Shorter drive today from Charters Towers to Townsville. On top of the normal grey nomad migration to the north, Townsville is hosting the V8 Supercars race this weekend so accommodation is hard to come by. We had called a few caravan parks without any luck so decided to head about 25kms north of town to a free spot at Saunders Beach. We were in luck, and what a top spot…
A car park set up right on the beach with a playground for the kids, free BBQ’s. And all this is free – better than paying $50 for a caravan park site. Stays are limited to 48 hours which is fair enough – that will do us. The car is booked in for another check up on Wednesday so this will be a good base.
The kids were absolutely rapt to see the coconut palms lining the beach. They had been asking if we would see any on our trip as they wanted to try some coconut. After collecting a few off the beach, the chief chopper was in business using a machete that a couple of backpackers kindly lent us.
How tropical does this look? Happy days…
Who’s the clown? Mister bunny ears can’t help himself.
We all had great fun collecting shells, playing in the park and on the beach. Flag races had the kids worn out by tea time.
Thursday 8 – Friday 9 July
Just up the road today to another free spot at Rollingstone – Bushy Parker Park. Nice spot in a big park by the creek with beautiful clear water. This new fashion line is the latest trend up here. The kids love making bush outfits and bush huts.
It’s only a few kms down the road to Balgal Beach where we spent Thursday afternoon.
On our walk we spotted a couple of Jabiru on the beach. Great looking birds.
On Friday we headed up to Paluma in the mountains which loom over the coast here. On the way up we stopped at the very beautiful Little Crystal Creek.
Paluma used to be known as cloudy creek. Very appropriate name. The view from the lookout reminded us of the Blue Mountains.
Very beautiful scenery all the way up the mountains with rainforest surrounding us on all sides. The weather was a fair bit cooler than down the bottom. We had lunch at a park at the top and did a short rainforest walk.
Back at camp the kids were happy to be able to have a camp fire. They set up early ready to roast marshmallows and cook damper.
Saturday 10 July
Heading north through sugar cane country.
Cardwell is a nice little town with great views out to Hinchinbrook Island. We stopped for lunch and had a look around…
…before heading up to Hull Heads (near Tully) for the night where it was only $13 at the council campground on the beach. No luck with the fishing here.
In the background here is Dunk Island to the left and Bedarra Island to the right. Only $1300 a night to stay out there.
Sunday 11 July
The mountains are very close to the coast in this part of the world – as a result the rainfall in Tully is arguably the highest of any town in the country. I say arguably because Babinda, a bit further up the coast makes the same claim…anyway it rains a lot around here. No wonder they have the big gumboot (and yes it was raining while we were there).
The main line of work in this region is sugar cane farming. There have been plenty of these little trains running around.
Heading to here (sugar mill)…
We wanted to go out to Mission Beach to stay for a few days but due to the inclement weather decided to go there on the way back down the coast – hopefully the weather is better then. Our camp spot for the night was at Upper Liverpool Creek right next to the water at a little town called Japoonvale. Once again the price was right ($0).
We had a nice walk (and skip) around the sugar cane and banana farms before another stint on journals.
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