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tomofhuxley@yahoo.co.uk

We've done it!!

Well we made it back to Noosa and successfully drove around Australia. So many amazing things to remember and reflect upon its going to take some time to sink in so the best way we can summarise at the moment is as follows:

22,816km, 62 caravan parks, 3820 litres of diesel, 30 mozi coils, 135 postcards, 22 National Parks, 54 bottles of wine, 1 helicopter flight, 23 colouring books, 6 time zones, 8 bottles of bundy rum, 110 wee stops, 5 pairs of thongs, 6 sun hats, 8 rash vests, 3 snorkelling trips, 5 outback pubs, 4,297 photos taken to date, 6 boat trips, 1 bike ride, 2 birthday cakes, 12 cartons beer, 9 species of fish caught, 2 tree top walks, 6 botanic gardens ,1 cave, 6 aboriginal rock arts, 18 gorges, 12 water falls, 5 Wiggles and 1 lazytown albums (listened to almost every day),1 tiger shark, 2 thefts, 32 loads of washing, 36 colouring pens, Finding Nemo and Toy Story 3  watched 10 times, 1 koala bear, hundreds of kangaroos and emus, 1 dingo, thousands of cockatoos, corellas, galahs and budgies, 2846 hits on the blog (so far), 14 books, 88 icy poles, 1 swim with whale shark, 1 dolphin fed, 1 afternoon of rain, 2 distillery visits, 2 dinosaur footprint sites, 76 shells collected, 4 cable car/chair lifts, 2 crocodiles in the wild, 48 feathers collected, 3 train rides, 12 apostles, 1 white tip reef shark, 1 fish bite, 1 possum bite, 1 lung infection, 6kg gained, 3 glass saucepan lids smashed, approx 300 driving hours, 37 fuel stops and 1 bloody brilliant time!

Now some time to reflect and relax in Noosa before we head back!

The Coral and Capricorn Coast and The Whitsundays Islands

Well we made it to Townsville in time for Jo’s Birthday enjoying a couple of nights along the beach front although we were unable to swim in the ocean due to the presence of stingers and crocs. The girls had a great time playing in the best water park to date before we enjoyed fish and chips and champagne to celebrate Jo’s Birthday before heading back to base for cake and candles. We also  drove to the top of Castle Hill to get great views over Townsville, The Harbour and nearby Magnetic Island. We enjoyed Townsville but it seemed strange being back in a big town after our time in the outback and away from traffic lights and road works!

Next day we headed to the backpacker equivalent of mecca, Airlie Beach.  Again we found ourselves in a beautiful caravan park surrounded by dozens of friendly cockatoos and curlews before booking onto a boat trip round the Whitsunday Islands and having a swim in the huge man made lagoon on the front. In the morning we got picked up and taken to our boat with its friendly staff and set off to our first destination, Hill Inlet, where we walked through the rainforest to an outlook with its postcard view of the inlet and Whitehaven Beach further down the coast. This was our next destination when we got back to the boat. As it was nearing the end of the stinger season we were still all encouraged to wear stinger suits which we wore much to our amusement. We swam from the boat to Whitehaven Beach, another famous landmark with its white silica beach, and relaxed for a couple of hours before being enjoying a great beach bbq. The girls found a friend and had a great time watching the goannas and playing on the beach. Back on the boat we passed an island with nesting sea eagles which the crew summoned with a whistle and threw raw meat for them to catch from the boat before we anchored off Mantaray Bay for a snorkel over the fringing island reef (part of the great barrier reef) The girls went in the glass bottomed boat to view the coral and fish whilst we went for a snorkel to view the thousands of fish around us including a very large wrasse and giant trevally which the girls fed from the boat. Holly decided to get in the water to view the reef through a glass bottomed boogie board and ended up with a fish mistaking her toe for something to eat and got a small nip! Another great day and as we headed back to base Holly fell asleep in Jo’s arms. We loved the Whitsundays and vowed to return on a sailing boat one day when the girls are a bit bigger.

Next stop Mackay where we stayed to the north of the town at Bucasia and another small caravan park right on the beach. In the morning we walked for an hour before visiting an old school friend of Jo’s (sarah) and her husband (Ian) for an amazing lunch and great hospitality with the girls loving the pool and picking fresh bananas.

Then onto Yeppoon and Jo’s old university town of Rockhampton. We stayed at Kinka Beach one of the south beaches out from Yeppoon before driving into Emu Park and then onto Rockhampton to look around. We also viewed a new mosaic war memorial  in memory of a VC recipient before driving back through the university and back to the caravan park for a fish on the river. We caught our usual undersized bream and a flathead which wasn’t quite big enough to keep!

We then headed back into the west country stopping just outside Biloela to stay with another school friend of Jo’s (kaylene) and her family. On arrival Michael  returned from work mustering cattle in his Robinson R22 helicopter, and offered to take Tom up and off to another small Job. This 4 cylinder, 145hp helicopter took them a few miles to a farm of about 800 acres where Tom met the local farmer and watched as a mob of about 150 Belmont Red cattle were rounded up in about 15 mins. A great experience and the girls had great fun putting the helicopter away when they returned. The next morning Tom was picked up by another local farmer and given a great tour of his farm learning about the difference breeds of cattle and the grasses and shrubs that have been introduced into the bush to ensure sufficient food is available. The girls all joined Tom up at the farm and had a lovely time playing (all 6 of them) before we returned and once again hit the road.

That afternoon we called in to see another school friend in Gladstone (Jo) before heading to Tannum Sands for a night.

The next day we headed for the towns of 1770 (first place captain cook landed in Queensland) and Agnes Waters. We were going to stay the night but as we got there early we decided after our usual morning break to head for Bagara the other side of Bundaberg as the weather had cooled off an was cloudy for the first time in months! On the way we stopped at the Bundy Rum factory for a look and ended up with a bottle and a couple of souvenirs.

Bagara is another beach resort town and we had a good walk and a good scoot along the front before enjoying a rum and coke on what, after 4 months on the road, was to be our last night in the caravan before we headed back to the place where we started, Noosa! Our amazing adventure has almost come to an end…..

9.05.12

The Outback..... its pubs and dinosaurs!

From Katherine we headed south stopping at Mataranka famous for its thermal pools and being the capital of the ‘never never’. We first stopped at Bitter Springs, a palm fringed thermal pool with amazingly clear water and a temperature of over 30 degrees for a good swim in the beautiful surroundings. We then headed to the Thermal Pool the other side of town which was much the same. The waters start life as far away as Queensland and filter underground for several thousand km before reappearing, crystal clear and at a perfect temperature.

Tom had also read Jeannie Gunns famous 1908 book about life as a pioneering women, ‘We of the Never Never’, about life at a nearby cattle station The Elsey. The book has since been made into a film and we visited the replica Elsey Station Homestead built for the film as well as the family cemetery nearby. Another inspiring family trying to carve out a living in the Northern Territory, scary to think what they went through and it wasn’t that long ago.

From Mataranka we headed to Daly Waters first stopping in at Larrimah and its famous pub, first of many  in the outback! We were surprised to find a large collection of animals out the back including the friendliest Wallaby which Holly wanted to take home and a large salt water croc. Although we liked this pub our destination for the night was the Daly Waters Pub another forty minutes down the road. The pub is decorated with all sorts of memorabilia, shirts, business cards, bras, hats, you name it it’s on the walls somewhere! It claims to be the oldest pub in the Northern Territory having had a license since 1893 and used to be a stop of for the Drovers in days gone by. Daly Waters itself was discovered by John McDouall Stuart on the 28 May 1862 (leaving his initial in a nearby tree) and  was also home to Australia’s first international airport! The Pub is the centrepiece of this town and we had a great afternoon soaking up the atmosphere with a few beers. Daisy also got her thongs/flipflops put on the thong tree (again Australia’s first!)

Next day we headed off, spotting our first Brolgas on the way and the mass migration of grey nomads heading north. After stopping just north of Tennant Creek to refuel we finally turned east towards Queensland. Before we got to the border we stopped at Barkly Homestead, a former cattle station, for the night before getting to Mt Isa the next day. A couple of long days in the car but we were finally back in Queensland. Having half expected the outback to be dust we have been surprised in all our travels to date how green the country had been so far, the rains from this year and last helping the cause, not that we have seen any rain to talk of to date!

We left Mt Isa and its mines behind and stopped after lunch for a beer in the ‘Walkabout Creek Hotel’ made famous by Crocodile Dundee! The pub was covered in props and photos and we were amazed by the number of people who just dropped in for a beer and a quick look round. Having decided that the outback was only made for pubs we stopped the night in the equally famous ‘Blue Heeler Hotel’.

The Hotel has its own story as well. For it was here that ‘Banjo’ Patterson saw the Macphersons of Dagworth pass champagne through a window to those shearers who had burnt their woolshed, wool and 143 young ‘jumbucks’. This event ended the great shearers strike of 1894 and began the legend of ‘Waltzing Matilda’. The song was baptised in the pub in 1895 and thus the actions of the above created a turning point in Australia’s History. The pub also invites people to write on the walls in return for donation to the Royal Flying Doctors; Daisy and Holly left their mark! Having sunk a couple of cold ones we returned to the caravan park out the back of the pub (now lined with white Toyota Prado’s, similar to ours) to find a pair of dancing Brolgas. The girls stayed up later than usual playing with glow sticks and some new friends they met next door.  Great end to another great day in the middle of nowhere.

Next day, having clocked over 20,000km, we travelled to Winton and then on the dirt roads to a cattle station and set up camp next to the converted shearing shed. The farm was 50,000 acres but could only support 800 head of cattle. We were the only people staying that night and enjoyed the beautiful surroundings and starlit sky all to ourselves. We really did feel on our own in the middle of nowhere! At Winton earlier we visited the Waltzing Matilda centre, a museum dedicated to the song, and enjoyed the story in an indoor billabong complete with holograms and songs and stories bursting with Australian Nationalism! Qantas was also founded in Winton so we stopped near the old airfield for lunch whilst the girls played on the musical fence, made up of old junk and the like before heading to our cattle station for the night.

Another 150km on dirt roads took us to Lark Quarry, the home of Dinosaur track ways which show a stampede in some 3300 fossilised footprints. The girls were very excited and watched an animation of a huge dinosaur going to drink at the waters edge where hundreds of smaller dinosaurs were also drinking resulting in a smaller one being caught before we were given a tour of almost every footstep!

From the footprints we headed for three hours through open grass country to the outback town of Hughenden for the night before heading onto the east coast and Townsville.

We have loved the outback, its bush pubs and its pioneering history but the coast road beckons once again! Don’t forget to look at our photo link to flickr on the blog to view a selection of our photos taken to date!

26.04.12