DAY 117 - 121 (Heading to Brisbane)

DAY 121 - Mon 18 Oct

• We planned to leave Hervey Bay today but it was such a beautiful, perfect day we decided to stay another night... 

• In the afternoon, we just drove around and checked out the town. The ridiculously long wharf was a popular fishing spot...

• We found a little creek that wasn't so crowded so I attempted to catch dinner (but with no luck).

• Tonight, we are both nursing extreme sun burn after under-estimating the UV index today.
• On Wednesday we will drive to Brisbane and spent a few days cleaning the van before delivering it to the new owners on Friday afternoon. We have about a week after this until we can pick up our new home - the camper trailer from Ballina. 

DAY 120 - Sun 17 Oct

• We left Tannum Sands and headed to Hervey Bay... We often see some strange and interesting things on the road...

• We arrived at Hervey Bay mid afternoon... I put some much-needed washing on yet realised near the end of the cycle that it didn't sound real good. I was SO shattered when I realised that I had forgotten to remove my cherished souviner driftwood that I had found a the tip of Cape York from the machine. I would often store it in the machine when we travelled to keep it safe. So now all our undies were full of splinters!

• Not only that but on one of the rough roads we had travelled the machine had broken the brackets that held it in place and one of the feet was off... Mr fix-it to the rescue...

• Geoff then headed off to play a much needed game of golf, after spending long hours driving the last few days.

DAY 119 - Sat 16 Oct

• We left Nebo truck stop early and continued our journey south. Once again the road back to the main freeway was rough. At one point we stopped and checked inside the van and all the bathroom stuff was all over the floor, the microwave door was open and the glass round plate from it was on the floor (amazingly not broken tho). 
• We checked out a coastal town called Yeppon... pretty nice

• And also Gladstone which I think has to be the biggest industrial hole in Australia. (sorry if you are a fan...)

• We spent the night a Tannum Sands. Another nice little coastal town just south of Gladstone.

DAY 118 - Fri 15 Oct

• We left Ayr and headed south-west to a mine near Glenden. (My sister's husbands, uncle works there and had arranged to give us a tour). I have to be honest here and say that I really wasn't looking forward to the mine tour and might have grumbled a little along the way (as it was a slight detour). However, I actually quite enjoyed seeing the enormous size of a drag-line in progress... As Geoff said, it was like watching a ten-storey building swinging around dragging an enormous bucket. The bulldozer in front of it that you can just see is actually a D11 (the largest bulldozer in the world!). Looks pretty small when compared to the drag line... 

•  Newlands Xstrata coal mine soon plans to move this above dragline 36kms to another mine site and it takes one hour to travel 50m. 
• Below are photos of another open cut mine onsite... To get one tonne of coal they need to remove 20 tonnes of dirt. 

• The nearby town to the mine is called Glenden and is fully owned by the mine - it is a strange place. All the houses are pretty much the same and cost $30 a week in rent. We had dinner at the local club (also owned by the mine) with Matt (my sister's husbands, uncle) his wife Tuva and their kids. We planned to spend the night at a dam about 20kms away from Glenden but somehow with it being dark and raining we totally missed the turn. 
• So we just kept driving until we came to a random town called Nebo. Not wanting a repeat of our noisy night on the highway a few days ago, we decided to head into the town and park near a reserve. We did not realise though at the time how close we were to the local pub. At about 12 midnight we were woken up by a fight just outside the van between two men. One of the men then rallied a group of friends (have no idea where they all came from) and starting planning on bashing up the other fellow. Honestly at this point, I was petrified inside our little van. When they had walked a little away from the front of our van, we quietly got dressed in the dark and slipped into the car. I think we both breathed a sigh of relief when we saw the police had arrived. We drove back to the highway and parked at the truck stop. We prefer truck noise now to drunken fights outside the van! 

DAY 117 - Thurs 14 Oct

• Today we left Undara and began to make our way south-east to Brisbane to deliver the van. 
• Part of the condition of sale was to get any warranty work repaired on the van so we needed to head to Townsville to get that done. Unfortunately the road to Townville from Undara was a little more rough than we had anticipated - there was a large section of dirt roadworks and the majority of the road was only one lane tar with dirt either side. So to pass any oncoming traffic you had to veer off the side... The van has never been so dirty - what a shame! Check out the width of the road...

• Geoff also informed me along the way that when we were at Elim Beach (coloured sands) about a month ago, a lady came up to him (when I wasn't around) and said she just saw a snake near our tent! I'm SO GLAD he didn't tell me until now! 
• We travelled most of the day (except a brief stop in Townville Jayco) and spent the night in a small town called Ayr. 

DAY 109 - 116 (Paronella Park/Undara)

DAY 116 - Weds 13 Oct

• Yesterday we had booked to do an 8am tour of the Undara Lava Tubes. We both felt "fresh as a daisy that had been trampled by a herd of cattle", due to our traumatic night with the road trains. You can imagine our surprise and anger when we got to Undara and the caravan park there was pretty much empty! We later learnt that they had a staff party on and didn't want to be bothered taking any new people in yesterday afternoon... 
• The Undara lava Tubes are the longest lava tubes in the world. As Geoff said, it's pretty amazing as Australia isn't even known for its volcano's. It was amazing, especially the size of it...

• So tomorrow we will turn around and start making our way to Brisbane. We have to stop in Townsville to pick up some parts for the van, and will then try get to Airlie Beach by tomorrow night. On Friday afternoon we are stopping at a coal mine in Glendin (near Mackay) to check it out as my sister's, husband's, Uncle manages it and is happy to show us around. 

DAY 115 - Tues 12 Oct

• We left Paronella Park and continued our journey west through beautiful lush rolling hills...

• We passed a wind farm that was cool too. There were 20 rotating wind turbines (each worth 1 million each). 

• And then VERY sadly, I opened the door of the caravan and discovered this tragedy...

• Our favourite glass sand bottle that we had made had fallen out of the cupboard and smashed. 
• To brighten up, I very much looked forward to my first hot bath of the trip - a natural hot spring at Innot. My day did not improve though when we got there...

• Not only was the water feral and not fit for human bathing, it was BOILING hot. Geoff burnt his foot when he plunged it straight in. It was actually bubbling. Not the spa bath I was hoping for so we continued our journey west towards Undara. 
• Along the way, we had a call and SOLD THE VAN!! Whoo hoo! Only thing is, we need to deliver the van to Brisbane by next Friday. Our plans have changed once again but Praise God he was faithful and his timing is always perfect. 
• We rang Undara to book a night but they said they were full up. So our only other option (other than driving another hour) was to camp on the side of the road at a picnic area. Little did we realise that our 15m distance from the quiet road would turn into a LONG night. Basically it was like camping on the runway with boeing 747's periodically taking off all night. One word. Road Trains. Big ones with up to 4 carriages, doing ridiculous speeds that would shake the van and blow the curtains with passing impact...  

Geoff took this photo early the next morning just as another truck flew past. 

You can see our van just behind the front of the truck.

DAY 114 - Mon 11 Oct

• Today we decided to just start heading west to keep going with our travels rather than hang around waiting for the van to sell. As we were leaving Mission Beach and we neared the highway, a strange looking man (who was walking on the road) mooned us! Geoff promptly responded with the only reasonable response - a long HORN! 
• We arrived at Paronella Park, a strange but also facinating place. A Spanish man in the 1930's built a Spanish Castle that was hydro powdered by a waterfall. He was an incredible visionary and built the majority of the park by himself which is amazing. Quite a bit of it has been destroyed by floods, fires and cyclones over the years, it's just remains now...

We fed and touched these slimy suckers...

 Micro Bats just above our heads. They are like mice with wings...

 "Did I do that?"

 Our admission into the park also included accommodation in the van park and a night tour... This is Geoff's handiwork of the falls that will generate our power tonight...

A part of the castle by night...

DAY 113 - Sun 10 Oct

• The weather was worse today so again we didn't do much... this is turning into quite a boring blog entry really...

DAY 112 - Sat 9 Oct

• We didn't even take one photo at Mission Beach as the weather was horrid - rain and wind. We're sure in nice weather it would be beautiful though. About 4km offshore is Dunk Island
• During a break in the rain we ventured out for a walk on the beach but it poured again - it's a strange thing to walk in the pouring rain. It's a good thing we both had our swimmers on! 
• Geoff today mis-judged a dive into the caravan park pool and grazed his side on the bottom. 

DAY 111 - Fri 8 Oct

• 7am we took our van to a plumber to install the new water pump, we then headed a few hours south to Mission Beach.

DAY 110 - Thurs 7 Oct

• Yep, not much to report today either... just waiting...

DAY 109 - Weds 6 Oct

• Still just hanging in Cairns waiting for a new water pump. We passed the time with playing table tennis, Putt Putt Golf... you know, just doing it pretty tough really.

Croc Feeding

DAY 104 -108 (Will we eva leave Cairns!)

DAY 104 - DAY 108 (Fri 1 Oct - Tues 5 Oct)

• Due to a lack of doing anything remotely interesting and worth reporting, I have just grouped these days together. 
• An interesting fact, mainly just to fill some space here, is that the forecast for Cairns is consistently without fail, "Possible Showers, 31 degree's". It would be an easy job to be a weather man here! 
• We decided to treat ourselves to a day out on Friday as we were bored as bat poo. We spent the day at Hartley's Crocodiles Adventure Park, as we thought it would kill some time and also might possibly learn something about our new fishing companions...

It is a terrifying sound to hear their jaws slam shut and also the growling noise they make...

 The skin of a crocodile is worth $12.50 per cm2! Not bad hey... The best skin is the under belly.

 How would you like this job??

(These are freshwater crocs so not aggressive like their saltwater brothers)...

 A clown who likes snakes way too much... his talk was really entertaining though and we even learnt how to do first aid on a snake bite...

 This guy showed us how the croc does a death roll, using chicken though not his leg...

 We finally, after much anticipation, saw our first live Cassowary. Not so scary after all. Even tried to fed her although she was not into apple today...

 Getting more closely acquainted...

 

We took the cruise around the lagoon, where they fed the crocs... was pretty cool seeing them jump out of the water. I got video of it too and if I can work out how to crop it down, I'll try put that on the blog too...

• On our way out, we checked out the pond that 'Louie' lives in. He is a 4.7m, 700kg croc and when we had walked past earlier he was no where to be seen. It was close to closing time so no-one was around. Before I could say anything, Geoff came charging towards Louie's enclosure with a large 3m stick in tow. He promptly started splashing the pond where Louie lives, hoping to arouse the old croc from the bottom of his pond. Geoff clearly didn't see the large "DO NOT PROVOKE" sign, and obviously thought after his day at the croc park that he now possessed the skills required to be a experienced croc handler. Well, I was beside myself trying to control my husband as the small fence, definitely in my opinion, seemed inadequate. While Geoff was carrying on like a pork chop he failed to notice Louie's girlfriend slip into the water. And we both got quite a fright when she suddenly, out of nowhere attacked the end of the stick geoff was wildly banging on the water. Big Louie now was quite interested aswell and moved to within 1m of us on the other side of the ridiculously small inadequate fence. Pleading for my life, Geoff finally put the stick down (probably also due to how big Louie actually was) and we lived to tell this story. He thought it was great fun and the highlight of his day. I disagreed strongly. 

• Well, that's about it. We have had two calls for the caravan in the last 2 days - no sale just yet. We were planning to leave Cairns tomorrow but now need to wait for a part to be sent here to fix our water pump - it decided not to work anymore. So, we'll be here for a few more days yet. 
• Oh, I nearly forgot... Geoff wants me to mention he played Golf on Saturday and he is actually also out playing golf at the moment.