We had intended to spend a bit of time relaxing on the beach at Mission Beach, but alas it was pouring with rain for the 2 days we were there. It is very close to Tully which is the town with the highest rainfall in Australia and the locals told us that they had not had a dry day since Cyclone Larry in March and this was mid July. It has made everything very wet and muddy. Mission Beach is very proud of its cassowaries and though we saw dozens of signs, we saw...

We had a fun drive back from Lawn Hill to Mt Isa - crossing a few substantial river crossings - the state of the road was mostly ok but some sections were heavily corrugated. We are now (29/7/06) in Mt Isa and will be for a few days to do washing, website updating (which takes a few hours), getting the car serviced, replenishing supplies as well as seeing the various sites of Mt Isa. I will check email and this site again on Monday if you have any comments you ...

The national parks keep getting better and better - Lawn Hill (now known by its aboriginal name of Boodjamulla) is simply magnificent. It is again a remnant from 20 mllion years ago and is spring fed today and the creek in the main gorge section is incredibly deep. The views are amazing - deep green opaque water, with vibrant red cliffs and the bluest of blue skies - it would be an artists dream (if only I could paint). In fact it did inspire Stephen to do a b...

Rosegreen is a site for kangaroos to be released after they have been hand reared. The handreared ones are joeys taken from their mothers pouches on the side of the road after the mothers have been killed by traffic. The couple that hand rear the joeys has up to 20 or so at any one time and they require feeding every 4 hours!! What a commitment. Once old enough they are released on Rosegreen and it happens about every 6 weeks or so and we were lucky enough to...

We found a brochure for a station stay and decided to call them - what a great decision that was - we had the best time. Rosegreen is north of Cloncurry and the family have two girls aged 7 and 9 and all the kids got on famously. The girls, Whitney and Maddison showed our kids around and they had a ball. We were treated to some real country hospitality and had a window into their lives. The homestead was built in the 1930s and has almost no glass - all the wi...