Townsville After Ingham, we drove 100kms south to Townsville and the first of our two house sits in the area. For three weeks we stayed on a one acre property 20kms north of the city and looked after two greyhounds and a husky while the owners holidayed on the Gold Coast. This gave us a great opportunity to see the sights of Townsville including great views from Castle Hill in the city centre, many walks along the Strand which is the beach and foreshore area of ...

Ingham An hour's drive south of Cardwell and further inland is the town of Ingham where we stayed for a week and included a visit to Wallaman Falls which, at an impressive 268m is the highest single drop waterfall in Queensland. We also visited Lucinda Beach and nearby Dungeness, a picturesque boating area overlooking Hinchinbrook Island. Just south of Ingham town are the Tyto Wetlands, home to a large number of wallabies as well as a wide variety of birdlife.

Mission Beach, Tully & Cardwell We headed 50kms south from Paronella Park and spent a week at beautiful if slightly cyclone wrecked Mission Beach. We stayed right on the beach which allowed us to spend time walking up or down it each day sometimes as far as eight kilometres. Four kilometres off the beach is Dunk Island which was so devastated by Cyclone Yassi that its world class holiday resort will now be closed until at least 2013. We also visited n...

Innisfail and surrounds After an enjoyable month of house sitting on the mango farm we spent a final week in Cairns before heading south to Innisfail, a town of around 10,000 people and spread between the North and South Johnstone Rivers in an area rich with sugar cane and banana plantations. We scored a prime camping spot beside the South Johnstone River and kept a constant eye out for a crocodile which, according to the locals, liked to sun himself from ti...

Cairns We headed down the coast and spent a week at Mossman which allowed us to again visit the Mossman Gorge which we first went to some fifteen years ago on our previous holiday to Cairns and Port Douglas. Our next stop was Cairns for a week to catch up with Dave’s cousin Claire and her husband David who were holidaying in Queensland. The weather for the week was very wet and this curtailed our movements and also caused us to shelf plans to head out to t...