Day 38 - There's no place like home

Each night on our trip we talked about the three best things that had happened today, and during our drive home today we talked about the three best things that have happened on the trip.



For Jim the three best things are:

• going to the tip of Cape York

• Fraser Island’s beautiful beaches and isolation

• the drive and seeing so many amazing places we haven't seen before

• the fishing at Weipa (yes I know there are 4 things, but I couldn’t get him to narrow it down any further).




For Helen the three best things are:

• the natural beauty and wildlife at Fraser Island

• making it to the tip of Cape York

• the spirit of Paronella Park – the idea that if you have a dream, even an impossible dream, anything can be achieved with hardwork, determination and persistence

• and also the spirits at Bundy Rum distillery (well if Jim can have 4 so can I!)

It's great to be home.

Day 37: Deniliquin

It is 8 hours drive to home, and there was much discussion about whether we could make it in the one day or not. Of course, we can drive for 8 hours, but do we really want to?

We stopped for lunch in Griffith (see the plane on a stick in Griffith) and had lunch with my friend Jackie. Jackie lives in Adelaide now, but was home in Griffith for the week, and it was great to catch up. As it turned out, it was at the Conargo Pub that we realised that we weren’t going to make it home before dark, so we might as well stop for the night! We settled on Deniliquin for our last night away and reminisced about our holiday.

Day 36: Dubbo

We were relieved to have decided to stay in a toasty warm cabin with the heater on all night, and we got an earlier start, planning a long day in the car and aiming for dinner in Dubbo. Not far out of Goondiwindi, Jim spotted a mate for his mudflap, and this ignited a series of stops to inspect mud flaps that had fallen from trucks. I'm not really sure why, but we stopped another 4 times to collect mud flaps. Please see Jim if you are interested in looking at his mud flap collection!


Lunch was in Moree and we were very entertained by the latest technology in automated public toilets. It was a ‘hands free’ toilet (well not entirely) and you waved your hand over a button to open and shut the door, then a voice tells you that you have 10 minutes and the door will automatically open to expose you to the whole world, so hurry up ( well not quite those words, but you get the idea), then soothing toilet music starts. Today, there was an instrumental version of ‘walking on sunshine’ to get things moving! There is automatic flushing, soap, water and handrying, then you start looking for a button to get out. Overall, one of my most memorable toiletting experiences.

Our stop for the night was in Dubbo, and opted for a motel room. The motel was lovely, and we had nachos for tea in the bar next to the open fire, very nice and toasty. We were thinking of stopping at the Western Plains Zoo, but we decided not to, presuming that if the animals had a cave they would surely be staying in it today, so we will hope to get back here another time.

Day 35: Fraser Island to Dalby

We were happy to be heading home after a really enjoyable visit to Fraser Island. Helen is homesick and missing her puppies, but Jim is happy to stay on the road forever. Jim got chatting with the campers next to us and found out they live near Bendigo (at Strathfieldsaye). It’s crazy that you can go so far away and still meet up with people from home!  It was an early start as we headed off to see the sun rise at the wreck of the Maheno. Actually, we got there at about 8 am and the sun was already up, but it was still spectacular, and as it was low tide we could get around the sea side of the ship.

 It was interesting to see the beach at low tide, and there was much discussion about how wide exactly it was, until Jim stopped the car and paced it out. It turns out that it is just on 100 metres, which means we were both wrong! Soon after it widened out to 150 m (another controversial measurement!)

All the roads on Fraser Island are sand, with various textures from soft and sandy (where the car groans along in first gear and you know that getting bogged is imminent), to firm and hard packed and you can zoom along at the speed limit of 80km per hour. As the tide goes out, there is another type of sand and that is the soft, slushy sand that makes you wonder if quick sand is real and could a car and camper trailer really be swallowed up without a trace?

This morning, we zoomed along the hard packed sand, and soon found ourselves back at the trees that held us up when we first arrived. Today, at low tide, there was at least 20m (??) of sand to drive on. It was only a short wait and we were back on the ferry and on our way to the mainland.

Getting off the ferry can be a challenge due to the soft sand, but we didn't have any problems. That is, until the car in front of us got bogged. We stopped to help them, but as we had the trailer on the back we could really only offer moral support. All the other cars from the ferry drove past, and left them there. It took a few attempts but we managed to flag down another 4wd to pull the car out, and then we were on our way, and of course we got bogged in the same spot. The car we stopped to help came back to offer moral support, which actually isn't all that helpful, then 3 blokes from Sri Lanka came along with their max trax (plastic sleds that sit under the wheel, on top of the sand you use to get traction and get moving). It took 3 goes before we were on our way, but we made it out of there and on to the bitumen road in Rainbow Beach for petrol, air in the tyres, and an under car wash. We even had time for lunch at a beachside cafe before heading to Gympie and on to Dalby for the night. The weather forecast was for minus 5 overnight, so we decided it was too cold for camping and booked into a cabin for the night. Somehow we managed to go from 25 degrees at Fraser Island to -5 in Dalby, all in the space of just a couple of hours.

Day 34: Fraser Island

It was too cold to get up early and we enjoyed a sleep in and another late start which included bacon and eggs for brekky. We saw a dingo wander through the park looking for his breakfast too. The kookaburras were out and came quite close to our camp looking for scraps, but of course there are no scraps as you are not allowed to feed any animals on Fraser Island.

We headed south to Woralie Road, then to knife blade sand blow, where we walked up to the lookout and saw the massive sand dune. Here we noticed the scribbly gums, which are huge curious gum trees, with scribbly markings on the bark.

We continued on to Lake Allom and saw a lace monitor (huge lizardy thing), yellow robins in the picnic ground and turtles in the lake. The drive through the rainforest was spectacular - the kauri trees were huge, up to 2 metres across at the base, and the satinay trees were 3 metres across at the base.

After all this, we headed back towards Eli Creek and met up with John and Helen, who we met on the first day when we got off the barge. They have set up camp along the beach and were fishing for tailor – it was nice to catch up with them and we have enjoyed the company of many interesting people on our travels. There are many freshwater creeks on Fraser Island, and Eli Creek is the largest, pouring 4 million litres of fresh water into the ocean per hour. Eli Creek can be a big challenge to cross at high tide. There is a boardwalk along the edge of the creek, and it seems to be the place to jump on a LILO and float along the creek to the ocean. It was a bit cold for swimming for us today (although there were plenty of people swimming). We enjoyed a paddle along the creek to the ocean where we these fish called jungle perch, very rare and endangered and scientists don't understand how they got to be here, and how they survive in these conditions.

This is the Eli Creek crossing at high tide.
As we headed back to camp and drove past John and Helen’s camp, Helen came running out to offer us some fish. ‘You can't go home from Fraser Island without trying the local fish!’ she said, and so we had the fish (tailor) for tea and it was delicious.

Helen loves sunsets and we parked on the beach to watch the sunset, and it was Helen’s turn to drive back to camp. The sunset was spectacular, but Helen got bogged in the sand on the exit road to the camping ground. It was a good place to get bogged and luckily, three car load of back packers were behind us, and there were soon 12 people trying to push us out. that didn't work, so a quick snatch backwards and we were soon on our way. So far, Helen is the only person to get the car bogged and it is a badge I wear with pride!

Day 33: Fraser Island

We slept in and had a late start, and it was nice to take our time. Frasers at Cathedral Beach it is a lovely camping ground and we enjoyed the birds, and kept eye out for dingos. We started the day with a drive north to Indian Head and there was a blockage on the road while a couple of cars got bogged – Jim went to help because you never know when you need good unbogging karma. Eventually they got it sorted out and we made it through. By this time, the tide was high and we couldn't get any further north without serious water driving, so we decided to head back south.  Helen was very excited when the mobile phone chimed. I got a message - Yay. I managed to send one back, and had to stand on the car with my arm in the air, but I got it sent. Happy birthday Dad.

Fraser Island is a sand island, and that means that there is sand everywhere. Lots of different colours, consistency, softness and hardness but it is all sand. This is a place called The Pinnacles, and it is a big cliff of beautifully coloured sands.
We drove along the beach to Happy Valley resort and saw this small plane and commented on how low in the sky it was. It went past, and I lost sight of it. I was asking Jim if he could see the plane because I couldn’t see it on the left or right or behind us. Where did that plane go? Just then, brrrrr and the plane appears just over the bonnet and landed on the beach in front of us!

We travelled along the rough sandy inland road to Lake Garawongera, where we stopped for lunch. It was a pretty lake, but much too cold to swim (well too cold for us, but there were some kids who jumped in). We continued through the rainforest to Poyungan Valley, which was a lovely drive. The inland track was very challenging, but Jim was in his element. There were rocks, uneven sand dunes, offset holes in the road, soft sandy patches and corrugations. It was a slow drive and we averaged 14 km per hour over about 2 hours, but it was spectacular rainforest that was drove into, through and above.

As we drove back along the beach we saw a dingo annoying some fisherman, trying to get the bait or maybe even a fish. We got some great photos of the dingo and enjoyed just watching him – he was very persistent, but there are very clear warnings not to feed or interact with the dingos and there are big fines if you get caught. We saw many dingos, but didn’t ever feel threatened or notice any aggressive behaviour.

The weather at Fraser Island during the day is lovely at around 22 degrees, with a clear sunny blue sky, but the nights are cold and we did huddle around the citronella candle for an hour before going to bed very early because it was too cold to stay up.

Day 32: Fraser Island

We left Bundaberg and headed south - our destination today is Fraser Island and we are both very excited and looking forward to it. We have wanted to get to Fraser Island for a long time. We stopped for smoko in Maryborough, and headed towards Rainbow Beach. It sounds like such a pretty place. We decided to get onto the island at Inskip Point because we have our camper trailer and we are worried about the inland roads and we are more confident that we will be able to get through along the beach road. We got our permits and barge tickets and waited for the barge to come back and get us. Luckily we didn't get bogged getting onto or off the barge! I know Jim loves sand driving, but there has been a tendency for this to end up with being bogged in the sand!

The deckhand on the barge told us to drive around the headland, get out our chairs and have some lunch while we waited for the tide to go out. It sounded like a great idea, and as we drove around the headland we realized that we couldn't actually go any further until the tide went out and there was dry sand for us to drive on.

 We had some lunch and wandered along the beach - it was so beautiful.

We saw a dugong that had been washed up on the beach and died, and then noticed a sleepy dingo nearby. The dingo kept one eye on us as we wandered past, but didn't seem too interested in us. I think we were safe as long as we left his dugong alone!

After about an hour, we decided to brave the receding tide and continue along our way. It was a spectacular drive, as we crossed freshwater creeks, rocks and the wreck of the Maheno - a ship wrecked in 1930s. As the tide slipped away, we were able to zoom along the beach at around 70 km per hour, and soon we were at our campground: Frasers at Cathedral Beach. We set up camp and settled in. It gets dark early here, because we are the eastern side if the island and very low behind a huge sand dune. The camping ground is behind the first row of sand dunes on the eastern side of Fraser Island and it’s a sandy camp. Actually there is salt and sand everywhere and it makes an interesting pattern with the red dust from Cape York, and the soft white local sand.

Lizard update: The gecko was found today, squished between the canvas of the camper.



Problem: There is no mobile phone or Internet access. For 4 whole days!!

Day 31: Bundaberg

We set out to tour the local tourist attractions: we went to the barrel where they make Bundaberg Ginger beer – the tour was good and we got to try all their drinks, and some new ones we hadn't seen before.

We visited the cooperage where they make wooden barrel kegs and the highlight of the day was a visit to the Bundy Rum distillery.

The Rum tour was good – we saw the molasses storage, barrels where they age the rum. At the end of the tour we got to try the rum - two drinks each. Yay. Lucky we didn't go on the 9.30 tour!  Helen tried the Rum Crisp, a new rum and soda pre-mix drink which was very nice, and a chocolate, coffee liquor. There is apparently a game of football on tonight that Queenslanders are very excited about, and we went to Brothers Sports Club for tea. We walked back to the caravan park, and Jim went to watch the end of the footy in the Camp Kitchen and ended up trying to explain Rugby to a family from Belgium.

Lizard update: For those of you who are interested there is still no sign of the lizard. Apparently it is one of those little geckos so it should be sitting on the roof eating bugs, but we have not seen him since the first sighting. Do they make a lizard trap (you know, like a mouse trap, only for lizards)?

Day 30: Bundaberg

Helen was very excited about heading towards Bundaberg. We started the day off by crossing the tropic of Capricorn and stopped for a few photos at the marker.  They say (not sure who 'they' are...) that you can see crocs in the wild above the tropic of Capricorn, so we should be all clear now!

We had smoko at Spinnaker Park, Gladstone. Gladstone was a pretty place, nice river and a huge wharf which seemed to ship coal to the nearby power station.

We stopped for lunch at Bororen, then called into Rosedale for an ice-cream and 20 litres of fuel to be sure we made it to Bundaberg. The caravan park was lovely and we set up camp, then headed out to explore the town. There are so many beautiful birds, this is one of the noisy ones that woke us up this morning.

It seems there is a lizard in the camper. Jim reckons he saw it run in, I'm not sure why he didn't catch it then, but full bedding inspections are now required before I will get into bed, until the lizard is found. I don't know how big it is. Jim says it's only small, but how small is small enough when we are talking about a lizard in your bed?

Day 29: Rockhampton

We stopped in Mackay for smoko and lunch at Clairview, which was a small rest area along the coast. It was a great little spot and the local WAGS used a small room near the toilets to sell cups of tea and coffee home made cakes and arts and crafts. ‘What does WAGS stand for?’ Jim asks. The ladies laughed – it was obviously a question they had heard many times and they all had a different answer: Women's action group, women and gentlemen’s society, women against group sex! We had a chat and a laugh with the ladies, and bought a couple of slices of carrot cake, coconut ice, and a chocolate slice.

We stayed at a caravan park in Rockhampton and discovered they had a restaurant. Jim checked it out and it looked like a great option for dinner because it was a stonegrill restaurant, and that is Helen’s favourite.
Helen had ‘Stone of the Moment’, which included Balmain Bug, Tasmania Salmon, prawns and scallops, to cook on a stone grill. Jim ordered crocodile to cook on the stonegrill. It was delicious, although the lady owner was busy feeding 100 teenage softball players, and was a bit cranky.

Day 28: Airlie Beach

Helen is cranky. She had 31 sandfly bites on one leg and 22 on the other leg. Of all of the creatures that I could have been bitten by (crocodile, taipan, brown snake, black snake, encephalitis or dengue fever infected mosquito), this was probably a good option, but the sandfly bites are unbearably itchy.

It was cold and raining and we were both miserable (well Jim was only miserable because Helen was very cranky). We drove out to Shute Harbour and looked at the yachts and islands in the Whitsunday Passage. The rain finally stopped and we looked for a geocache, and then wandered around the shops in Airlie Beach. We had fish and chips for lunch from the Fancy Fish Shop - actually, it wasn't that fancy, then wandered around the lagoon, and the marina and the day turned out to be sunny. But we didn't really love Airlie Beach and ended up happy to leave.

Day 27: Airlie Beach

We packed up camp at Paronella Park in the rain and continued our journey south. We gave our Cape York map to a young bloke called Darcy, from Phillip Island and exchanged stories about Fraser Island and Cape York. It's funny the impressions you form about a place from reading the tourist books. Darcy though you needed to navigate via GPS to find the right track to Cape York, and he set us straight about Fraser Island.

We drove to Mission Beach and saw the devastation of cyclone Yasi. Houses either had a shiny new roof, a blue tarp on the roof or no roof at all. It seemed that few houses escaped the cyclone. We could see trees with new growth that had clearly lost all of their leaves, and several big gum trees and palm trees were broken off at the top.   We saw a cassowary along the roadside near Mission Beach. They are quite big, similar to an emu, however they have brightly coloured feathers and a blue head.

Smoko was at Ingham, and we had a quick lunch in Townsville. We stopped at the big snake in Ayr, and Queensland has got a lot of 'big' things.  The strangest of all 'big' things was the 'Big Mango'. 

We had a quick look at Bowen. Bowen was an interesting place, we stopped at Queens Beach, which is a beautiful beach (but you can’t swim because of crocs, sharks and stingers), then drove around to the wharf where the film Australia was made.

We ended up in Airlie Beach and set up camp for a couple of nights. Helen got sandfly bites as soon as she got out of the car. Sandflies are mean. You can't see them, and you are bitten before you even know what has happened. And once you are bitten, they start to itch. It's not too bad at first, but on the second day the itching is almost unbearable.

Day 26: Paronella Park (near Innisfail)

It seems that each day that we head further south it gets colder and the weather is more unpleasant. Today is another grey day, with drizzly rain, but it is warm at around 25 degrees. And a bit sticky.  We headed for Paronella Park, which is a park created by José Paronella in the 1930s.  It is an awesome and beautiful park, which we toured by day and night, and we camped in their caravan park.

  This is Kauri Avenue, a pathway of massive Kauri trees.

The refreshment rooms.

The day tour was lovely and we enjoyed hearing about José Paronella’s dream to create a Spanish castle in Queensland. He was such an inspiring man, and developed a hydro electric system long before electricity came to the area, and I am sure that it was a park that was enjoyed by many people.  The night tour was different, and some areas of the park are illuminated and this creates a spectacular effect. The highlights were the waterfall and the refreshment centre – both beautiful by day, and awesome at night.

Day 25: Cairns

We backtracked to Mossman for a look around and discovered we had a flat tyre. Although the Goodyear Tyre shop is not normally a tourist destination, there were quite a few tourists there today, and we were happy to get the puncture fixed and to be on our way. It’s funny that we have travelled over 5,000km over very rough and rugged roads, and we get a puncture in Port Douglas.

We travelled back to Cairns and set up camp. Alwyn (the local identity in the caravan park) told us they had 127 mm of rain yesterday, so we decided to just park the camper and head into town, then open it up later. We wandered around Cairns, had a nice lunch at the Banana Leaf – Helen had Prawn Laksa and Jim had Wonton Noodle Soup.  We were planning a trip to Green Island to swim and snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef, but there was a strong wind warning and rough seas, so we decided not to go - mainly because Jim gets seasick and being the shark magnet that he is - it seemed a hazardous combination.

The rain had really set in, so we headed back to the Caravan park, and set up the camper quickly and got a pizza for tea before spending the night in the camper – it was good to have an early night.

Day 24: The Bloomfield Track through the Daintree

Well it turns out that the Bloomfield track wasn’t dusty at all. They have had rain for a couple of days and it was muddy. Slippery, sticky mud. Brown and red mud. And big rocks and fast flowing creeks to cross. It was everything a 4WD adventurer could ask for. Actually, it was a lot of fun.

We left Lakeland and headed to Helenvale, where we stopped in at the Lion’s Den Hotel. It looked like a fun place and we wandered, but it was before 10.30 so a bit too early for a coldie, so we continued on our journey south. The first part of the Bloomfield track was slippery and muddy, but we enjoyed the drive through the rainforest.

We saw our first crocodile of the trip and it was in the Bloomfield River on the other side of the bank. We both agreed that this is the perfect place to see a crocodile! The Bloomfield causeway was washed away in the recent floods, but there is a temporary crossing in place and you are able to get across at low tide, so we timed our crossing well with only a short wait. The next part of the trip involved much rougher, rockier driving, finishing with a long, deep water crossing. Perfect!

We pulled into Cape Tribulation with mud dripping from every part of the car and trailer – it was a badge we wore proudly amongst the shiny rental cars. Just opening a door sprayed other cars with mud. The Daintree rainforest is spectacular and we enjoyed lunch in the forest, and several beach walks. We crossed the Daintree River (by ferry) and wandered through the Daintree Village – very beautiful.

We headed towards Port Douglas and at the very first car wash we decided it was time for the mud to go. I didn’t take long with a high pressure hose for the car to sparkle again, and we pulled into the caravan park at Port Douglas feeling shiny and new. Unfortunately, by washing the car it made it rain and we woke up in the middle of the night to the patter of raindrops on the roof, and had a scamper to bring everything inside the camper.

Day 23: Weipa to Lakeland

Last night we found the camp cane toad. I had been hearing the rustling in the bushes and panicked everytime and the boys went hunting and found the cane toad. Isn’t he cute?

Here is Owen and his dog Barker. Owen took Rick and Jim out fishing every day and became a great mate.

 I will miss the sunsets in Weipa – they were spectacular and different every night.

We departed Weipa and headed south, stopping for lunch at The Bends near Coen on the Coen River. It was a pretty spot and we could have camped here, but it was time to keep moving south. We stopped at Hann River roadhouse for an icream and met Darren who is a truckie who had a problem with his truck. He had hitched a ride into town and was looking for a ride 10kms back to his truck. He jumped in with Rick and both Jim and Rick were keen to explore the broken down road train.

We camped at Lakeland, which for Rick was the end of the dirt road. He pumped up his tyres and went for a car wash, but for Helen and Jim the Bloomfield track is a dusty road that stands between them and a hot shower. We had fish for tea again. I can’t tell you how many meals of fish we have had in a row – I have lost count, but I am ready for something else. Macaroni cheese anyone?

Day 22: Weipa - Monday 27 June

Another morning in the boat with Owen - Rick caught 5 fish, 4 black bream and one large grunter. The grunter is aptly named because of the noise it makes when it gets in the boat. Jim saw a big shark in the water today that headed straight for the boat – it t-boned the boat. It was alarming to see the dorsal fin in the water, coming straight for the boat (obviously attracted to Jim’s shark-magnetism). Jim caught a leopard-ray – it was massive at almost a metre across, and put up a great fight. But as soon as they worked out what it was, they cut the line because sting rays can be very dangerous when they flick up their tail and try and get you with their barbed stinger.

It was impressive to see two sting rays dive out of the water and fly through the air – very impressive creatures. Rick saw an enormous sea eagle fishing along the river.

We filled up with petrol and it seems very cheap – only $1.68 per litre. Better fill ‘er up!

We are off the Bowling Club for tea tonight. It’s a buffet dinner – Jim’s favourite food! I think I am looking forward to a change from fish for every meal. Tomorrow we head further south, and soon Dad will head off as he needs to make his way home, and Jim and I will continue on to the Daintree.

Day 21: Weipa - Sunday 26 June

The tides are flat for the next few days, so morning fishing is apparently the best. The boys headed out at around 9 am. Rick caught 3 blue salmon to put in a top rod performance, and Jim caught a big blue salmon, a hammerhead shark, a toadfish and a big stingray that went all the way around the boat. The wildlife was amazing and they saw a pod of dolphins, but surprisingly, no crocs have been sighted.

We have enjoyed our time in a place where bananas are only $5 a kilo. I bought two kilos of these little green bananas and they are delicious, but I wonder if there is a limit to how many bananas a girl should eat in one day. I guess I will know tomorrow!

Sunday night is fish fry night and we had fish and chips by the beach for tea, while we watched the sun set. The sunsets are glorious in Weipa and the colours are spectacular.