Homeward Bound......

Monday 20th November

So, all good things must come to an end. Today we are "Leaving on a jet plane.." to return back home.
It has been an amazing nine weeks and even though we have visited most of these places before, it has been lovely to revisit them, add to our memories, rekindle friendships with good friends and meet some other very interesting people along the way.
We have travelled over 7000 kilometres  from Tasmania in the south to Cape Tribulation in North Queensland and have noticed  quite a few changes from our previous visits as the cities have expanded and the population grown, accommodating diverse cultures; but the Outback remains timeless and  each State / Territory is still unique with its iconic landmarks, climate and way of life.

People have asked me where was my favourite part of Australia or most exciting experience. I find this impossible to answer as each place had a highlight of its own, but my motto stands:

"Travelling turns yesterday's dreams into tomorrow's memories."

We certainly have stored up a host of memories from this trip (not to mention a plethora of photos), with a few stories to tell and smile about.

At the entrance to the campsite in Hall's Gap in Victoria, was a sign which said:

So, I hope those of you who have read this blog, have enjoyed following our story as we have 'Lived the Dream' again.



Till the next time..........

Sheila and Peter


Sunday 19th November

Today, is our last day. We headed straight to the Marina Bay Gardens for another visit to the two domes. Firstly, the Cloud Dome which was fascinating,climbing up to the top past the waterfall and walking down the elevated walkway through the various climatic regions from high mountain vegetation to rainforest jungle, seeing stalactites and stalagmites along the way, then the Secret Gardens of the rivers and finally to a very interesting Gallery highlighting how Man is polluting this planet  by over industrialisation and development and creating global warming in the process.

The Flower Dome had added a Christmas theme, alongside the world gardens,which was very attractive.

                               

After lunch, we made our way back to Orchard Road, the famous shopping street, before returning to our hotel for a final dip in the pool and in the evening, we watched the Marina Bay Sands lasar light show before wandering along to Boat Quay for our evening meal. Cheers!!!


                               


Highlight of the day: Revisitingthe Cloud Dome. it was so interesting.

A Room With a View....

Saturday 18^th November

Back to Sizzling Singapore.

We had a very smooth flight from Cairns last night and arrived back at the Peninsular Excelsior hotel before midnight to be told that because of our 'inconvenience' on the way out ( our room had no hot water), they were giving us a much better room with a view. This turned out to be correct, We are on the seventeenth floor looking right over Marina Bay, a great view of the Flyer and the Marina bay Sands Hotel. This was sunrise this morning.

This morning, we hopped on the Sightseeing open top bus and went as far as Chinatown. We spent a very interesting couple of hours in the Chinatown Heritage Museum, all about Singapore life in the 1950s and how the migrants from China lived and worked from tailors, to construction workers, coolies, carpenters, clog makers – all living in the same property and sharing very confined living spaces.

                             


We had lunch in Chinatown, did a 'bit' of shopping and then had a river cruise from Clarke Quay down to Marina Bay and return.

We had a swim on our return to the hotel and then had our evening meal locally at an “exorbitant” cost of $9.00 for two dishes and $6.50 for a large bottle of beer!!!! It was delicious. Tip: Always eat where the locals go. 
Our evening ended by watching the laser light display from Marina Bay Sands, watched from our 'room with a view'.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside.... Cairns

Friday 17^th November

So, from Daintree to Port Douglas, we continued our return south to Cairns.

For two nights, we stayed at Cool Waters campsite just outside Cairns. This was a pleasant site in the rainforest with a creek running through it and a nice swimming pool.

                    

We use this time to SQUEEZE all our goods and chattels back into their casesand to give the van a good clean inside and out ready for its return to Apollo.

Just before we left, we heard an almighty crash and discovered that a very tall tree, obviously rotten, had fallen down. Luckily it fell towards the creek and not in our direction!

Having reached Cairns city, we checked into our apartment at the Grosvenor Hotel, delivered the van back and then caught the bus into the city.

Although the shopping centre has some decorations up, there definitely doesn't seem to be as much Christmas hype as there usually is in UK by now. Incongruously though, all the Christmas cards are full of snow scenes and Santa (northern hemisphere style).

We wandered down to the lagoon, which is a huge man made

 swimming pool on the esplanade. They have this because it is too dangerous to swim in the sea due the presence of crocodiles. Also the beach is very shallow and when the tide is out it goes a long way. However, there were plenty of pelicans and jabiru to photograph. We followed the esplanade back to the campsite past the hospital (Karen will remember it). On the way, we passed under a very noisy tree. When we looked up it was full of fruit bats, screeching and wriggling on the branches.

   

In the evening, we had a meal at the Cock and Bull, a noisy, very busy restaurant but good value for money.

Yesterday, having refined our packing, we spent the rest of the day like most other backpackers, tourists and locals at the lagoon.

This afternoon, we'll make our way to cairns airport for the flight to Singapore.

Highlight of Cairns: the lagoon of course.

Crocodile Dundee....

Sunday 12^th November

Wow! Crocodile Dundee eat your heart out! We sauntered down to the jetty this morning for 8.30 am and went on a cruise up the Daintree River.

                  

Although the river is quite wide, at high tide it is only 2ft deep at this point and can go down to 1ft at low tide. This part of the river is freshwater and therefore with the recent rain is quite cool so the crocodiles like to rest on the banks and warm themselves in the sun.

               

It wasn't long before we were rewarded by seeing a 5 metre crocodile in amongst the mangroves. It had caught a wild pig and was thrashing around with it, beating it against a tree stump. The locals have names for their crocs and this one was called Bowman. As well as crocodiles we saw an orange and blue bird, a relative of the kingfisher and lots of swallows; also red kites and magpie geese.

After leaving Daintree Village, we drove down river towards Cape Tribulation where we boarded a second cruise (free this time) and here we were nearer the sea so the crocodiles that we saw were estuarine/ salt water.

We were lucky enough to see more; there was Scooter who had a shortened tail; Elizabeth (named after the Queen). She was a black crocodile. Apparently, crocodiles can live to over 100 years and they are not green, despite how storybooks depict them. In fact, they were almost indistinguishable from the logs and the river bank.

                            

                         

One was carefully draped over a log out of the water with a big smile on its face, casually posing it seemed. To complete the excitement, we even saw a baby one on the bank 30 cms long! Aah!

Moving back towards Port Douglas, we called in at Mossman Gorge and walked up through the rainforest to the swimming holes. No, Karen, we did not swim there! We got as far as Rex's Creek and crossed the swing bridge.

Back at Port Douglas, we parked the van and wandered through the town again to the sweet little white church. Then headed back to camp in time for Happy Hour.

Highlight of the day: definitely the Crocodile Dundee adventure.

Port Douglas to Cape Tribulation

Saturday 11th November

So today we headed for the most northerly destination of our journey, Cape Tribulation. Not wanting to sound pretentious, but writing this daily diary of our trip from South to North of Australia in nine weeks, reminds me of what Michael Palin had to do compiling his literary works from Pole to Pole.

I know, I'm not in the same league, but I find if I don't get it all in print, there will be parts that may get forgotten over time and it has been a worthwhile exercise for me to record it all.

Back to the script! We drove past yet more sugar and banana plantations and as we passed through the small town of Mossman there was a local market on. We stopped to have a look and came across a stall selling exotic tropical fruits which we had never seen before. The lady offered us a piece of one to taste. It had a yellowish black lumpy skin with soft white flesh inside and tasted like lemon meringue and custard. It was called Rollinia deliciosa and it was. The other fruit had a dark green skin shaped like a pomegranate and inside it was dark brown with a soft fudgy texture. She called it the chocolate pudding fruit.

Anyway, the most remarkable thing about this encounter was that Jeanette, the stall holder, emigrated to Australia from Hornchurch when she was five years old and has a cousin Derek who lives in Chelmsford on the Tile Kiln estate. Jeanette was so excited that we came from the same town and naturally, extracted a promise from us to go and visit them.

To reach the Daintree National Park, we had to cross the Daintree River by a ferry which was operated by chain cable. The road twisted and turned crossing little creeks ( not a cassowary in sight). The forest was rich in fig trees, vines and ferns.

The sealed road ends at Cape Tribulation, about 50 kms drive from the river crossing. It was so named by that man James Cook again; aptly named because it was where he holed his ship The Endeavour on a coral reef as he charted the east coast of Australia in 1770. I feel we have been following his trail since Sydney.

It is a beautiful headland with a sweeping curved beach of golden sand, fringed with palm trees and mangroves. Care has to be taken walking along here, because the salt water crocodiles inhabit the little creeks among the mangroves. There is a boardwalk that you can walk along to reach the beach, but even if the crocs don't get you the mosquitoes will! So the Deet spray was well used.

Further down, we came to Myall Beach, but our campsite from an earlier trip, was no longer in use.

It is said that here, is where the rainforest meets the reef – very true – all very tropical.

On our return journey, we passed the Daintree Tea Plantation .

                               

We decided to camp at the village of Daintree, a very small settlement with just a few stores. The campsite had a very interesting barn full of antiquities, like an old Singer sewing machine, farming implements and a seventies 746 telephone and a switchboard. In pride of place was the owner's 1955 Ford saloon car in full working order. Our day ended with a tropical rain shower but at least it is warm rain.

Highlight of the day: Sampling the tropical fruit.

Friday 10^th November

We left Granite Gorge about 9.00 am and headed for Kuranda. We wandered through the town and along to the station where hordes of people were arriving on a day trip from Cairns. It is quite a nice little town but very geared up for the tourist market.

We made our escape and drove down to the Barron Falls lookout near the Gorge.

There was not as much water falling as I expected given that it is not yet summer here. The road then wound its way through the rainforest for a few miles before dropping down to the flat plain on which Cairns stands. Once there,we 'hangered' left (as they say here) and made our way along the coast, stopping for lunch at Palm Cove.

It was very windy here and evident that a storm had passed through the previous night. The waves were quite strong rolling in along the beach.

Moving on, we stopped at Port Douglas for the night, a very upmarket tourist resort and camped at the same campsite that we had been to before.

Highlight of the day: Late afternoon walk around Port Douglas followed by a welcome dip in the pool.

From Airlie to Atherton

Thursday 9^th November

Today, we made the decision to head inland to the Atherton Tableland inland from Cairns.

South of Innisfail, we turned onto the Palmerston Highway, otherwise known as Canecutters Way. There were lots of sugar cane and banana plantations along the road.

We saw our first rain since Sydney; the morning delivered several short, heavy tropical downpours which cleared by lunchtime. But then, we were going through the Misty Mountains!

Our first stop was at the Millaa Millaa Falls, reputedly the most photographed waterfall in Australia. We saw a turtle here, but not the elusive platypus.   

                         

Next stop was Malanda which has a swimming hole by the falls. The information centre here was rebuilt after a bushfire and gives an interesting account of local geology and aboriginal history.

                              

 We moved on to Yungaburra, pausing to do a board walk to the Curtain Fig Tree. This is a big parasitic strangler fig tree whose base is entirely covered by a stringy mass of aerial roots.

                   

Lunch stop was at Lake Tinaroo, 5kms north of Atherton. This is a convoluted reservoir formed by pooling the Barron River's headwaters.

Towards Mareeba, we turned off to the Granite Gorge, where we bushcamped for the night. Here there are rock wallabies, which we hand fed, mingled with peacocks, bush turkeys and a very inquisitive bantam hen! We went for a walk through the Gorge as far as the weir, where we saw a greeny brown snake slithering over a rock (between the two handrail poles). Didn't hang around there!

Ended the day with a barbecue in the camp kitchen.'

                 

Highlight of the day: feeding the wallabies.

Wednesday 8^th November

From Rollingstone Beach, we travelled through more sugar cane plantations and bananas and called in at Tully, where there is a huge sugar mill. We saw the cane train arriving with a new load of cane.

This is the wettest town in Australia with an average rainfall of 450 cms a year. This is marked by a huge 7 meter golden welly boot in the middle of town. 7 metres represents the depth of when the town got flooded some years ago.

We continued to Mission Beach, through an area renowned for Cassowaries but they remained well hidden. We had camped at this South Mission Bay site before, right opposite Dunk Island. It is just on a glorious, golden beach fringed with palm trees and stretches for 14 kms. We had a welcome swim in the pool and a walk along the beach (stinger nets are in place) before our fish and chip supper.

                     

Highlight of the day: Revisiting this campsite.

Tuesday 7th November

Back on the road again, we first called in at Bowen, which featured in the film Australia with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, a seaside town with crocodiles evident.

            

 When we reached Townsville, we drove up Castle |Hill where we got a great view of the city, sprawling across the flat plains and Magnetic Island off the coast.

Moving on, we drove through more sugar plantations, mango orchards and pineapple plantations. 

  

                       

We turned off the highway to Rollingstone Beach parking right on the beachside next to a sign that said: Danger – Saltwater Crocodiles inhabit this area. Fortunately, we only saw a goanna.

Highlight of the day: being camped in such a lovely location.