- 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.
- 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...
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.
love your blog and miss you two heaps! think about you all the time.
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