Day 10 - Maintenance day and afternoon trip to Cairns

 (Kate)

We did some maintenance in the morning - like house maintenance, but on the car, tent and trailer instead.  Tent pole repairs, chair repairs, and a load of washing.  The light weight washing line that we bought works a treat.  It copes with pretty much a full load of washing.

We found a lookout in Pt Douglas called Flagstaff Hill.  It said that Pt Douglas was initially established as a port to transport gold from inland.  Ben told us that the miners discovered the painful way that a tree with heart-shaped leaves called the "gympie" gave them a stinging sensation that persisted for months.  We immediately became paranoid about any trees or shrubs with heart-shaped leaves.

We drove the hour to Cairns, partly for a sticky beak, and partly to visit a camping shop which there are multiples of in Cairns.   We drove the very windy coast roast and were horrified at the number of roadside memorials with flowers for car crashes/deaths.  Partway to Cairns we stopped at a locality that Wikicamps calls "The Gatz Balancing Rocks".  It was so simple yet so beautiful.  Cairns was big.  And busy.  A bit exhausting for all of us.  It seems we've adjusted to the quiet travelling life sooner than we thought.

We finished the day by accepting a dinner invitation from some of Kate's extended family who happened to be staying in Pt Douglas - very nice.  As we left the caravan park for dinner a pig started to wander around the campground.  It appeared to be wagging it's tail.  The timing was probably not a co-incidence.

Day 9 - The Lynd Junction to Port Douglas

 (Kate)

This morning we had our most relaxed morning pack up so far - we must all be getting used to the routine.  It was cool to cold overnight but cosy in the tent, sardine style.

We drove up into the Atherton Tablelands.  It's so beautiful, with lots of trees, like a dense woodland, on beautiful dark red rich-looking soil.  There is green grass between all the trees - every single square metre of soil seems occupied with plant life.   It's like the Adelaide Hills at its greenest in winter, but instead of being cold, it's 25 degrees.

We stopped at Mt Garnet to make lunch, and got coffees at an antique shop that sells coffees as a side gig.  There is a chalk board by the front door which says "nothing makes sense without coffee."

We called a caravan park in Pt Douglas who said they weren't taking bookings for unpowered sites at them moment as they were trying to let the grass dry out after the recent rains, but there was a spot at the back, a long way from the amenities that they could squeeze us into, so we jumped back in the car and went for it.  Google maps said if would take us 3 hours, but we've learned from past experience that "Dora the Explorer", as we call google maps, underestimates travel time.  We'll see.  When we came down off the "table" of the tablelands into Atherton, there were loads of avocado farms, sugar cane and bananas.  So not like Adelaide!  The maximum altitude we got to was 1180m above sea level.

We got to Port Douglas in about 3 hours (well done, Dora) and the caravan park seems luxurious to us.  Plush, spaceous grassy sites in raised rows, with slushy roadways in between.  Our site has some tall trees to the north west, which the sun disappears behind at about 4pm, and the prevailing wind seems to be a south easterly.  We've put up the big tent for the first time, since we'll be here for 3 nights.  It's warm and a bit humid here compared with Adelaide.  From our campsite we can see sugar cane, hills covered in trees, and colourful flowers.  One of the things I love about being this far north in Australia is how the birdlife changes.  It's most obvious at dawn when they are singing (wonderful to lie in the tent and here them all singing in the mornings).  One bird is not such a pleasant sound though - after sunset last night we heard what sounded like a child screeching.  It continued with a familiar pattern so we decided it must be a bird.  A quick google search came up with "Curlew" - nocturnal birds that call to each other in a shrieking or wailing tone.  It was a bit annoying and continued throughout the night, but it's just one of the marvels of the landscape here.  The curlews looks a bit like a small flamingo but grey and white.  Keith has nicknamed them "screechers".

Day 8 - Hughenden to Wyandotte Creek (just NE of The Lynd)

 (Kate)

Packed up at the Hughenden showgrounds and headed to Porcupine Gorge, 50km NE of Hughenden.  There is a campground there but it was already fully booked.  There is a 2hr walk to the gorge and back which would have been lovely to do but we contented ourselves with the views from the lookouts, and chose to mow down a few more kilometres instead.  We are finding we over-estimate how far we can travel in a day, because we lose about 3 hrs setting up and packing up, so it seems that 300km is a full day at the moment with lunch breaks and slowing down for roadworks etc. Unless we set an alarm for 6am of course.  Which we SO don't want to do when we are on holidays.

Once we drove on from Porcupine Gorge, the landscape changed again - more greenery, more trees, more cattle, and spectacular anthills.  We camped at a gravel pit just north of The Lynd Oasis, and were thrilled to see, for the first time this trip, another family travelling with a tent instead of a camper trailer of caravan (so we're not mad after all......)

Day 7 - Hughenden rest day

 (Kate)

It was a nice mild night here in Hughenden.  No need to wear thermals or beanies for sleeping.  It's overcast, and showers are forecast for the day.

Ben dropped Kate at the laundromat where she read her current bookclub book "We are all completely beside ourselves" while Ben went to the local mechanic where he'd arranged to get the front wheel bearings adjusted to take up the slack.  The bearings were new when we left, and the corrugations on the first part of the Strzelecki Track settled them in.

We bought some groceries and headed back to camp for maintenance jobs and relaxation.  A lovely day.

Finding new ways to have desert while camping has become a new past time.  Tonight Ben fried bread on the bbq and we had it with jam on it.  Again, cholesterol levels were ignored ;) Sometimes joy is healthy too.

Day 6 - Longreach to Hughenden

 (Kate)

Showers of rain again when we woke up.  We stopped in Winton for an iced coffee break and found some cool dinosaur artwork.  We got to Hughenden mid afternoon, and camped in the showgrounds, which is the overflow for the local caravan parks.  There was plenty of space, and we chose a spot near the horse arena, which was basically a giant undercover sandpit for the children of families camped there.  We set up the tents so they could dry, then had our first shower in 6 days.  It was fantastic.  We broke out the shorts and tshirts, although in the evening it was cool enough to put jumpers on again.

The super helpful lady at the information centre told us that central QLD is very busy with caravans and campers at the moment due to the COVID outbreaks.  People's school holiday plans have been derailed due to the lockdowns in Darwin and Alice Springs, and the outbreaks in the SE coast of QLD, so they are basically circulating in central QLD until things resolve a bit.

We plan to have a rest day here tomorrow to reset a bit.

Day 5 - Quilpie to Longreach

 (Kate)

We set an alarm for 6:30am (yuk!) to make sure we were on the road at a decent hour for the epic drive to Longreach today.  There were a few showers of rain overnight, and during breakfast, and during camp packup, but they weren't too heavy, and we're not about to begrudge outback QLD some rain.

We were on the road by 9ish, and driving on more single-lane bitumen.  We can see why road trains get right of way on these type of roads, as the edges are quite slushy.  We ended up joining a convoy of 10 cars towing vans for most of the trip.

We stopped in Jundah for lunch, and it was delicious.  Cholesterol levels were strictly ignored.

We arrived in Longreach at about 4:30 and all our mobiles went crazy, ping ping ping with notifications from the last couple of days.  It was actually pretty nice to be unplugged for a couple of days there.  We had initially planned to stay here, but both the QANTAS museum and the Stockman's Hall of Fame were completely booked out, being QLD school holidays.  Also both the local caravan parks had been given bad reviews by multiple users on Wikicamps, so we drove on and camped at a rest stop 27km north, that was listed as being suitable for tents and had good reviews.  Again showers of rain throughout the evening.