Folley's Frolics: October 2013

So it's been an eventful month since our last update.

After leaving beautiful Rollingstone beach we headed to our first National Park – Paluma Range and stayed at Jourama Falls. Was stunning, a great campsite, quiet location, great walks and water holes for swimming and the birds and insects were very noisy (the gecko’s at night sounded like a hammer on the caravan – all night long)!

From there we headed further North to Mission Beach where we enjoyed the beautiful Cassowary Coastline. We visited Etty Bay, Kurramine Beach, Bramston beach and Cowley Beach all beautiful spots. We were lucky enough to see a male Cassowary and its chick (he takes sole responsibility of the chick until he is about a year old). We explored the Tully Falls hidden in the Tully National Park, Mena Creek (lunched at the pub) and hidden in the middle of this country is (Paronella Park Castle), and Tully itself. Heaps of banana’s grown around this area along with other tropical fruits Yum !!!.

We then headed to Innisfail and explored Josephine Falls, Ella Bay National Park and Flying Fish Point; these areas are full of lush rain forests, waterfalls, dams, and wonderful swimming holes

Pushing further North to Cairns we spent 5 days exploring. Had a great day on the scenic train up to Kuranda and meandered around the town (very touristy and expensive) and then took the Sky Rail back down to Cairns , a great trip well worth doing if you ever visit Cairns. Explored the city and beaches, visited more dams and creeks.

From there we went further north to Newell Beach (just north of Pt Douglas). From here we explored Pt Douglas and the stunning Daintree. We crossed the Daintree River and took the 4wd Bloomfield track up to Cooktown – great fun and the road was in really good condition – in a few months time it will be impassable with the wet season. In Cooktown we watched the unloading of live Coral trout bound for the Asian markets (best eating fish in Aussie) but with the amount they unloaded we can see why they are getting harder to catch.

Then onto Tinaroo Lake & Dam. The lake is just in from Atherton which is in the tablelands of Northern Qld – a very busy little town brimming with Queensland’s table of fresh vegetables and fruit. Tried my hand at catching a Barra at this lake but again no luck, also tried for Red Claw but with the school holidays heaps of people with boats the red claw had gone deep into the lake.

Now it’s onto the Savannah Way Highway – and now in Outback Australia. It’s dry, hot and dusty and a one lane road! We spend our first night in Georgetown – it was 41 deg when we arrived so it was inside into the air-conditioning for a while to cool off. We then headed onto Normanton where 85% of the population is indigenous and a town that is in drought. A friendly little camp but very dry and hot (lost power in the afternoon and it was another 38deg day phew!!! Hot without the aircon. We put the herb pot under the dripping tap to water it and in the night the wallabies ate the herbs and lettuce little buggers! From here we headed an hour up the road to Karumba which sits in the heart of the Gulf of Carpentaria, a mecca for fisherman.

Pulled off the road and waited for the trucks to pass - the road trains are HUGE!

Well after a drought of fishing on the East coast my only option was to take a charter, I booked a half day trip and we headed off at 7.00am, fished in various spots but only caught bloody Cat fish, I’m sure the gulf is the cat fish heaven of Aussie as we caught heaps of them. Finally the skipper put us onto a spot where we managed to catch some Salmon (Threadfin or Blue) people call them. We call Threadfin and I hooked 2 of these and also managed to land a Silver Jew Fish which we ate that night. Today Monday I’ll try off the beach as there’s a few Bream around which are also good eating.

We pull out of here tomorrow and are now heading south and inland to Burke & Wills Road house we’ll stay here one night then onto Cloncurry, Winton and Longreach. From here we are not yet sure of our route but we have to keep heading south as we have picked up a farm sit job and will be looking after a small 350 acre farm at Wandoan, they run mainly cattle so have 2 1/2 weeks to get there (located on the Western Downs 350km inland from Brisbane). More on that when we get there.

So it’s goodbye from us for a while and we’ll report in while we are farm sitting.

Cheers for now

Dave, Celia & Larry

Photo's of our adventures since our last update.

Some of the wildlife.