Since Airlie, we have been on the move a fair bit. We estimate that we’ve now covered over 4000km – yes this is only an estimate as sadly one of Monty’s not-so-working-parts is the odometer!
As you may have seen from the BIG Things page, we are now a long way past Airlie (my last blog update) in fact our first stop after leaving Airlie was a BIG Thing! The Big Mango and the 10 different murals painted on random walls around town, used to be the most exciting things about Bowen, but since scenes from the film “Australia” were filmed there, Bowen has become much better known and they are milking it for all it’s worth! When we stopped in at the Bowen info centre (also the home of the BIG Mango), I was given a map of Bowen with a few different places marked out for us to visit. We planned on having some lunch and spending an hour or so there and from looking at the brochure in my hand covered in white beaches and beautiful coastlines, we were looking forward to doing some exploring. We also thought we might as well go to the site where “Australia” was filmed seeing that’s Bowen’s new claim to fame. We followed my map down to the beach and to the big X marked at the place where Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman had stood and kissed passionately in the rain during a Darwin scene from the film. I think the arguments started on the 2nd lap around the block, when Wade insisted that I’d given him the wrong directions to the place of filming seeing we were circling a rather small vacant grassy block in a very non-descript part of town. Inside the info brochure on Bowen, there was a page that had photos and info on the making of the movie. We both snatched it up off the floor in a desperate bid to try and make some sense of where the movie took place. One photo was an aerial view of the set during filming. We looked at the photo and looked around us and realised that the tree in front of us (the only tree on this vacant block of land), was definitely in this incredible photo of movie sets and red dirt and bloody Hollywood trickery!
The site where the movie was made, although being spoken about by every person we met in Bowen, looks exactly the way it would have prior to the making of the film. Now I understand the principle of leaving a place exactly as you found it, but geez Bowen, not even a plaque or a cheesy tourist booth selling t-shirts saying “I stood where Nicole and Hugh pashed”.... NOTHING! It’s difficult to describe just how vacant and boring this block was, so here’s the proof.....
Us on the set of the film "Australia"
Anyway so that was Bowen. Done and dusted. We hit the road and headed for the home of the North Queensland Cowboys, Townsville. We spent the next 2 days getting the run around from mechanics trying to tell us what was wrong with Monty (he tried to kill Wade and I one day by shaking uncontrollably while on a highway), and we were given quotes ranging from $100 for a quick tune up to $800 for a range of items that i’m not even going to try to explain seeing I didn't understand anything the mechanics said after “hi”.
We had breakfast on top of Castle Hill. That’s right, my sister suburb, only this one actually has a huge red rock hill that pops up out of nowhere in the rather flat city of Townsville! We did the tourist thing and visited the Museum of Tropical Queensland where Wade wanted to kill me for deciding to come on the same day as about 150 year 3 school children... woops! And we stayed at a caravan park that immediately inspired me to begin writing “Rules when staying in Caravan Parks” (coming soon to this blog!).
We left Townsville on a beautiful morning and headed to a place called Jourama Falls. We didn't know what to expect after a few bum steers lately but this turned out to be an amazing place. The walk to the falls constantly had signs reading “Use caution when crossing rivers. Rocks may be slippery and rivers can rise suddenly. PEOPLE HAVE DIED HERE” accompanied by a nice picture of a stick figure slipping off some rocks to his death. (Don’t worry Mum, I’m sure they’re just joking.....hmmm)
The 2km walk to the falls was beautiful. We crossed rivers and creeks on little man made stepping platforms with a dodgy chain to hang onto if the waters did rise! Then we followed a walking track that just seemed to keep going and the sound of the waterfalls seemed to get further away. Right when we thought we must have taken a wrong turn, we got to a lookout that looked down over a series of waterfalls and swimming holes. It was well worth the life threatening trek!
We went for a swim before packing up and heading off again.
That afternoon, we drove through Ingham and stopped in at a small town called Lucinda to do some fishing. The view was awesome as we looked across to Hinchinbrook Island while the sun set.
Sunset over Hinchinbrook Island
We spent the next 3 days in El Arish (just inland from Mission Beach) with Wade’s Aunty Liz, her husband Martin and son Trent. We were treated to a comfy bed, a tour of Mission Beach and Tully and generally just good company! Thanks again Aunty Liz, especially for putting up with Wade’s snoring for 3 nights!
On Mother’s Day morning we said goodbye to Aunty Liz, Martin and Trent and headed to Atherton Tablelands where we hoped we’d get some reception to call our Mothers and tell them how much we love them..... awwwwwww.
On our way to Atherton we visited Paronella Park which was voted the #1 thing to do in QLD in a tourism vote last year. It is an incredible place built in the early 1900's by a crazy Spanish man who bought the most amazing piece of land in QLD and built a Spanish castle on it. The story behind it is amazing but I wont bore you with it now. Just look at the pretty pictures!
Paronella Park
The rainforest gardens at Paronella Park
Sarah with the monster Barra!
Anyway, we left Atherton and spent the night in Port Douglas with a great day planned for the Wednesday to make up for the dodgy day fishing. We woke up early on Wednesday and headed to the Daintree and Cape Tribulation. Unfortunately, we found out when we arrived at Mossman Gorge that bad weather made the walk to the Gorge and the suspension bridge impassable but we continued on our merry way and did some walks around the Daintree and Cape Trib.
I booked us into a fruit tasting and tour of an Exotic Fruit Farm which I have wanted to do since we started planning this trip! The fruits were amazing and all such bizarre but awesome flavours – one tasted like a sour warhead and another one like fruit salad all blended up together!
That night we went to a pub in Port Douglas where we’d seen that they do Cane Toad Races! My name was pulled out of a hat to be one of 6 cane toad “jockeys” and the first role of the jockey was to place a big wet kiss on your cane toad before racing it. Being the 5th jockey to kiss my toad, Wade was slightly disgusted at how little resistance I showed when asked to kiss my toad. I figured if I’ve kissed Wade, a toad can’t be too bad! Haha Love you honey bunch! My toad came third which was exciting but didn't get me the Barrier Reef cruise I’d been racing for!
Anyway we are now in Cairns, just relaxing and spending a few days doing repairs and cleaning everything before meeting up with Wade’s mates who we will be travelling with for the next 3 weeks as we tackle the difficult yet incredible Cape York up to the tip of Australia. Some of the routes we planned to take are still wet from the rainy season so we might be making some changes to our itinerary along the way but hopefully the trip will be a success with as few mechanical issues as possible! We’re both pretty apprehensive about the trip after meeting a guy yesterday and being told that only the toughest people will endure the trip and that he has seen grown men cry up there.... I’ve already prepared the tissues for Wade. We also both have a wary curiosity of the crocs as we’ve been told various horror and gore stories about run ins with the incredible saltwater crocodiles. Don’t worry Mum, we’ll be as careful as possible, trust me!!!
We will have very little phone or internet reception once we leave Cooktown (one hour north of the Daintree) but I look forward to telling you all about the trip when we return..... hopefully without any limbs lost to crocodiles!
Missing everyone back home, but that’s probably just cause Wade’s company is so crap! Na he has been the best travelling partner I could ask for and we are having the absolute time of our lives.
Bon Voyage for now and hopefully I’ll be able to update you all sometime during the adventure to the Tip of Australia!!It’s a 75cm Barramundi weighing approx 5-6kg! I had never caught a Barra before so it was pretty exciting to see it jumping around and tail-dancing while I reeled it in! Wade was pretty pumped to catch his own so he left me to fillet the fish (typical!) and I ended up getting 2 huge fillets out of it – enough to feed about 8 people! Wade spent the next 4 hours casting out into the same spot to the point where I was cold and hungry and he was bitter and cranky! We booked into a fishing charter on the lake the next day in the hope that we’d each bring in a fish to make mine look like a baby. After 6 hours on the boat, with our wallet $300 lighter, two very tired and frustrated young travellers stepped off the boat empty-handed. Not a word was spoken for the next 2 hours as we both thought of all the great things we could’ve spent that $300 on. Apparently the Barra in the lake are so well fed that they wont bite if it’s cold and just our luck, the day we hired a fishing charter was cold.
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