| Frank & Lisa's Amazing Cross-Australia Adventures |
| The Queensland Coast (4) |
| That afternoon while Frank was still diving I wandered around the Pier Marketplace and did some reading for work. Frank arrived home shortly before Sue arrived to take us to Palm Cove for dinner. May's parents were fabulous hosts despite obviously having longer days than planned. We had a lovely meal and chat before catching a cab back to town. And that was the end of our time in Cairns. |
| on to more Queensland Coast ...or |
| Cairns - continued |
| It has been said that sometimes the fun is just in getting there. Ths was not necessarily the case on our journey to Undara Lava Lodge. We had previously had an ongoing joke about counting the dead kangaroos on the side of the road. On this day we managed to count 47 in an hour, and with no air conditioning and the windows rolled down, there were obviously more that were out of our sight! Nothing smells quite like a dead kangaroo. Then with only about an hour left in our 6 hour drive, the highway changed. |
| Undara |
| After that tour we were also signed up for a sunset tour. It takes you through the savannah for a bit of wildlife spotting before heading to a lovely lookout for sunset pics below right). After that you head off to another tube to watch hundreds (supposedly thousands later in the season) of microbats (very quickly) exiting the cave for the night to feed (pic below left). This tour group was really fun & outgoing, no doubt aided along by the abundant champagne served at sunset! |
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| It reduced to one lane in width with no lines down the middle and rather wide gravel shoulders to use on the odd occasion that a vehicle came in the other direction (pic right). It was particularly interesting while we were passing 50m long road trains (trucks 2 1/2 trailers long) with swerving back ends who were not always making use of their share of gravel. |
| Once we got to the lodge we checked into our tent and were greeted by a myriad of kangaroos inhabiting the camp site (pic right). We had time to make our beds and have a quick snack before heading off to tour the lava tubes that brought us this far inland. The organized tour was really interesting. I had not known what to expect, but this was not it. These caves were huge and oddly symmetrically round due to the nature of their |
| formation (pic right). These were remnants of the paths of massive lava flows of millions of years ago. The outside of the flow cooled as the insides continued flowing. Now they are a system of hollow tubes that can be spotted above ground by the tracks of rainforest growing from its mineral deposits in the middle of a vast savannah (pic below right). Very cool! And instead of being made of pure black lava stone, rain water has brought mineral deposits in over the years (like iron, calcium and sulphur), so some areas now sport an array of colours (pic below left). |
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| Back at the lodge, we were off to dinner. It was a fantastic buffet with a choice of barbequed mains. I had kangaroo, which I have grown to quite enjoy. It must, however, be cooked properly - seared on either side and warm but pure red in the middle. Frank had an equally yummy fabulous steak. |
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| Once we were on our way we entered cattle country. This far out of the way, however, they don't necessarily fence along the roads. We had to stop regulary for cattle as they casually sauntered off of the road and out of our way, and at one point there was a fire on the side of the road (presumably a controlled burn) that didn't seem to be bothering them at all (pic left)! |
| The next morning we were off again and headed back to Townsville via the inland highway. This is the highway we were on before and the driving conditions did not improve... However, this time the fun really was all in getting there! What a strange outback adventure we had! One thing that helped was that the amount of passing traffic hugely diminished. We were out in the middle of nowhere! First up we had to get gas. There was only one place between Undara & Charters Towers to do that (the only gas station for about 450km). At this gas station we discovered 99c/ltr gas prices (clearly inflated prices for Qld, but still quite reasonable compared to the averages in other states) & Australia's smallest bar (pic right). |
| We stopped for lunch in Charters Towers. When I was here with Kelli someone hit our parked rental car while we were having lunch. This time while we were eating lunch at the same place, Frank left our lights on. Fortunatly the battery didn't die because it was Sunday and we'd have been stuck there! Between Charters Towers and Townsville I told Frank that we had to try to get a photo of a windmill & a dead kangaroo with the red road in the photo. This was because I had challenged Kelli with the same task the year before and she missed the opportunity. This time I had a perfect opportunity, but stopping was problematic. Frank offered to turn around, but I decided that the kangaroo was too far gone for Kelli to believe that I had fulfilled the task... The things you do after tens of hours in a car to amuse yourself! |
| Townsville Revisited |
| That evening we returned to Towsville and checked into our little budget hotel on The Strand. We had a quick dip in the hotel pool (why risk using the stinger-netted beaches if you don't have to), ate dinner in, and I did homework while Frank watched bad movies on TV. We were now heading back south, looking forward to a well-deserved spoiling at the Coral Sea Resort in the Whitsundays the next day! |
| Northern Territory: Red Centre , 2 / Top End , 2 NSW & ACT: Hunter Valley / Sydney / Canberra , 2 Queensland Coast: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 South Australia: Barossa Valley / Kangaroo Island / McLaren Vale & Coonawarra Victoria: Great Ocean Road , 2 , 3 / Melbourne New Zealand (North Island): Aukland / Rotorua / Tongariro / Wellington (South Island): Nelson / Westland / Queenstown / Milford / Dunedin / Mt Cook / Christchurch |