MAREEBA, KURANDA AND CAIRNS

Heading down to Mareeba we stayed at the Ringer's Rest farm.  We knew the farm had horses but we didn't quite know how friendly they were.

This fella was standing outside our door when we opened our caravan door.

Hello Mr Edd

I think he was waiting for something.....

Aww dad the tyre on my bike is flat!  Now I can't ride it!

And time for everyone to get in the action

So with a hard day of keeping all the horses happy it was time for some light refreshments, a couple of tunes,

and to watch the sun go down on another beautiful day in Australia.

The next morning we woke to the distant sounds of gas burners

In all there were about half a dozen balloons that took to the skies

They flew right over our camp

and landed in the paddock next to us

After a fun start to the day we decided to head off in the direction of Kuranda and Cairns to look at Barron Falls and there is also a hydro electric station that might be fun to look at.  So we hit the road.

The walkway down to Barron Falls is a series of rain forrest sky walks

apparently pythons make their home in these plants.  Nyaaaa I'm outta here!

Hello Karen

Heading down towards the lookout and the train station

Another way of getting from Kuranda to Cairns is by using the cable car

Construction of the Cairns-Kuranda Railway was, and still is, an engineering feat of tremendous magnitude.
 Desperate tin miners on the Wild River near Herberton were unable to obtain supplies and were on the verge of famine. The boggy road leading inland from Port Douglas was proving impossible. As a result, the settlers at Herberton raised loud and angry voices and began agitation for a railway to the coast.  
On May 10th 1886, the then Premier of Queensland Sir Samuel Griffith, used a silver spade to turn the first sod. Celebrations involving almost the entire population of Cairns lasted all that day and long into the night.  Construction was by three separate contracts for lengths of 13.2km, 24.5 km, and 37.4km. The line was to total 75.1km and surmounts the vast Atherton tablelands leading to Mareeba.

Large portions of this railway had to be dug by hand which was pretty difficult working on mountains with a gradient of 45 degrees.  More information on this project can be found by pasting the following link to your browser;

http://www.ksr.com.au/History/Pages/KSR.aspx


The start of the railway next to Barron Falls

Barron Falls is but a trickle at the moment.  But

This is in full flight!

Bottom of the falls at a trickle

and back on the road we head for Cairns and see the hydro facility that this Barron River feeds.

We come down the moutain towards Cairns

We came across this old WW11 plane at the Kuranda markets on the way

and this little fella poked his head out of the bush to say hello

Ahhhhh..... Bunning my favourite store in the entire world!

The scenery here is really quite beautiful

We arrive at the Barron River down stream

Where we find groups of people going down the river in rafts.  Because it is the dry season the river is really quite tame and safe. In the wet season certain areas of Queensland have reported up to 7 metres of rainfall in the year which changes the water ways dramatically and these people wouldn't be doing this!

Groups waiting to go

The Barron River in dry season which would be full and flowing in the wet season.

Ello, ello, ello beautiful.... :>)

I have shown the next picture before that was from another waterfall/gorge but it gives an idea of who in society are the risk takers and who either end up permanently injured or dead as a result.

These fellas fall into that age group and category.  They thought it would be a good idea to jump from this height into the low running Barron River without any knowledge of what rocks were beneath them!

One word might describe these fellas.  Fools.

So we decided not to see what eventuated and hit the road back to camp.
Tomorrow we are heading back to Atherton to have another jam at The Shed.

Time to fly

COOKTOWN / DAINTREE / PORT DOUGLAS

We hit the road on the way to take a look at Cooktown which is where Captain James Cook first landed on these shores in the year 1770

passing another lake and ranges

We decided not to do the whole leg in one go and made camp at a gravel pit just out of a place called Carbine.

ended up taking advantage of the good weather and doing some washing

We continued towards Cooktown and called into the Lions Den hotel which is where back in the day miners would make use of the hotel by leaving their pay cheque with the hotel and they would write their 'chit' (the amount they owed the bar) up on the walls of the bar.

Driving on further we came across these very strange mountains made up completely of granite boulders all piled up on top of each other.  It is the most bizarre landscape and apart from some small areas of vegetation nothing can grow on top as there isn't any soil for plants to grow roots into.

The Black Mountains are located about 26 kilometers to the south of Cooktown. They are part of the mysterious Black Trevethan Range. Consisting of granite jumbles of black rocks this mountain is inhabited by frogs, wallabies, gigantic pythons and a strange beast that goes by the name of the Queensland Tiger. Legend has it that many walk into this collection of large black rocks, but very few ever walk out.

More information about this mysterious place can be found at the Castle of Spirits web site which is at;

http://www.castleofspirits.com/blackmount.html

Rocks 

piled on top of rocks

piled on top of more rocks

make up this mountain

Pressing on we cross this bridge that in the height of the wet season can become flooded by the torrent of water washing down the river

We eventually arrive at Cooktown just like Captain James Cook did back on June 18th, 1770, (except we did it a little faster, and we had air conditioning)

and here is the landing site that commemorates Cook's arrival.

This plaque placed on the shore to commemorate the landing

So we head back down to take a look at the Daintree and Port Douglas areas. But to do this we need to hit the road

Travelling down the long winding road that takes you from Mareeba to Mossman

One of the beaches out from Mossman.  Not quite the sandy beaches of home in Perth and they get the box jelly fish up here!

Why hello there happy :)

Trees on the beach.

Again the beach at Mossman

The river at Daintree Village

Crocodile viewing boat.

Beautiful scenery

Now this is what we want to see!

One of the antique shops had some really interesting historical pieces like this old telephone switch board.

And this pay phone coin box.  I can't quite remember what the 'A' and 'B' were for.... I think they were for when you rang long distance....?

Up Fido up!

Cracker!

Coming back to camp we called in on a momument that had this fella guarding it.

It was a model of one of the bombs that were dropped on the Douglas Shire in 1942.  A young girl Carmel Zullo was grazed on the head by shrapnel from the bomb and was the only civilian casualty on home soil inflicted by the enemy during WW2.

and we head off to Port Douglas.

Where the beaches are really quite stunning.

View of the beach from the lookout.

More views from the lookout. Stunning!

and of course there are scenic helicopter flights you can take of the area.

On the beach at Port Douglas you can get married in this beautiful little church that has a fantastic view out to the ocean and mountains.

Inside the church.

The view outside the church

With the reception on the marina

You can watch the vessels motor past

We then head just south of Pt Douglas where there are reports that you can watch hang gliders jumping off the coast cliff edge

The drive took around half and hour and along the beautiful coastline of the Pacific

 Onto the coast but not much surf here I assume because of the Great Barrier Reef

And we climb

Fairly high up now

We come across this guy para gliding

and we caught some video of him. But you might want to turn the sound down cause I forgot to block the wind out, sorry:)

We also saw this guy about to embark on his maiden solo hang glide.

It is a little different to the days you could just buy a hang glider and away you went!!  Back in 1979 I did just that and had my mates take me down to Port Beach where there is a nice little cliff and helped push me off.  Needless to say I crash landed on my maiden flight, but nothing much worse than a blood nose I went straight back up and tried again until I got it.

Bit different to today where you are required to attain a license to fly solo.You need to go tandem and then sit theory before you can attempt a solo flight.  All the training is done by a qualified instructor.

Here the instructor is in constant contact with his student via 2 way radio, a little bit like my mates back in 1979 who were yahooing and laughing whilst I crashed!  Hahahaha

Getting the feel of the wind is an important component to the uplift power

especially when the wind hits you as it travels up the side of the cliff

You may want to turn the sound down again sorry.  Also sorry it gets a bit shaky towards the end.

After this excitement we headed back to Mt Malloy to camp for the night.  Tomorrow we head off back down to the town of Mareeba where we get up and close with some horses and hot air balloons!

So it was time to hit the road!