In the past 4 days we have visited 4 waterfalls, 2 National Parks, 2 play parks, 2 coffee places, 1 tea place, 1 bakery, 1 market and had sun shining for ½ a day.
We left Bluewater Rest Area just north of Townsville and continued North up the Bruce Highway towards Ingham. We tried to visit Victoria Sugar Cane Mill but it was raining quite heavily and it looked like there weren’t any tours on at present.
Continuing northwards we drove through the small town of Cardwell. Cardwell was one of the first towns hit by cyclone Yasi in early February this year. Even 5 months after you can see that this town had been hit hard. Many buildings appeared to have new shiny corrugated iron roofs and others still had makeshift tarpaulins on roofs and walls. Some advertising signs are just twisted bits of metal lying by the roadside. Trees were shredded of branches and some forests had masses of broken tree trunks reaching for the sky. These now look like forests of poles rather then trees.
Next stop was Murray Falls, which is about half way between Cardwell and Tully for lunch. When we entered the National Park camping area we realised we had found a beautiful untouched and certainly not overcrowded (a nice change) section of Australia. After a bite to eat in the van (as it was once again raining) we decided to set up camp here for the night and get some much needed washing done using our lightweight washing machine. Since we were on battery and the cloud was keeping the sun away from our solar panels I was a little nervous about our electricity use. It was all fine and what I should have been worrying about was how I was going to get the clothes dry since the any glimmer of sunshine seemed to have faded into lots and lots of rain. We had a few interesting things happen at Murray Falls. Firstly, I spotted our first Cane Toad while taking the kids over to the amenities. The kids almost completely missed him with the torchlight as he was completely still, sitting not far from our van between two trees in the rain. He was so set on his location that he hung around for many hours before disappearing into the night. The second thing was that our awning got caught by a sudden gust of wind and ended up, upside down on top of the van. After a quick climb onto the roof for Tig, by torch light we managed to dismantle it and secure it back in its housing for investigation when it was daylight and preferably not raining. Thankfully nothing was broken just required some slight mending, which has now been done. The kids thought it was quite fun watching mum and dad run around in the dark with torches in our mouths getting absolutely drowned by the rain.
Thursday we visited a majestic place called Paronella Park. We were unsure if it would be worth the time and money but it definitely was. The photos probably will not do it justice so you will have to visit it yourselves. The park was designed and built by a romantic Spaniard named José Paronella. He fell in love with a Mena Creek waterfall and built his park and its castles around the view of it. The hospitality was fantastic with the owner coming out in the pouring rain as we pulled up with an umbrella for each of us. He was very generous with his time and very passionate about the park. The highlights for the kids were definitely the feeding of the eels and turtles. We also got to view some Bent winged Micro Bats in the Tunnel of Love that José built through a hill and walked the many paths in the rainforest including the Kauri Avenue. The rain didn’t deter us and actually provided for a more interesting visit as the Mena Creek waterfall had about 5 times the water flowing over it than usual. The edge of the picnic ground was 3 feet under water, which gave a good appreciation of the ease of which the park had been flooded previously. Paronella Park was also the first place in Queensland to commission a Hydro-Electric plant, in 1933. For more details you can visit www.paronellapark.com.au
After Paronella Park we continued on our merry way to Wooroonooran National Park to Mamu Rainforest Canopy Walkway. When we entered the car park it became obvious that we were one of the few families to brave the elements in order to enjoy this special location. The views and the information about the local area, history and aboriginal influence in the area was very informative. The lookout from Tower, 37 metres off the ground, was great fun for the kids, counting the stairs and having no fear about the structure. I felt less confident in the structure after I read that the decking was made out of recycled plastic bottles and industrial waste. Tig even felt a little nervous when we went to walk down the tower stairs and looked through the decking. We managed to coax Kai into walking all the way back to the car by the reward of a couple of smarties and Tig roaring like a monster chasing us back to the van.
We managed to travel a short distance on before finding our camping spot for the night at a little National Parks camping spot called Henrietta Creek. We set up just before dark with our fellow campers, about 3 HI ace vans and 1 Toyota Tarago with 4 backpackers crammed in. The Tarago relocated during the night after hearing a tree fall. We discovered in the morning that my first assumption of a few branches falling was incorrect but a whole tree fell blocking off a section of the camping ground. Thankfully we hadn’t decided to stay in that particular section as it would have been a very long and slow process hand sawing our way out of there.
Not long and we will post Part 2 of our journey to Cairns.
Till then…
Thea
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