Our Australia trip

With sadness we left Bramston beach. Apart from the French teenagers who arrived late at night, made noise for ten and left early morning (I’m still wondering if it was just a bad dream) the camping was very nice.

After all my kite stories it is time for some Marjo adventures. The area south of Cairns lends itself for kayak tours and we go on a trip to get Marjo on the water.
The first stop is at Josephine falls, Marjo is in love with the place but decides that the kayak wouldn’t survive the drop of the falls, so we move on.

Then she’s exited when we stop at the Babinda Boulders but also there is a bit of disappointment; the signs warn of people’s death after getting sucked by the water under the rocks.

There’s also some evil spirit hanging around the place.

Then after asking for directions from locals….

We arrive at a spot where we can kayak only to find out that the current is so fast that Marjo’s rib pain from the Granite Gorge bolder hopping is still too strong for such an exercise. So we decide to look for calmer waters, wait in a railway traffic jam and pencil in kayaking for another day.

Then we take a few more pictures of beautiful spots.

We stop at Cairns to get a real mattress for Axel’s sore back and kite-ridden behind and arrive after a solid climb for the bus at 340 meters above sea level at Kuranda Rainforest camping.

At the site allocated for the first night we try to ignore our too close neighbours and even Nossi is supportive and ignores the advances of the eager neighbour dog.

Posted from Kuranda, Queensland, Australia.

The Riverside camping is not what we are made for. Busy, noisy, dogs nervous and closely on the lead all the facilities but too many people.
We were on the road before 9 am, fed (world class breakfast), washed, and packed. We decided to just suck it up and drive the 170 km (it was actually close to 200 but don’t tell Marjo as she found it already silly to drive past Cairns where we will stay close to on the 31st to meet Jos and Berna for a camping south of Cairns). Funnily enough we came past 4 mile beach and it would just be criminal to not have a look if the wind was right for kitesurfing. You can imagine my surprise that it was.

So we unpacked the kite; Port Douglas people seem to like to sleep in on Sunday and even after a walk we were the first people on the beach with a kite.

Soon though others joined. The tide was going out which meant less waves and now closer to the reef the water was very calm. It also meant that the water was retreating and it got very shallow, even so that a step-up launch works fine but my skills only allow a sit-down-plunge-in launch and descent.
The pictures are just compliments to the photograph-her as my sore bum attests to the not so elegant landings. At some point I was quite a bit offshore and when the kite also landed in the water, I had swallowed a couple of gallons on seawater and the board had followed the tide, I noticed I couldn’t stand anymore. Then it was time to stop.

We took the very scenic route from Port Douglas to Cairns and arrived at Bramston beach with the ocean as our backyard.

The camping has a nice short beach which we walked with the dogs, surprisingly no shells, so time to relax.

That means the hammock out between the trees and the seats on the beach for a nap, reading, watching the ocean and solving the worlds problems.

Posted from Bramston Beach, Queensland, Australia.

Around Port Douglas things become more difficult. The number of campings between Cairns and Port Douglas is low (anyone with some entrepreneurial inkling, this is an opportunity) and the ones close to the beach that allow dogs are non existent. The Port Douglas campings are booked out and the beaches there (in the winter) are perfect for kite surfing.
Mmmmm, idea, what if we lived the months March till October in North Queensland, I teach kite surfing and Marjo runs the camping. Not sure yet how to sell this idea to her. Perhaps we can get the kids interested and they run the camping and Marjo organises snorkeling tours on the reef. Mmmm.

After Dotti attached and devoured another sheep, she had a well earned nap and we were ready to leave the Julatten camping and descended from the tablelands.

We had some nice views coming down the mountain with some fierce clouds.

Then we did a weave from the highway to each village and see if they perhaps had hidden a camping spot somewhere that was not listed in our plethora of books and websites. Not so much luck. At several beaches they even didn’t allow dogs on the beach. Some say it’s to prevent them turning into croc food as the croc signs are everywhere.

Suddenly we came into Port Douglas. A tourist town like we have not seen before with many many shops, cafe’s, restaurants and one resort after the other competing on plush. Not our cup of tea. When on the way out we saw a small council sign “beach access” we went in and turned in some dead end street to arrive at the Port Douglas Sailing club with the beach called 4 mile beach. And what a beach! Kiteboarder’s heaven. I’m making progress although all the art is Marjo’s finger work on the camera’s trigger so that you don’t see the spectacular landings in the water. Someone asked if its hard to learn and I can confirm. While lying on your back in shallow water you try with one hand to steer a 12 meter kite whilst with the other you try and shove your feet in the braces on the board. Meanwhile you try and keep the water from entering all orifices every time a wave comes over. Then you try with two hands first counter steer the kite and then, while knees bent (forward leg a little less) steer the kite hard towards the ocean to generate enough power to lift you up. Meanwhile you look for other kiters, swimmers, dolphins and crocs, steer in the right direction and not pull your hands close when you get out of the water as this stalls the kite. Get it? I don’t. As yet. But soon…….

Then it was time to find a place for the night. Many websites and phone calls later we are now at a reasonable camping called Mossman Riverside Camping with Olympic size pool! We spot here TwoDutchies, a couple that travel countries by shipping their car and staying for a couple of months (or years) to explore, clean the kite gear, connect back on the Internet and decide where to go next. Hopefully I can steer it so we come past 4 mile beach again 😉

Posted from Mossman, Queensland, Australia.

Before taking to bed we washed off the smoke from our camp fire that all evening knew how to find us.
Not too happy with the lurking crocs and the history of the traveling crab fisherman we decided to take our leave from Endeavour River Escape.

Because Axel wanted to see the place Cook spent so much time on his adventures we went to Cooktown proper. We did our own landing with Marjo being Captain Cook and the dogs her sailors.

Somehow that didn’t create the desired effect, and luckily the Cookerians (Cooktowners?, Cookie Monsters?) provided enough photo opportunity to remember that moment. I must say that it feels kinda special to know that about 240 years ago the official discoverer of Australia set first foot on land here (everyone knows that already more than 150 years earlier the dutchman Willem Janszoon of the Dutch East India Company set foot on land in north Australia but we’re modest about that fact).

On the way back from Cooktown we stopped to catch again some of the sights, this time of a Billabong and some termite hills that are everywhere.

It shows to be a dry and hilly country.

And then when getting past Mount Molloy thing suddenly turn lush, and we found a camping near Julatten.

It worked out a relaxed, budget, friendly camping. So we decided to make this home for 3 nights,. We checked out our horoscope

did some repairs, walked with Nossi

And overall had a nice relaxing time.

Posted from Julatten, Queensland, Australia.

Endeavour River Escape is a camping just north of Cooktown, the place where Captain Cook landed his ship “The Endeavour” for repairs after he put a dent in the Great Barrier Reef.

We made the 300 km trek from Mareeba to Cooktown with a few stops. The road is not very attractive and the campsites along it in Mt Carbine (originally planned) and Lakeland are straight along the highway (well there is only one road really). The road is in very good nick, very different from the Bruce Highway on which you have to continuously be weary of – sometimes pretty serious – potholes. Our first stop was at the Mareeba mechanic to make an appointment for next week when we stay again at Granite Gorge with Berna and Jos. They will then give the bus a service before heading inland.

Then it’s off to the Coffee Works, a very touristic coffee shop, actually very nicely set up. Prices are very touristy and Marjo made sure she nursed her large skim cappuchino over about 150 km so it cost only 4 cents per km.

Then we stopped at the Mango winery which just doesn’t work. I understand now why most wineries use grapes instead of mangoes. Still when there’s free wine tasting we’re there. So the disappointment was understandable when we had to pay for the mini gulps of dry, medium, sweet and sparkling mango juice (wine). In the end we bought sweet mango dessert wine. Not bad.

Then it was on the road to Cooktown. We still had 300 km to go and with the few hills in between where the bus slows down to 40 kph or even 20 kph at 10% steep hills. A very dry landscape with a perfect road across massive paddocks (including cattle grates). Also there were picture moments that we didn’t miss.

It was about 4 pm when we arrived in Cooktown and we headed straight for the camping. Everything’s called Endeavour here so no surprise that the Endeavour River Escape camping was in the Endeavour National Park along the Endeavour river.
It is a nice camping with massive sites (you could fit whole campings we have seen on a single site of this camping) and it is well organized.

We had a walk down to the river, a bit nervous because after the 10th sign explaining that crocs lure everywhere along riverbanks and here we were in half dark exploring the riverbank. Certainly when we reached the spot where the fisherman was taken by a croc, Marjo had enough. No tempting faith.

So we went back to the camping site, where the dogs feigned no interest in a third one.

Or did they?

Then we had dinner, lighted a campfire and imitated salmon. The smoked variety.

Posted from Hope Vale, Queensland, Australia.

I broke my own rule and published Granite Gorge and then we decided to stay another day. I can always say that we only decided to extend this morning, but in truth we decided that last night after seeing the weather forecast. In Mareeba it would be sunny all day where everywhere else it would be raining. Easy choice, right?
So we woke up with enough wind to fly two kites, but no beach, ocean or lake or even open field to utilize it. So a slow start, breakfast, dogs dinner. Then to the office to extend with another day and this time it was my turn to have a look at the rock wallabies. Really nice little creatures, a miniature roo and they are really comfortable on the granite boulders that are here in abundance.

Then I saw Marjo with the two dogs and together we went back to the bus for a coffee and to drop Dotti off. She didn’t mind to stay “home”.

Then Nossi, Marjo and I set off on one of the trails around the place. Words are not required as pictures say more than the words I could write.

Back bruised, battered and tired after an awesome walk, we rested and sheltered a bit from the cold wind. Although the temperature is 20 degrees, the wind makes it feel much colder.

So after first snapping a picture of the cassowary turkey that walked up to us we went inside, had dinner in the bus, watched the TV series Bones and went to bed.

Posted from Chewko, Queensland, Australia.

We woke up close to midnight and Marjo said “burglars”. Now is there not a lot to steal and if it actually was a burglar (s)he would have bumped any part of their body three times, stepped on the dogs and landed in our bed. Unless they of course wanted to take our chairs or dog beds. So I went out, put undies on and with a torch saw a bandicoot who found the biscuits in Marjo’s beachbag.

The weather forecast (which I seem to use a lot) says, lots-of-wind, the trees say I-don’t-think-so. Unfortunately the trees win. So after breakfast (plenty of time for an egg) we pack up and leave. We wanted to thank Vanessa, who runs the camping, for not turning on the lights in our row (as we camped right beside it) but she must also have seen the lack of wind and seems nowhere around. Or as Jenny commented, there are people who sleep in on a Sunday.

At 9.30 we’re on the road, first restocking at Woollies. Error. Somehow not everyone in Australia has gotten the memo that Sunday is a normal day for retail and in the winter in North Queensland they just keep the doors closed and sleep in. Hmmmm.

So we continue. First we discussed whether we should follow the Bruce Highway to Cairns and then turn off to make the loop to Cooktown or otherwise turn inland first and follow the Kennedy Highway more inland. First to Innisfail for the shopping at Woollies, because without my muesli I won’t be much. Innisfail is ok, but nothing spectacular. It has all the shops of a regional town, but no real heart. Here we turn off the Bruce Highway and go towards Millaa Millaa, 800 meters higher than Mission Beach.

Immediately the roads turn different. More lush, and definitely more hilly. No Cassowaries and less cane sugar (well we saw the train with chopped cane). More bananas and red earth! We have been looking for that, showing that we are really in Australia, without actually having to go to the red centre.

We pass pittoresque places and views and stop at the Mamu Rainforest Canopy Walkway to have a look at the local flora and fauna. Not. Apparently they need two cash register ladies, an office and $20 pp. The killer was that the dogs are not allowed so we turned around and made a move. Marjo finally spotted a Cassowary.

From there we had the sight seeing bug and stopped at a close by view of the valley.

Then we stopped at Ellinjaa Falls, which were surprisingly nice, just in the middle of the hills.

Later we stopped at the Malanda Falls as well.

And made a stop on the side of the road fur lunch, yummy sausages on bread. The dogs thought so too and after lunch they did a little nap.

Then Marjo made a sidestep to South America and visited a crystal heaven. In Atherton lives a woman with the world’s best collection of crystals that she has turned into a cave open to the public. Some of the pictures:

Meanwhile Axel and the dogs passed time in the local Rotary park and viewed art.

I had no clue what it was and zooming in on the sign that was the idea.

By now it got too late to go to our planned location at Mt Carbine, so we looked at campings.

But decided against the easy options and then decided to go off the highway and ended up at Granite Gorge (with actual mini rock wallabies), this is a really nice place:

So we had our dinner over a nice wood fire and slept like roses.

Posted from Chewko, Queensland, Australia.

Instead of writing every day, I figured I could just write per location. You probably don’t read every day and then you can read all about our experiences in one, longer, post instead of over several days. I’m sure we’ll read the comments if you don’t agree with this new, unanimously accepted, policy.

Leaving Toomulla was not very difficult. Not only wouldn’t we miss the generator concert but also we ducked every minute or so as we could hear gun shots. This continued all night (the shots, not the ducking) and in the morning Marjo asked the ranger who told her it was an automated noise gun to scare the birds from eating the prawns from the prawn farm.
We packed up, started the bus and were on the road. The forecast was good, nice weather, wind (!) and a nice location: Mission Beach. One advantage we had in staying at Toomulla and that was some of the people. One couple just came from Mission Beach and stayed at the council camping and we were to aim for site 15 as it was the prime of the camping. Another couple with the same type of bus (Toyota Coaster) and towing a working coffee trailer for earning money at events, told us of places that we could not miss if we have any brains. Argyle Lake and Banrock Station were amongst them, so keep an eye out for our reports on those.

One of my main reason to go to Mission Beach is the endangered Cassowary; there are about 1,500 left and most of them here. So all the way I kept a keen eye out for these birds that can grow 2 meters tall. And we saw a few:

With that out of the way, we could concentrate on our second mission. Fly that kite!
Before it got sofar though we had to look for site 15 on the council camping. We drove along the tourist route to not miss it and the GPS helped us (well not all the way).

After three more missed tries, 29 Cassowary signs and a Marjo who was convinced we should have gone straight for the Hideaway Camping in Mission Beach, we arrived at Dunk Island View camping and actually ended up with a nice site.

We walked along the beach with this time no long stretched low tide but a ‘normal’ 30 meters of sand to the water and some grass and sand growth and the camping across a small road. All very nice and appealing. No wind though 🙁
To make up for the farting around on finding a non existing council camping (no idea what the people had been smoking but it must have given good hallucinations) I decided to cook for Marjo. Nothing but the best for my lady.

Day two

The second day in Mission Beach we had an inkling that it would be good wind. While going through the food process last night, people were talking about a change in weather and I was afraid that this meant rain. Looking it up on the iPad showed that nothing less was true. Wind was forecasted and 15 to 20 knots of it. For my kite (12 m) and muscular structure (read weight) a wind of between 15 and 25 is ideal. So this is right in the sweet spot.
You can imagine how well I slept. Marjo dreamt of Cancel / Save Draft after she lost an email last night. She will say that I has to do with my failing instructions but I think it has nothing to do with that.
You will notice that Marjo is a regular victim of my ‘jabs’ but that is because she reacts so nicely and the dogs can’t read what I write, so not much fun there. In a couple of days Berna and Jos will be visiting Australia and we will catch up with them for a week or so. That will give me a new set of ‘victims’ 😉

Back to the subject of wind. You can imagine my disappointment when I woke up and could hear nothing, no generators, no road, no train, NO WIND! With a forced smile I made breakfast and when Marjo said, did you see those trees sway that she could see from her bed through the open roof vents I thought she was pulling my leg. I turned around, bumped my head (a daily occurrence, my head looks like an overripe tomato with all the bumping in the undersize bus) and, looking in the direction of the beach, I could see the wind move the trees. The smile turned genuine and after a quick breakfast (Marjo wondered why I skipped the egg, but I couldn’t wait for the 5 minutes it takes to boil) I walked to the beach to see for real.
Indeed the wind had picked up and was probably in the 15 – 20 knots range. The Anemometer I got from Berna for my birthday confirmed that it was between 14 and 16 and I went to get the kite gear.
Marjo meanwhile had fed the dogs, made coffee and got ready for the beach.

After we got there I unpacked the gear, dressed up with rash shirt, safety vest and harness, pumped up the kite, connected the lines and untangled them.

Because it was a few days I wanted first to get familiar with the kite again and went first body dragging. Not only the wind had picked up but also the waves, so through ears, nose and mouth my insides got a nice cleanse too.
I worked out that if I bring the kite too low (at or below 10 o’clock or 2 o’clock) the wind is less and the kite has a tendency to drop in the water. I dragged a couple of times out to sea and back again.

Then it was time to practice with the board. First a sit jump, that is bringing the kite quickly from 12 to 2 o’clock which generates a lot of pull and it will pull you off the sand in the air for a long jump. That to see if there is enough wind to pull me out of the water. It worked although the landing could be more elegant. Marjo took some great pictures. Luckily she missed that moment.

Then it was time to try with the board. Nossi thought a couple of times that I drowned and jumped after me in the waves, something he rarely does and Marjo had to call him back every time.

It is all because of my great kiteboarding skills and has nothing to do with Marjo’s art of taking a picture at the best moment so this is where I’m at (luckily she was not filming).

Oh, that last one might have been swapped with what really happened.

All in all a great day.

Day three

I woke up early, well for an unemployed homeless person, at 7.15 am, pumped to dish out breakfast and get on my board. By 8 am, all alone, even for Nossi it was too early, I was on the beach but……no prices for who guessed right….no wind.

I went back and we had a coffee first. Then I booked campings for when Berna and Jos arrive at Cairns. Because they need a cabin, we need to book in advance. At around ten we all went to the beach. Optimistic I brought he kitebag and measured the wind, I figured out that when you blow in the Anemometer you can create hurricane strength winds. In short, I was bored.

We went for a swim, Marjo and Nossi walked all the way past Mission Beach and back and I did some repair work. Then some time to rest.

We had a shower and really a lazy weekend day.

Posted from Wongaling Beach, Queensland, Australia.

Hydeaway Bay was nice but we need to move on if we want to see the rest of this continent. We have now more than 4,000 km covered but it feels we have not done a lot, apart from writing blogs. No, that is not true, we have seen actually quite a bit and enjoyed the scenery, the people and each other.
About that scenery; there is quite a bit of variety between flat and farm like, urban, coastal and hilly with one common thread though: sugar cane. Geez, kilometer after kilometer of fields with sugar cane. And the associated narrow gauge rail tracks that it is transported in. To the young readers, I suggest you consider becoming a dentist or alcohol addiction therapist or own a bar, because this cane must make an enormous mountain of sugar or bundaberg rum that is consumed.

We have several sources for campings and some of them have pictures. The picture of Toomulla Beach seems to come from the imagination of the writer of the article in Bush Camping with Dogs as there is no link between the actual spot and the picture. Still we had a nice time when we eventually reached the beach.

Marjo and Dotti struggled to wade through some of the lagoons formed by low tide.

And Nossi had his own way of dealing with it:

Followed of course with zoomies:

What we suddenly realized that if already at low tide we would struggle with the tide coming in, it would only get worse on the way back. We rushed back and made it with wet pants and dresses.
The higher tide made the sides of a channel on the beach collapse which scared Nossi and he had to very carefully investigate and by doing so caused to collapse more and that scared him more. A nice thing to watch.

Then we got treated on a falcon trying to get a meal together and he kept coming back to dive.

Our final view was of a lone fisherman:

When we came back on the quite full camping, we were accompanied by an orchestra of power generators owned by people to charge their batteries. That is ok for 5 minutes, well perhaps 4. But after two hours you’re about ready to #|~>€%^]@&$ or as Marjo suggests put earplugs in with some music. that worked too. I wished she had those ideas two hours earlier.

We had a very nice dinner with Coral Trout (local fresh), salad and sweet potato.

Tomorrow a less noisy camping 🙂

Posted from Wongaling Beach, Queensland, Australia.

Well, we slept good. After a noisy evening from the surrounding caravans, we had an actually very restful sleep. Nevertheless we were not regretful to pack up and leave early. We had our mind set on Hydeaway Bay and Dingo Beach. The GPS tried its trick again and almost succeeded. It wanted us to continue straight (purple line) where the road ended in a cul-de-sac.

We tried to buy some food at the Woollies at Bowen but found that it was closed on Sundays. That decided it and soon we left Bowen, which has a strange access road. It is very messy with unkempt properties, muddy roadsides and industrial properties. Then the town itself is not too bad. Well, enough of that. Dotti felt that it was time she sat up front with Marjo and just pushed Nossi aside.

Then we drove back to Proserpine to do the shopping. When we left we passed a garage and reversed back to it (I’m getting pretty handy at that) and asked if they could have a look at the gearbox oil. I didn’t like the sound of it (the gearbox that is). It was all fine though and since then we’ve worked out it is the engine making some sound at a certain speed. Something to keep an ear out for. Marjo will say it was her that picked that up,but of course that is just nonsense. We then drove onto Hydeaway Bay Caravan park, parked and setup the bus and went to the beach. The beaches in North Queensland seem to have tides that expose large parts of the beach. At high tide this gives a long ocean floor that prevents high waves and allows you to stand for hundreds of meters offshore and at low tide it exposes the coral, rocks and shells. A smorgasbord for Marjo. Also the dogs loved this as it leaves large pools to wade or run through. Nossi had his zoomies and loved it there.

Dotti did aquarobics for her sore back leg.

Marjo did Fossicking, made beach art and had fun with Nossi and Dotti.

Axel did an attempt with kiteboarding but found the wind too little. Meaning that I could get it up, but had no staying power. They say that age has someone to do with it and that blue pills help, but for me it was just the lack of wind.

Marjo wanted to play with Nossi but again Dotti thought it was her turn.

So we just enjoyed the beach. We stayed for 3 nights at Hydeaway Bay, the place is really nice and the dogs loved it too and by the end of the day we all chilled out.

There were even roo’s on the camping ground.

Every evening we knew it was 6 pm because a group of King Cookoobaras let themselves hear loud and clear, the last evening just above the bus. They say that the birds make the racket every evening and morning at 6, we hope they find another tree in the morning.

The camping also had a communal campfire that we attended once, it is not so my thing to sing along to Neil Diamond and listen three times to the same story of how Sue had her friends from across the street in Hawthorn (Melbourne) come tomorrow at the same camping about 2,500 km north. She was clearly excited and I suspect also slowly developing dementia or had too many Bundy and coke.

The weather was a mix, the first day overcast, then a mix of sun and clouds with temperatures varying from 25 to 16 degrees. Still warm enough to explore the beach every day.