Last Saturday we went and explored Ravenshoe and the surrounding area. Ravenshoe is Queensland's highest town at 930 metres above sea level and it also has claim to the Highest Pub and the Highest Railway. 900 000 hectares of surrounding rainforest was world heritage listed back in 1987.....
After Ravenshoe we did the waterfall circuit, seeing Millaa Millaa, Zillie and Ellinjaa Falls before moving onto Crater Lakes and the Curtain Fig Tree. We stopped in the afternoon opposite the Kairi Hotel at a free camp and were joined by many other free campers. As it was Saturday night and we were opposite a pub we decided to lash out and have a counter meal... Had a great night with some locals playing billiards.
Sunday we went into Atherton to get supplies before heading out to Lake Tinnaroo, we stopped for two nights at the Kairi Creek Camp and enjoyed a couple of lovely walks and chilling out with great scenery.....Heaps of birdlife..... Curlews, ducks, kookaburra's, larks, bush turkey's.....and white tailed rats... The water was down about 10 metres from 2012.....
Tuesday we left Lake Tinaroo driving back through Atherton and onto Mt Molloy for a couple of days.....Mt Molloy is 55km north west of Cairns.....
Thursday we left Mt Molloy and went into Port Douglas for a look around before driving through Mossman...... We caught the ferry across the Daintree River and onto the Daintree National Park....Stunning scenery...... We stayed the night at Cape Tribulation Camping which is a coconut throw away from the beach.......
The next morning we drove up the where the bitumen finishes and the dirt track up to Cooktown begins...... that was interesting turning the bus around on that bit of road.....then we worked our way back to the ferry... stopping at all the stunning rainforest walks...The Daintree National Park became a World Heritage site back in 1988...
After leaving this spectacular area behind us we drove into Mossman to find a free camp......mmmm not easy on the coast of Queensland.. We tucked DABUS in behind a sugar cane field, near the Pony Club and as we were prepping for dinner a local farmer pulled up and said he had a place we could pull in for a night of two. So off Alan goes with John in John's ute and they were gone for nearly 30 minutes. On return Alan certainly had some interesting stories to tell about John, one involved John and Alan pulling up near the Mossman river and John pulls out a machete.......Alan was starting to think he might not see Lorelle or DABUS again, but John had to cut down some vines to show Alan some Black Butt Trees.... John also had donated some land to the local pony and motorbike clubs. He had also had an area of the Mossman River dug out, to provide the local kids with a swimming hole, where they could be taught to swim.. The local schools didn't have the money for a bus, so John also paid for a bus to bring the kids down for their swimming lessons.... but with OH&S regulations that generous practice had to stop....Mossman now has a swimming pool in town...
Anyhow on Alans return to DABUS off we went to a sugar cane property, very secluded and we have the place to ourselves. Saturday morning we went to the local Mossman market and come back to John's place to try our hand at baking biscuits in the camp oven. Sunday we went down to the Port Douglas market and returned to 'John's Place" and cooked up a lovely beef and red wine casserole with parsley dumplings in the camp oven. This morning we were up and going early as we had a few things to get organized in Cairns. We had a massive and lovely lunch at the c*** & Bull Pub and rolled out of town and pulled in for the night at Babinda. Tried sitting outside to do this update and the skies opened up, so back into DABUS to complete the update..... Babinda is certainly keeping in with the Golden Boot tradition. The Golden Boot an award for Australia's wettest town and Babinda is usually the winner, against Tully, with an annual rainfall of over 4200 mm each year.. Yes we are getting the rain but it is still humid, we are still in shorts and singlets.