Oct 12
Up bright and early this morning. The local wildlife has figured out that making as much noise as possible, as early as possible each morning, gets them fed, as early as possible. Nothing quite like a gaggle of quacking ducks right next to your head at 5:15am to start the day.
Plenty of wildlife there is too. Heaps of ducks, some ducklings, turtles. All kiddy favorites 🙂
Oct 7
After a very quiet night, we again woke with the sun. Well, Hannah woke with the sun. All the rest of us woke via Hannah.
By 6am some of our neighbours had already left and we thought that we should too. So after a quick brekky of raisin toast we hauled anchor and headed up towards Hayman Island.
Not long after rounding the point and heading North, the weather (and 3 seasick crew) made the decision to head South for Whitehaven beach an easy one. There were 2M seas and they were coming across the bow, so she was rocking side to side. Altogether unpleasant.
Along the way we made a short stop in Cid Harbour. The seas in that direction were the same height but it was fore/aft and easier to tolerate. There was a beach there that I dropped Kel & Hannah off at, to have a taste of dry land. Blake and I rambled off to find a geocache on a small rock island nearby (coincidentally 🙂 ). Also my first terrain 5 cache and it was well worthy of that.
This geocache was a bit of a tough ask really. The cache was right on the top of the island and it was completely overgrown. Even though the island is only about 75m across it took ages to scramble to the top.
Oct 4
Today was supposed to be a short trip down to Airlie Beach for a couple of nights, but it turned out to be a lot longer than expected … lucky we’d planned on a short day!
We packed up the van by 8am and said ‘bye bye house’. We had to take the keys back to the agent before skipping town, that was the first detour. Precious little parking area near the agents office meant that there was a bit of a walk to return the key.
No big deal … back on the road for about 5 minutes and there’s a huge patch of slow on the road out of town due to roadworks. No big deal, at least we were moving. … and then we weren’t.
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.
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.
Sep 19
So great to be on the road again! Being back in the van and also back touring feels almost like being home. We’re all getting very used to this travelling the countryside gig.
A couple of little errands before we left Darwin. I finally managed to find another porta potti. I also picked up a fridge fan to give the fridge a helping hand. Since arriving back in Darwin the van fridge has rarely been below 10 degrees. As I write this, its 18 🙁 The fridge is working as hard as it can, but it relies on airflow to cool it down and there is just no breeze, or its coming from the wrong way. A fan will help provide that breeze when its needed.
Jul 31
Today started out early, with a quick packup … punctuated by rain … and then we were off … almost.
First issue was that the reverse camera screen wouldn’t power up. Looks like the new one has died too … grrr. I’ve checked out all the signals with a meter and everything looks OK … but it won’t power up. A short detour to the shop … but they’re closed. Something to post off for refund/replacement. More annoying is not having any rear view of the van. It makes it a bit tough.
So, minor detour aside we headed off down the freeway out of town. Only to have the car lose all power crossing an uphill intersection. I mean, all power. Dead in the water.
Another touristy day today. The rain bucketed down all night and was still going strong when we left this morning. A couple of short stops in town and by the time we were on the main highway the rain had eased and we even had peeks of blue sky.
Our first stop was Gnomesville. I’m pleased to report that the mystery has been solved. The place that all stolen and orphan gnomes go must be gnomesville. The place is chock full of them!
Big touristy day today with lots of stops.
First up was the Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse. This was built in 1903 and is still functional today … there’s been the odd change through the years, as you’d expect.
