Lucky Kids

We shared a look, Sara and I. The kids were nattering away, having Santa hat drawing competitions on the pvc tablecloth bought especially for that purpose. They’d already made a mess of the anti-pasto type Christmas lunch, and as they ignored Vivaldi’s “Gloria” playing in the background, they leapt onto their second bottle of Bundaberg’s finest ginger beer. As they guzzled and giggled, we shared a look because we know we are lucky kids.

Sara, kids and chair



Oli, out squatting in his (in torrential rain)

Kimmy, oustanding in her field

 

Ivy at Raspberry Hill lookout

We have been on the road for 365 days. Tomorrow will mark a year since we hooked up Kimmy for the first time and made the torturous journey down to Barwon Heads from Melbourne. An hour and a half of pure terror. I’ll never forget the look of relief on Sara’s face when she saw Sal there to greet her with a glass of wine, and Jacko met me with advice and common sense. So long ago.

 

3 little reindeer

At that time we had planned to be home for Christmas. It was an Anderson Christmas this year, so the call to Mum to tell her we wouldn’t be back in time wasn’t easy. Instead, we are on the banks of the Mann River, 70 kilometres west of Grafton, staying on some blokes’ farm. Incredibly, this farm is not far from the property that was settled by Mum’s family back in the 1800’s. The property where my Grandmother was born. Funny how things work out. It’s conceivable that I could have still lived there. Unlikely given my complete lack of farm skills, but conceivable. Ramornie is no longer in my family, but I am drawn to this country.

 

Getting ready for a feast

The debate once we were certain we were not coming home was where Christmas should be. Cousins, Aunts, and friends all asked us to stay but we decided that it should just be us. Beach or bush? Caravan park or national park? In the end, Rorys’ offer of his mates’ farm was perfect. A friendly river at the bottom of the hill, lush green hills in the distance, and a flat, accessible caravan friendly site with only the occasional happy cowboy churning past in a Toyota ute for company. The boys elected to set up the tents they found by the
bins in Yamba; Sara, Ivy and I were in the van.

 

Santa sacks

Christmas morning and not too early a start. Santa had managed to find us, spilt his milk, probably in disgust, while the reindeer made a mess of their carrots as per usual. Pressie highlights were a sundress for Ivy, lollies for Ned, old Nat Geos for Oli, and a new camp throne with chiller box that can hold up to 130kgs for Sara. Two of her could sit in it! Pancakes followed pressies, and adventure followed pancakes!

 

 

The fantastic four arrive home safe...and late

Sara dropped us off about 6 -8 k’s upstream with a canoe and two tyres. Several mini-rapids were negotiated without incident but a lot of laughter, at least until Ned bruised his bum. Panic only set in when we realised we were going to miss the return deadline we had set with Sara. The thought of her sitting on the bank, torn between looking at her watch, and looking for us through the binoculars put an end to a leisurely float. We powered down the river, towing Oli in his tyre, going backwards down the final set of rapids not because it was more fun, but because I had completely lost control of the canoe by that point. It was more fun though. Two and a half hours after saying goodbye to Sara, we saw her again just as it began to rain and just before she asked the happy cowboy for help. Home safe to Kimmy and our Christmas lunch. Sara and I shared a look and had a sip. We are lucky kids. Merry Christmas and thank you to my family for this special year.

 

H

Boundary Creek Falls

Just One of the Crowd

Ned at the Big (tired) Pineapple

In 1988, two mates of mine, Shane and David gave me the unfortunate nickname of "Petrol" when they needed financial assistance on a roadtrip to Surfers Paradise. It has been 24 years since then, and if I'm there within another 24, it'll be too soon. Oh the horror of all that concrete and prefabricated glitz. But I was back because we were staying in Brisbane, and when I stay in Brisbane, there is nothing I like better than to drive for an hour to get to a theme park so that I can stand in line with people with regrettable tattoos and loud voices.
















Boys and chooks

We stayed with cousin Sam and her partner Mark, dogs Dom and Moe`, blind Geoffrey the pigeon, 4 chooks, and 2 cockateels. Not sure where the time went, but there was plenty of Chrissie shopping, and 4 trips down the highway for theme parks and a forgettable time share briefing. Ned and I returned to Cooloola Cove to pick up Kimmy, and made sure we ticked off some big things and Hungry Jacks on the way.

Ned and crab, plenty more on ice!

The theme parks were fun, but so crowded that it wasn't unusual to wait 45 minutes in line for a 2 minute ride. "Wet and Wild" was particularly bad, with dozens of school groups "Oh my Godding" all over the place. Still, the kids had a ball, as did we once we were out of the queue. Sara did well, tearing herself from her book to brave a couple of rides including one roller coaster! Oli ticked everything off including a 53 metre bungee swing with me. Why I let him have control of the rip cord I'll never know. Mohammed went on that ride before us. His pregnant wife wasn't able to do anything in the park, but was insistent that he did so that he would get over his fear of heights before the birth of his son. Poor, sweaty, jiggly, chatty Mohammed was just hoping he'd get to meet the boy! Immersion theory at it's finest.

Cute contest, Dom the wimpy mutt vs Pip the kelpie

A girl and her pony (horse) called Honeybuzz, of course!

We left Brisbane with an esky full of blue swimmer (sand) crabs, having helped Mark haul in his crab pots the day before. The next stop was Toowoomba and Angus and Bidge McDowall's farm. Whilst this visit was never part of our original plans, it was lovely. I had a taste of farm life growing up, but the kids haven't had  joy of watching a sheep dog do it's job. Angus breeds kelpies. The kids fed the puppies, rode in the ute, rode a horse bareback, did farm chores, and almost got to see how foals are made. All in all a very exciting couple of days.

Lamington National Park

We then took the most direct route into Lamington National Park, but were told on arrival that Kimmy was too big. We drove back down the too curly and too steep mountain and into Nerang, setting up in a caravan park that was chock a block with permanent residents and was easilly the most depressing and poverty stricken park we have stayed in. Everyone seemed to have some sort of affliction or disability. Even the park manager was in a coma, but that wasn't funny because it was true. We went hiking in the park the next day and had a long walk, made slow because the kids were spotting wildlife everywhere. Home for a bbq, DVD's for the kids and "Skyfall" at the Nerang cinema across the road for Sara and me. So ended a world class day!

Western (almost), Northern, Eastern: tick!

Almost a decade ago, friends from Melbourne, Phil and Nikki left on a trip like ours with their 4 kids. Van first, then boat. On returning to Melbourne, they packed up and left to live in Mullumbimby outside of Byron Bay. They now live on the top floor of a former convent complete with a confessional, and a statue of Mary in the garden. It was fascinating comparing journies, as well as seeing their kids for the first time in ages. They almost convinced us to stay on for Christmas, there certainly is something addictive in the area, and it wasn't just Phil's hugs.

Fireworks at Brunswick Heads

I'm not talking about Nimbin, that was pretty sad really. Kind of like an evil Disneyland throw back to the sixties. However the hinterland country side is lush and inviting, the Japanese cafe in Federal was a surprise, and the fish tacos in Byron almost demmand you hang around permanently. The beach at Byron was everything I'd heard about, with Hamish friendly surf on tap even if the Pass wasn't working perfectly. But the crowds were massive. Traffic everywhere, and a busy shopping centre that made Sorrento in mid-summer seem quiet. Wish I'd gone to Byron 24 years ago instead of Surfer's; it's certainly not what it apparently was.

Christmas is rapidly approaching, with only 4 days to go as I write. Thanks to Rory McDowall who was over for dinner last night, we look like we'll be camping by the Clarence river on the day. A quiet, family Christmas, just us, cheese, ham, pudding, ginger beer and wine. Perfect. Speak to you then.

H

Searching for a Real Man

Kids at the Maheno wreck

I would never be considered to be a poster boy for the alpha male set. Skinny and bookish me. Whilst I am resigned to my lot, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a little inadequate at times. Still, no man likes to have their own perceived masculine inadequacies rubbed in. However, just before I lined the Disco up for a third crack at the sand dune leading up to Indian Head on Fraser Island, I asked my ever supportive spouse if she was nervous. “Well” muttered she, “I wouldn’t be if you were Bill Fry.”

Alpha male food; Spam, Deb mashed potato,
rehydrated peas and carrots, YUM

Now Bill Fry is one of my brother in laws, and I consider him a good mate. He is without question an alpha male. But Sara wasn’t sitting beside Bill, she was sitting beside Hamish, and crikey, didn’t Hamish give the Disco some curry after that! Summited without a problem, and drove hard from then on. Got mildly bogged once. When Bill was on Fraser, he got bogged so badly he came within 15 minutes of losing his Landrover to the tide. But of course, that's a small detail Sara had decided to overlook! We spent 4 days on Fraser, and did a lot of driving. Camped on the beach and in the forest. Watched backpackers cavorting in the shallows of Lake Mackenzie and dodged dingos on the beach whilst trying to text friends at a Christmas dinner in Melbourne. Ned and I did a great hike up to Basin Lake, and I finally came through on my promise to cook old fashioned camping food, ie Spam and Deb and dried peas with canned plum pudding and custard for dessert! The boys loved it, Sara had tofu. Despite the fun and games, we won't be back though unless we develop a desire to fish and 4WD with passion.
 

Sandblow

Before we'd left for Fraser, the van had got itself caught on the Disco's over engineered towball hitch, destroyed that and fallen off the back of the disco in the caravan park. The park manager and his tractor saw us right, then suggested that Wayne of "Rainbow Wreckers" might be the person to speak to regarding fixing the twisted hitch. Wayne is an alpha male of a different sort. Short, with thinning hair and questionable dental hygiene, he is a wizard with all things mechanical. Wayne has at various times in his life created a 4WD Rolls Royce, a 6WD Cadillac, a hovercraft / fan boat among other bizarre crafts. He also has the Fraser Island transport contract which makes him a very wealthy man.
 

Wayne must have seen something in me, something in my desperation, that made his alpha tendencies go a bit beta. "I can fix that" he pronounced and took the hitch off my hands. Less than a day later, we'd managed to fit it into the Disco again, caravan ready. All for the cost of a case of XXXXGold. In the meantime, the electronic latch on the rear door failed. We left for Fraser anyway, but bumped into Wayne while de-salting the car after Fraser. "Did you fix the back door?" he demanded; "I can do it at 3:30 after I drop this load of cement off". He fixed the door latch, we hitched the van up, and left Rainbow Beach late on Tuesday evening. That's when Wayne's reputation got sullied.




Ivy running into Lake Wabby

The road out of Rainbow Beach is hilly and twisty. At 90kph, coming down one of the hills, Wayne's handiwork came undone and the hitch fell out of the car again, dropping the caravan onto the highway held only by the safety chains. A thump, sparks, and the screaming of metal. The road was straight and I was able to slow down gradually to a stop. If we'd been going around a corner, things would have been horribly different and the inertia of the van would have dictated where we ended up. Have been trying not to think about that.

Landrover hitch after being dragged for 100m's. Quality steel at least!

On the side of the highway, Sara corralled the kids whilst calling for help on a phone with a failing battery. Cars raced by in the darkness, then one stopped. Chris and Lyn stepped out of their Landrover and walked across the road to survey the situation. We got the van jacked up, and reconnected the hitch, and then decided not to use it. Wise. Instead, Chris and Lyn towed us back to their house, parked the van in the yard next door, made sure we had everything we needed, and left to go fishing, again. An alpha male and a good Samaritan in one neat package.




Backsons and Irwins

Still shell shocked the next morning, we said good bye to Chris, Lyn and Kimmy, and headed down the road towards Brisbane and the Australia Zoo. Was Steve Irwin an alpha male? You'd be hard pressed to argue that a bloke who could wrestle crocs, catch snakes, surf, live in pretty forbidding country and establish a multi-million dollar business wasn't. So in keeping with the theme of the past week, we dropped into his zoo to pay our respects, and I got all teary.

Alpha males in training

Australia Zoo is a massive operation. Clean as a whistle and co-ordinated to a fault. Not much in the way of animals we hadn't seen, but some nice shows, and plenty of room. Poor dead Steve is all over the place. Grinning from every available vantage point, he's screaming "crikey" from every screen and every sign. The problem though, is that because this particular alpha male jumped on the back of a sting ray, he's no longer here, and I can't help feeling that because of that, the Irwin empire is running out of time no matter how many crop tops Bindi sells. For as much as he made me cringe, I could never fault his ethics and his desire to improve our world. I miss you Steve, and if tearing up as I admit that disqualifies me from alpha status, I can deal with that. I still have my family. 


H






 

A Stranger is Just a Friend We Haven't Met!!

How to torture your child in a fun way.

Visiting people our parents know that to us are total strangers? No, haven't done too much of that on this trip. Mum was not to be denied however. Shona McDowal was Mum's best friend, and a very regular visitor to my home growing up. Mum insisted in the nicest possible way that we get in touch with Shona's nephew Wal, and his wife Rach in Emerald. We hadn't planned on touring anymore mining towns in outback Queensland, but then Mum had suggested we should, and so we did.

Impressive, old school form

 

"How do you want to start?" asked Rach. "Wine, beer, bubbles, or would you prefer to park the van now?" Dad's old idiom "first things first" came to mind, and the van was backed into the yard without delay. It became obvious rapidly that Rach's enthusiasm for a drink was equalled only by her enthusiasm for a chat. In half an hour, it became even more obvious that she and Wal were a match made in heaven and this visiting thing was off to a fabulous start.
















The next four days were a blur of water skiing, flying, swimming, loud talking, drinking and touring. We all went water skiing on the dam, Sara unable to resume her glory days on a single ski off a long rope but was a star on the short rope. Wal took myself and the kids for a tour of the area in his plane, possibly getting a little close to one of the local coal mines. Their kids, Georgie and William, although littler than ours, were great fun, as was Crinkles the dog.





Cotton circles from the sky

On the last night, we went out to Rob's shed. Rob's shed is the reason so few of the local farmers go to the local pubs. They can store their beer in his shed, and drop by whenever they want to drink it with people they actually want to drink with. A simple concept, but one that works nicely. On the night we went, Rob even put on a "son et lumiere" for us. A massive storm front pushed through just to our north bringing lightning and a bit of rain. Rob, Wal, Ryano, Bob, Glenn, Danni and Scott huddled around their iPhones, studying the radar just like their cotton farming fathers did in years gone by...or didn't as the case maybe. Cityboy Hamish got a good talking to re the future of farming (crap), government (crap), American government (crap), global warming (crap), and Brazilian cotton farmers (really crap), and mostly kept his mouth shut until Wal fell asleep and Cityboy had to fend for himself deferentially. After all, I was a guest in Rob's shed, and Rob is a big unit at 6'8".





Kids, Wal, and his toy (almost paid for)

We dragged ourselves away the next morning and headed gradually to the coast. The gradual thing was through no fault of our own, it's just that in Queensland, it appears to be against the law to drive on a road that is not being worked on. Back to the coast, Yeppoon (waterslide in the park), 1770 (surfing again!!!), Bundaberg (turtle laying eggs that needed relocating), and Rainbow Beach where the towball fell off the back of the Disco as I was perfecting yet another reverse park. No matter, money and time and a very dodgy bloke from Rainbow Wreckers who drives a Jaguar will have a crack at repairing it on Saturday. We'll be on Fraser Island.




The GT Hoses gang (William and Georgie on the right and Crinks in the middle)

 

H

Castaways on the Island of Death...(not really)



Ivy and clown fish

 After 5 days in Townsville with the highlight being Oli bagging his 300^th bird we were all desperate for some action. Sara and Oli had scoured the towns op shops to find sufficiently ugly anti-stinger wear and I’m really not sure what happened to the other 2 days. We moved from one Townsville caravan park which wouldn’t store our van, to another which would. The car was packed with supplies for six nights and we returned to Lucinda to await the boat to Orpheus Island. We had no idea what to expect; this could either go brilliantly, or it could be a complete disaster.

 



 

 

 

 



Kids on the boat heading over to the island...of terror

Orpheus Island; there was something sinister about the name that reminded me of the movie “Jurassic Park”. It is a scientific research station after all and so my over indulged brain slipped into Hollywood screen writer mode. Enter stage left, Ian; the talkative, nut brown boat driver, with his sun and salt bleached mullet. As you looked into his eyes, you knew you were only ever going to get half of his story; that the bits he would tell were only hints of something far more interesting. From stage right, stepping out of a taxi, comes Marta, a young Brazilian woman who was about to start work on the island. And there was us, a young family of three blonde excited children, and two haggard parents looking for an escape from the real world. It was late when this motley crew left the shadow of Hinchinbrook, and as darkness fell over our shoulders like an inky, damp shroud , Ian steered us out into the channel.

 



 

 

 



Looking towards Hinchinbrook Island at sunset

The lights of the manager’s cottage appeared over the blue bruised swell. Ian cut the engines and squeezed the Challenger 2 across the jagged reef. Our gear was transferred into the basket on a forklift, and we stepped onto the beach. Haley, the island’s manager, welcomed us with a grin, showed us our accommodation, and in her soft Kiwi accent, suggested we meet for the induction tomorrow morning at 7:30.

 

We were on time. Even Oliver had sprung out of his bunk bed in anticipation. Haley’s soft accent told us about the island and with the briefly mentioned menace of 4 hours of work from each of us hanging over our heads, we signed forms releasing James Cook University from any responsibility for our death or disfigurement, then returned to our quarters for a cup of coffee. Enter the mad and hairy English scientist. Professor David Bellwood. The scene was complete. Cue thunderstorm. Cue greedy, disgruntled employee. Release the mutant man eating fish.



Giant clam garden

Coral and fish, coral and fish, coral and fish etc

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Walking on the beach at low tide

None of that happened. Haley the Betadine Queen didn’t abduct us and sentence us to a lifetime of slave labour. Instead she gave assignments to the kids including coral, fish, and bird identification projects, with only brief periods of toilet cleansing. Ian’s stories never became menacing; only more amusing as the week went on. Marta wasn’t the first to be eaten by the mutant fish monster, but she did introduce us to the local black tip reef shark population, her babies! And the mad scientist popped in for a chat and promptly told Oli to become a marine biologist for work and an ornithologist in his spare time. As we stood around the fish tank he taught the kids and us a lot of things about fish that we’d never thought we needed to know, in a sing song voice that meant you were never sure as to whether he was telling the truth, or just making stuff up.

 

Coral and fish, coral and fish, coral and fish etc

We walked over to the other side of the island and weren’t trapped in the massive webs of the golden orbed spider. We swum over the reef and weren’t stabbed by coral spears, or eaten by a giant clam. The seven nights we had planned to stay turned into fourteen. Haley provided food including a leg of lamb until I was able to head back into town with Rhonda and Terry for supplies. Again the film script threatened to rear its predictable head. Rhonda had never piloted a motor boat back across the channel alone. Now she had to do it against a savage outgoing tide and increasing 18 – 20 knot winds, with the most inexperienced first mate in the world. My time on a Dutch barge in France counted for little apparently! We’d only gone 200 metres when she suggested Plan B might be returning to the dock, and settling down in the pub. But she pushed on and got back me and my bruised bum back in time for sunset with prawns and beer and wine, just as Terry said she would.

 

Boris the Green Tree Frog in the sink

It was a remarkably quick 11 days and became the longest we have stayed in one place to date. The kids revelled in an environment that revered knowledge of all things natural, not to mention one that supplied as much white bread as you could eat. We snorkeled and paddled and read and hiked in as beautiful a place as we’ve been. Who knows, we may just return to Orpheus, for if nothing else, it has ensured our children will never clean toilets for a career!

 

 

H

Goats, Moats and Boats

Without the grace exhibited by it's more nimble cousins in the Swiss Alps, Elizabeth the goat leapt between the two wobbly podiums and made the crowd gasp in awe. The toothless ringmaster gave Elizabeth her reward and duely saluted, absorbing the applause and perhaps thinking, as we were, "What the bloody hell am I doing with a performing goat in this dead end town called Mourilyan?"

We'd left Cairns and were headed for Etty Bay where the cassowaries walk on the beach when we saw the red and white striped not so very big top. A floppy haired English back packer introduced us to the ringmaster, who then introduced us to the monkeys and then invited us to the show that night. Turned out the floppy haired one was an "acrobat" who teamed up with a lanky Dutch back packer who could breakdance quite well according to Oli. The monkeys weren't part of the show because they were on heat, but one did liven things up by trying to rip the guts out of a local kid while his dad was concentrating on rolling a ciggie during the half time break.

If you're going to die, it's good to die next to a pretty woman says Ned

The show ended with the toothless ringmaster doing a bit of whip cracking. How he managed not to kill anyone I'll never know. It certainly felt like the Eton Brothers circus was managing to stay half a step in front of total disaster. We may not have seen a rodeo, but we managed to be entertained by jumping goats, tumbling Brits, prancing Dutch, and a weary, wobbly Aussie ringmaster.



Cassowary and our rig

We did see cassowaries on Etty Beach. I missed the one with chicks because I was barbecuing. We stayed a couple of nights with the kids having a homework day to bring them back to earth after the night in the big top. We'd also heard about a place called Paronella Park, some ruin of a castle built by a Spanish cane cutter back in the 20's. Might be worth a look according to the greyies. Sara and I expected to find a little bit of the over hyped Gold Coast transplanted into northern Queensland complete with bad robotics and overpriced souvenirs. What we got, was the ruin of a castle built by a Spanish cane cutter back in the 20's. But it was more than that.

Paronella Park, named after Jose the cane cutter, had been a sprawling palace of sculpted gardens and concrete that he had created over 30 years. Time, neglect, and cyclones had worked hard to destroy it, however the guts of his dream remained and somehow, the guts were beautiful and entrancing. Add Yeng the funniest tour guide ever, who told us how the bush turkeys are making love to his mates chickens with the result that his mates chickens now have no feathers on their necks, Sara almost falling into crocodile infested water to escape a rat, and all the fish and eels the kids could feed, and you have a winner of a stop. From there it was a quick pause in Tully for the big gumboot and the sugar mill, (I was so proud when the kids managed not to stick their ear protectors up their nostrils to ward off the smell), and into Mission Beach.

With the weather in our favour, we boarded Big Mama, a sailing boat and set off for the Great Barrier Reef. Previous attempts in Cairns had been thwarted by poor conditions, but that ended up being a good thing. Stu, Lisa, their nine year old son Fletcher, and a 20 week old chihuahua called Coco live on Big Mama. Fletcher has never lived in a house! They take up to 12 people at a time out to the reef, today it was just us and a German girl, Delia, which I thought was an odd name for a German. After a day of snorkeling among coral more varied and colourful than anything we'd seen on the west coast; after a BBQ lunch with homemade salads; after listening to Stu tell me how easy it was for him to make a reverse osmosis unit that generated 200 litres of  fresh water a day from sea water; after seeing how worldly Fletcher was and how happy Stu and Lisa were with their life on the ocean, I couldn't wait to get back to Google. I mean, I can reverse a 23ft van now without too much trouble, how hard could it be to buy a boat and sail it around the world?



Paronella Park by night

That's not Sara but it could be...

Not as hard, apparently, as getting across to Orpheus Island. Stu had said this would be a great place to camp, and that you could snorkel the reef right off the beach. The problem was, no charters would take us out there, and we couldn't afford the $1400 per night to stay at the resort which didn't want kids anyway. Not that I would have had too much of a problem with that last technicality. Then we met John the volunteer wearing shoes with zips in the information office in Ingham. There is a research station on Orpheus
Island. We could volunteer our services, working for 4 hours a day, and in return, they take us over and provide accommodation. Imagine that, a tropical island to ourselves in exchange for a spot of weeding. Surely there's a catch somewhere. It could be brilliant, or it could go horribly wrong. We'll find out in a weeks time. I hope it's got nothing to do with shoes and zips...

H

The Tip is a Tip but the Tip's Worth the Trip

The tip of the trip

Why, when there is something truly worth visiting, do Australians make such a monumental job of uglifying it? Apparently, in peak season, the easy road up to the tip sees well over 6,500 cars a month. Add the fly ins, the tour groups, and those that avoid chicken tracks, and there are a lot of people anxious to travel a long way just to tick the tip off their bucket list. My issue is, and it may  be unimportant to most, but I don’t need to know that Tracey, Mark, the DiDinato family, the


DiDinato dickheads

Tazzie Boyz, Stewie, Foxie, Brett, Shayla-Raye, the Hoskin family, the Brentwood Boys, Macca, Wacca, Shakka and his dog Brewsta etc etc etc also got there. I certainly don’t need to share the experience with their non-decomposable, cyclone strength toilet paper and Four XXXX Gold cans. Have a bit of pride people.

 

Sunset at Umagico

At the northernmost part of mainland Australia, there is no signage indicating where to walk. There are no toilets, there are no seats. There is nothing speaking for the (apparently) significant indiginous culture or (allegedly) important European history of the place. There is the remains of a resort of sorts, and a beautiful, wide, white beach. There is also a lot of graffiti and a heap of rubbish. Apparently, in peak season, you have to queue up to get your photo taken at the sad and desecrated sign. We had it to ourselves; just us and a dirty shrine of autographed rubber thongs, now there’s a tradition I call Australian! Give me strength! If anywhere was screaming for a bit of local initiative, if ever there was an opportunity to give the community in Bamaga something to do, it would be here.

 

Oli and his goliath half a fish

We stayed on the beach at Umagico looking over the Torres Strait and yes it was a magical spot. We took a boat over to Thursday Island, ate fair Thai food, and fished a bit. I got a Spanish mackerel, and Oli half a coral trout, with a shark conveniently letting go of the fish before Oli could get it into the boat as well. Our guide Tom, with his wispy moustache and indications of private education, moved around the boat the way Sara moves around a kitchen (her words). After that, we really didn’t know what else to do. The cape is without an operational tourist information centre, choosing to rely on mud maps handed out by some bloke who lives in the “Croc Shack” on the road to the tip. No surprises, but we didn’t stop there because we didn’t want to feel obligated to buy an “I Survived the Trip to the Tip” t-shirt. Maybe we should have. Nick Linton, get up here and straighten this place out!

 

Trentham Falls south of Cooktown

Still, we had survived the trip to as far North as we could get and loved its’ beauty, now we really were headed South and home. Cape York is known for its bird-watching, and Oli had created lists of birds he wanted to see with the result that he dictated the schedule back to Cairns. Visiting Iron Range and Lakefield National Parks we camped in rainforests, beside rivers and in woodland. For the first time, the processes associated with making and breaking camp didn’t wear us down, and the tents survived their first taste of serious rain. Plenty of driving, plenty of water, but plenty of wildlife too, and most of the birds the Big O wanted.

 

Ivy at Cape Tribulation

Cooktown was an interesting and windy stop, the towns’ effort to give its’ visitors something to do and see in sharp contrast to Seisa and Bamaga. Great fish and chips too, and more than enough properties and businesses for sale if you have a hankering for a sea-change. Having had no trouble with the Bloomfield track, another 4WD adventure that has succumbed to asphalt, we returned to the Daintree we’d briefly encountered with the FannNoonans, and camped in a field at Cape Tribulation surrounded by backpackers in Wicked vans. The next morning, a spot opened up under the trees and Sara burned what rubber was still left on the tyres getting the car in to bags the posi. We carried the tents across and settled in to explore at leisure.

 

Oli at Mason's swimming hole, Cape Tribulation

That was okay for half a day, then there was some serious touristing to be done. One croc tour would never have been enough so we chose the mob that promised more for less. Luckily, they delivered in spades and if the administrative staff wasn’t enthusiastic, the guides were brilliant. First off was Peter, aka Mangrove Man. He took us out twice that day, making a special effort to look after Oli having heard the Kingfisher Camp saga. His shtick was almost identical morning to afternoon, and we now know almost too much about mangroves and bad Irish jokes. We also went twice to the Daintree Discovery Centre, but sadly only once to the organic bio-dynamic ice cream shop. Ivy connected with several leeches, Ned saw a wild pig but didn’t chase it this time, and Sara spotted our first cassowary. Another croc cruise the next morning on the way back to Cairns, this time with Lex, a local whose mum still lives on the dairy farm he grew up on. Crocs, snakes, frogs, flowers, birds, and a dead calf all delivered with local flavour and not a hippy in sight.

 



 

 

 





Ned finishing his undie run strongly



We found the hippies the next day at the Kuranda festival outside of Cairns. However the real reason we went was to participate in the second annual undie fun-run. I was disappointed Sara sat this one out especially given how well her birthday present 5 pack has been holding up, but Ned was determined to take her place. We three boys set off in tasteful boxer shorts to appropriately little fanfare and tackled the hilly 3.5k circuit. Could have been worse, there was a fat Englishman running in a pair of saggy blue y-fronts! We all managed to stay well in front of him! We then watched a bikie with no front teeth come in a narrow second in the sausage eating competition, listened to some reggae, avoided buying anything at the craft market, and set off back down the hill to Cairns having adopted a bat at the bat rescue shelter and naming him Barney. Who’s the fastest bat in the world? The Barnes is of course!



The Barnes (the bat, not the whippet)



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