We got going a bit slowly today. Finally about 10am, we had the van all packed up and were ready to go and do some more of the tour. We left the van at the van park and went and saw the rest of the sights, which included:
– a restored poppet head ( which was the wooden structure built above each mine shaft).
– the venus gold battery – another building and equipment used in the mining process.
– some more pioneer churches and buildings.
We felt it had been a good way to get to know quite a bit about the history and the layout of the town and we would be keen to do it again at any other towns that had it.

We went back and connected to our van and then started the drive west along the Flinders Hwy. We were aiming to do nearly 400 km to get to Richmond. The first leg of driving was 244km to Hughenden. Along the way were quite a few little townships such as Balfe’s Creek, Homestead, Pentland, Torrens Creek and Prairie. We didn’t stop at any of these as we were a bit limited for time. 

We did stop at Hughenden for about an hour. We went into the Flinders Discovery Centre which housed a cast iron replica of the skeleton of Muttaburrasaurus, whose skeleton bones were found at nearby Muttaburra. It also showcased a lot of the fossils found in this area – particularly marine fossils, as this area was thought to be covered by a huge inland lake many years ago. There was a kids discovery area with puzzles, dinosaur dressups, and a fossil touch table which Hannah and Beth enjoyed. After this little museum, we drove past the full-bodied replica of Muttaburrasaurus on the median strip outside the local hotel. We then drove about 2 mins out of town to the historic Coolabah Tree. This tree was blazed ( a process of cutting a strip out of the trunk of the tree to form a permanent scar) by 2 different search parties who were looking for the ill fated Burke and Wills expedition team. It is preserved as a memorial to the courage shown by the early explorers of our country.

I had phoned through to the Richmond caravan park as we were entering into the 3G network at Hughenden (just to make sure we there was a spot for us if we kept going). When I said we were coming from Hughenden, she said to take it easy on the road as the stretch between Hughenden and Richmond had lots of dips. I didn’t think much of this comment at the time, but when we did start driving towards Richmond, I realised she had been spot on – the road had more dips and sudden humps than we had come across before. At one point Michael didn’t see one coming and we think we almost got airborne on that one! Anyway, it was about an hour and a half drive. We got there at about 5.45, later than we had been getting to van parks. When we got out of the car, we noticed how much the temperature had changed – we all reached for our jumpers. There was quite a wind and it was quite chilly. We set up quickly and then defrosted the last of the frozen meals I had cooked back in Canberra. They had been very useful. We all rugged up a bit more for bed that night.

Well as it turned out we ended up staying at the van park during the morning and going out in the afternoon. There was an issue with one of the children that needed sorting out and we decided it was best to take the time to do that properly. Then we thought it best for the kids to have some ‘down time’ at the van park while I caught up on the washing that needed to be done. We seemed to be averaging about a week between washing loads – and then there was at least 2 loads to do. So Michael supervised the kids on the jumping pillow and then swimming pool, while I caught up on housekeeping. (Michael didn’t mind supervising as the kids were old enough that he could read a book or his iPad most of the time and just keep an ear out and look up every now and then). I didn’t mind doing the housekeeping as it meant some time on my own, which I needed every now and then.

The kids really enjoyed their morning of play and swimming and were very hungry by lunchtime. I’d preempted this and prepared a big lunch with cold meats, salad and bread. We discussed the things we were going to see that afternoon.

Our first stop was the information centre in town because I’d read where you can hire a CD audio tour of the town for $5. We got the CD and it also came with a laminated map to show you all the points of interest you’ll be visiting. I also wanted to ask which school used to be the old Mount Carmel Christian Brothers School which is where Dad attended for a while. I found out it is now the Columba Catholic School inner campus, right near the centre of town and it is still a boarding school as well as day school. Having done these things, we went into the next room and watched a short video on the history of Charters Towers – how it was an accidental find of alluvial gold by an aboriginal boy (named Jupiter) which started the gold rush in the area. Jupiter had been a helper in a white person party of prospectors who had been moving through that area. This event happened in 18? and by the late 1800s Charters Towers was the 2nd largest city in QLD, and had given itself the nickname of ‘the World’ as it was thought that anything a person could ever want was found there. There was a lot of opulent buildings and residences built there by those businessmen and entrepreneurs who became wealthy on the gold. By 1930, most of the gold had been found and the town’s population decreased dramatically.

Next door to the information centre was the old stock exchange arcade. We heard a talk about the ‘calling of the cards’ which occurred 3 times a day during the gold rush period. There was also a miners museum and assay room nearby which was free and had just a few tools and things from the mining days.

We hopped back in the car, put on the CD and started following the tour. It first took us towards Towers Hill, just a few kms from the town centre. At he base of the hill was the monument to Jupiter, the boy who first discovered gold. Near this was a seismological building, as Charters Towers is one of a handful of towns/cities in Australia which collects data on earth tremors etc. As you drive up the hill you can see many of the WW2 bunkers which were used for storing reserve ammunition for the squadron at Townsville. Up the top of the hill was a good view over the town at the lookout. There was an amphitheater up there as they put on a sound and light show at night about the history – called ‘Ghosts of Gold’ – needed tickets and we weren’t overly interested in this. There was a short walk to the ruins of a pyrite tower which had been used for getting the gold out of the quartz using a chlorination process. It had been built on the hill as the gold quartz had had to run downhill during the process.

We followed the next couple of places on the tour which were pioneer residences which had been maintained or restored. We drove past the Charters Towers hospital which had been built in around 1890. I figured my grandmother, Nanny, must have been born at that hospital because she was born in 1902. I also found the street, Farrelly Street, where her family had lived for the first 6 yrs of her life before they moved to Brisbane. 

We then went past the Columba Catholic School inner campus and found the older section which would have been where my Dad  boarded. It was just diagonally opposite the hospital. This part of the school had a wrought iron archway with St  Mary’s School embedded in the archway. I think mum had told me this was what the school was called after it amalgamated with Mt Carmel. I took some photos – perhaps they will bring back some memories for Dad.

We were about halfway through the self drive tour at that stage and it was about 4.15. We had seen a shop advertised in a tourist brochure that we were interested in looking at. It was a toy shop which sold olden days toys. We thought we had better go there next in case it closed at 5pm. It wasn’t far from where we were so we drove there and went in. It had the types of toys that I hadn’t seen in a long time, some which I remember having as a child – like a spinning top. The kids all enjoyed looking at everything. The lady who owned the shop

We packed up again – getting quite quick at it now. We were away by just after 9am. We had to backtrack east for about 50km to get to the ? hwy. we then headed south along that Hwy, our destination being Charters Towers. Initially we had not been planning to go to Charters Towers as it was a bit out of the way on our route. But then Mum reminded me that my grandmother (Nanny) had been born there and my Dad had attended a boarding school there for a few years. So I decided I would like to visit there. It was about 400km from Mt Surprise. It was obviously not a much used highway as it was quite narrow at times, with only single lane bitumen, so if we met someone else coming the other way, we would have to half drive off the road.

There weren’t many towns along the way, but we needed to buy bread somewhere in order to make sandwiches for lunch. We came into the town of Greenvale around lunchtime and found the general store there (basically a single room in a tin shed community building). I couldn’t see any bread, but asked and found that they kept it in the freezer ( presumably because they don’t get a delivery every day). I bought a loaf.  We found a nice grassy area with some shade trees and stopped there to make our sandwiches, although I wasn’t sure how we were going to defrost it quickly enough. Michael said it was easy enough to hook up the generator for a short while to power the microwave oven. This was the first we had used the generator ( many parks we had enquired about on the QLD coast didn’t allow generators to be used ). It worked fine and we were eating lunch in no time. The kids had a run around and kicked a ball and played some grip ball for a while. Then we we back in the car and heading south again.

We got in to Charters Towers about 3pm and rang some caravan parks and ended up at a Big 4 van park called ‘Aussie Outback’. They had a jumping pillow and a pool which the kids were pleased about. We setup – once getting quite quick at that. I needed to do some grocery shopping, so Michael said he would supervise the kids on the jumping pillow and playground while I did the shopping. The office at the van park had given me a map and directions to Woolworths.  I drove in to the town centre, parked and decided to allow myself half an hour to look around at some other shops before I did the groceries. We had read that the buildings in the town centre were impressive, and they certainly were. I walked up and down the main street for a bit and ducked in to a shop here and there. Then I went back to Woolworths and did a fairly substantial shop. Then back to the van park. I’d given instructions on dinner which was going to be sausages in the BBQ. Michael had just started to cook them over at the camp kitchen and Lauren had taken Hannah and Beth to have a shower. I whipped up a salad quickly and produced some ginger beer and ginger ale for drinks for dinner (had been on special at Woolworths) – this was met with great enthusiasm. We ate again at a table at the camp kitchen which we’ll probably try to do more often. Then it was bed time for the younger girls and  I did some more reading up on what to see in Charters Towers the next day. I figured there was enough to occupy us for half a day, and then the kids could have a swim and play the rest of the day.

Yesterday we drove here to Charters Towers and today we have had a day here. I will write more about it soon. Tomorrow we head west along the Flinders Hwy to Hughenden and then Richmond where we will probably stay for 2 nights and hopefully do some fossil fossicking. Then we will go through Cloncurry and on to Mt Isa for probably another 2 nights. Will blog some more from there. Love Andrea

We were up early this morning in order to go on our half day tour. We had to meet at the van park reception area at 7.45am, so we were up at 6.30. We met our tour guide, Steve, and then hopped on the bus. It was a full group of 21 people today, mostly grey nomads but there was 1 other family of a mum, dad and 2 children whose ages would have been in between our 4 children.

It was a 45 min drive to the Undara Volcanic NP but Steve kept us occupied by telling us all about the local flora and fauna in the region along with some other interesting local stories. He was enjoyable to listen to. He made the Savannah landscape we were passing through (which was fairly monotonous and uninteresting to the uneducated) sound so diverse and interesting. Lauren and Sam enjoyed his commentary also, but Hannah and Beth needed other diversions (like games on the iPhone:)). 

As far as the NP goes, it was originally privately owned cattle station, owned by the Collins family. At some stage about 30 yrs ago, the lava tubes running underground were discovered. The Collins family eventually opened up the Undara area to visitors. They set up their own tourist complex in the NP called Undara Experience. Tours by both Bedrock Village Caravan Park and Undara Experience are the only way the public is allowed to visit the lava tubes – due to the desire to preserve them.

Before going underground into the lava tubes, the first part of the tour was to walk up on to Kalkani Crater and walk around the rim – this was part of a volcano which exploded many years ago and so left a crater within. The walk basically took us all the way around the rim. Steve kept up a commentary on different flora as well as the geology of the area as we walked. The rocks in the area were scoria (like golf balls with little craters in them due to the air bubbles in them before they solidified). They were apparently similar to rocks on the lunar landscape. The view from up on the rim was vast and we could see lots of volcanic vents all around the region.

After walking back down to the bottom, we had morning tea at the picnic area, provided by the tour. There were yummy home cooked biscuits with a cuppa or cordial.

Then we drove to where we would enter the lava tubes. Basically these are thought to have been formed by the Undarra shield volcano ‘boiling over’ sending molten lava coursing through the surrounding landscape. We went into 2 different tubes and Steve described different aspects of them. The 2nd tube was longer and had tiny bats inhabiting it, which were mostly hidden during the day, but we were able to see some.

We walked back to the bus and started the drive back to the van park at Mt Surprise. It was about 1pm by now. Hannah and Beth had had enough of the walking around by now, but had been quite tolerant of all the adult type talking and looking for most of the tour. We had packed some sandwiches of our own, which was just as well because Hannah especially (who we think must have hollow legs) was quite hungry and her level of tolerance reduces sharply when she needs food.

The drive back was filled with commentary about good fishing areas and the types of fish that can be caught, the best bait etc. Also more stories about the locals. We arrived back just before 2pm and went to our van to have something to eat and a rest.

The 2 younger girls were keen for a swim, so I took them to do that. Then Michael took them to do some putt putt golf. Lauren and Sam wanted to go down to the nearby river which Steve had been mentioning in his talk about fishing. We gave them a walkie talkie, reminded them to be careful of snakes and let them go.

I had noticed an electric oven in the camp kitchen the previous night and was quite pleased as I had bought a premarinated roast lamb during my previous grocery shop thinking our portable BBQ had a cover and we could cook it that way – but it didn’t. So I took the opportunity of using the camp kitchen oven to cook the roast. It turned out quite well. We again ate at the communal dining area – it was a bit less cramped than in the caravan. The kids asked if they could go for a night-time swim (there were no closing hours for the pool). I hadn’t given Hannah and Beth their shower at that stage, so I figured they could have a 10 min swim and then a warm shower before bed. All 4 kids had a swim and then a shower and Hannah and Beth went to sleep quite quickly after such a big day.

I felt a bit better the next day. We packed up our caravan and the kids went and said goodbye to the resident animals of the van park the pig and 2 goats. We were on our way by about 9am. 

As it was only a 2hr drive to Mt Surprise, we decided we could see a few more sights around the tablelands before we drove west. The others hadn’t seen the curtain fig yesterday near Yungaburra, so we drove there and had a look at it – a great sight again. Then we went to the Petersen Creek at Yungaburra, where there was a platypus viewing platform – it was unlikely we would see any platypuses during the day though, as they mainly came out at dawn or dusk. But there was a lovely walk beside the Petersen River which we decided to do. It was shady and very pretty and we were the only ones on the walk. After about 10 mins walking beside the river we came to a suspension bridge that went over the river. The kids thought it was pretty cool. There were also a few stepping stones out onto the river which they played on for a little while, then we headed back to the car. Then we drove down towards Mt Hipapymee NP where there was another walk to see a crater and another waterfall called Dinner Falls. It was only a short walk. We saw the crater first which was filled with water. Then continued on the circuit to Dinner Falls. We had noticed a tour bus with a backpackers sign on it at the carpark, and we met up with them at the falls. A few of the guys were in the water below the waterfall – one of the  girls jumped in and her face indicated how cold it was! We didn’t have our swimmers with us on that walk and thankfully Hannah didn’t ask to go swimming this time:).  

We had some sandwiches for lunch once we got back to the car and then headed off towards Ravenshoe (which Lauren and Sam kept trying to call ‘Raven Shoe’). We read that this town was the highest one in QLD at 962m. Being high up it got quite windy at times and it was the sight of the first wind farm in QLD – about 15 modern windmills standing on the hills. We saw some of them as we drove past,  but it was a bit of an overcast and misty day, so we couldn’t see all of them.

About half an hour west from Ravenshoe was a town called Innot Springs which had a thermal spring in it. We stopped at the creek and went down to feel the water. We had experienced thermal springs 2 yrs ago when we had visited Katherine and Mataranka in the NT. It was amazing how quickly the water changed temperature along the creek. Near where the centre of the spring was it was extremely hot (we didn’t even touch it – you could see the steam coming off the water). About 5 metres away it was of a temperature where you could sit in it and it was nice and warm. Then another 5 m along it was cold. There were a few other people already sitting in the nice spot. We let the kids walk around in the water nearby for a little while. At one stage Hannah walked a metre too far towards the centre of the spring on some sand and then put her foot in the water – she cried out from the heat. I quickly took her down to the cold area of water and got her to stand in that for a while. There wasn’t any serious injury, but it made me think that in this day of public liability, I was surprised there wasn’t a warning sign about how hot the water is to step in at certain points – it wouldn’t be too hard for a child to get a burn. Hannah was fine though and they finished their paddle and we went back to the car.

It was then another 40 mins or so on to Mt Surprise where we had booked in for 2 nights at the Bedrock Village Caravan Park, which we’d read good things about. We checked in and set up at our site. There was a pool and a putt putt golf course, and a nice area for the kids to ride their bikes. They did some bike riding and had a swim. We also booked in for the half day tour to the Undara Lava Tubes the next day.

For dinner that night we joined in the dinner prepared by the caravan park, which was pumpkin soup, bangers and damper. It was yummy. We had it at the camp kitchen, along with other travellers – but didn’t get to talk with others much that night – they were all engaged in conversation with others already – and our youngest children were the youngest there  – so perhaps they thought we would be too busy for talking (which can be correct some nights!). Then it was back to the caravan for the usual night time routine.

Today was a bit of a ‘blah’ day for me – probably hormonal which didn’t help. We had a slow start to the day and I decided the kids probably needed to do a bit of schoolwork today. It was hard motivating the kids to do their schoolwork. It all seemed to be happening very slowly. Eventually Michael stepped in to help with maths for Hannah and Lauren – he could see that I needed some time out from trying to motivate them. They finally got through the work we wanted them to do by about 11am.

We then headed off to see some of the sights. There were a couple of interesting giant fig trees to visit. One was called Cathedral Fig and one was called Curtain Fig. These trees seeded on the branch of another tree quite high up and their roots started growing downwards towards the ground. They have quite large root systems and the result is an amazing structure. We went to see the Cathedral Fig first. It was great, but I really was feeling out of sorts today and getting annoyed at little things. So I asked if I could go back to the caravan while Michael took the kids sightseeing. We had been going to do the ‘waterfall circuit’ and see some of the many waterfalls around there. We’d packed the swimmers in the car in case any of the children had decided to brave the cold water.

So Michael dropped me back to the caravan and I was able to rest and have some down time to myself. The others did the waterfall circuit and Hannah and Beth had a swim in the Malanda Falls – but only stayed in for 5 mins. They came back not long before dinner. They’d had a nice afternoon, which was good.

It was time to start heading back south again and then inland. We planned to go to the Atherton Tablelands area today. We had been out of 3G range for a lot of the last 3 days, so hadn’t been able ring anywhere to book in.

Before leaving Cape Trib campground, we drove the 5-6 kms north to Cape Trib itself and did the short walk to the lookout over Cape Trib Bay. We could also see Mt Misery and Mt Sorrow. (As someone said, Cpt Cook obviously had a bad time here with the names he gave places). Then we walked down onto the beach and then back to the car.

We drove back down the Cape Tribulation Rd, this time stopping at the Alexandra Range Lookout to see the view south towards Port Douglas and beyond. We went back across the Daintree River ferry and then south towards Mossman. We were able to get 3G again, so I rang and booked in to a caravan park at Lake Eacham – only $40 a night which was a good price.

We had run out of bread and lunch things, so had decided to buy lunch at a cafe today – we did this at Mossman. We weren’t very impressed with the cafe though as we had to wait a long time for our burgers and chips to come. There was also a bit of a funny smell there every now and then – which we eventually found out from a local, who heard us complaining about the smell, was the burnt molasses smell from the nearby sugar mill. The kids had a play at the nearby playground, which was a very nice one with some interesting and unusual play equipment.

Then we turned inland towards Mt Molloy and then onto the Mulligans Hwy which would take us to Atherton. We passed through Mareeba again (coming from a different way this time) and got to Atherton about 3pm. We stopped here for me to do some grocery shopping, and then continued on the further 20mins to Lake Eacham. We found the caravan park with its very friendly owners and set up. It was noticeably colder here. The caravan park had a resident pig and 2 goats which we were allowed to feed (grass and leaves) and a duck pond with many ducks, hens, and scrub turkeys and fowls wandering around. The kids enjoyed seeing all these things and having a bit of a bike ride before it was time for dinner. Sam made tacos for dinner tonight. We actually had to put the heater on in the van for a little while (after having used the air conditioner at Daintree and Cape Trib).

We liked the van park right near the beach and rainforest, so had decided to stay an extra day to just enjoy the area, and maybe do some more walks. Here’s a few things we did that day:-
– slower start to the morning.
– Michael took the kids onto the beach to play soccer and then have races.
– Michael took the kids back to Mason’s creek to have a swim and swing off the rope.
– Andrea did some clothes washing and cleaning and airing the van.
– rest time after lunch listening to an audio book.
– went for a walk northwards along the beach and then on a boardwalk through the freshwater mangrove and rianforest area – we saw a cassowary on this walk and stopped and watched it for a few minutes – then it seemed to want us to leave its territory so it started to walk towards us – we’d heard they can be aggressive, so we calmly but quickly walked away.
– Michael took the kids for one last swim at Mason’s creek – on the ‘favorites’ list of places we have visited.

We got away from the van park just after 8.30, having packed up lunches, morning and afternoon tea, swimmers and towels etc. We headed north the few kms that were left of the Cape Tribulation Rd and then turned on to the ‘Bloomfield Track’ which is the 4WD only section of road between Cape Trib and Bloomfield, (halfway to Cooktown). In the wet season, this road is sometimes impassable. There were about 8 or 9 river crossings, but half of them were dry creek beds at this time of the year, and the others were not very big. There were also some very steep ascents and descents which would have been trickier in the wet. The vegetation here was more like normal bush than rainforest. We passed through the aboriginal community of Wujal Wujal which is beside the Bloomfield River and we stopped there to have morning tea. A little further on we passed through a couple of pretty little localities called Ayton and Rossville. One had a campground. We then passed through Cedar Bay NP which was rainforest area again. We also went passed the Lion’s Den Hotel, which apparently is famous for its atmosphere. We didn’t stop though. Just after this, we turned right onto the Mulligans Highway which was sealed and which was the last part of the inland route to Cooktown. So there were more motorhomes and caravans driving along here. It was about 28km from this turn off to Cooktown. Along this section, we passed through Black Mountain NP, of which ‘Black Mountain’ was the feature. It was a strange mountain with black granite boulders making up half of it. We stopped and read the information signs and took photos. We drove into Cooktown at about 11.30.

We were actually quite hungry when we got to Cooktown so decided to have lunch straight away. We had brought our own sandwiches, but Michael suggested we also buy some hot chips. I thought a couple of milkshakes to share would be nice also. We stopped at a cafe in the main street to buy these and were glad we weren’t buying too much – the 2 milkshakes and a serve of chips was $14. We didn’t know of any particular parks to eat at, but I’d read about a lookout area at the top of Grassy Hill, so suggested we go there to eat. We drove up as far as we were allowed to drive and found a place to sit and eat which was in the shade and overlooked the main street of town and the Endeavor River. After eating, we walked further up to the very top and saw the wonderful almost 360 degree view. We read about how Captain Cook and Joseph Banks had climbed the hill a couple of times during their stay to view the surrounding reefs out to sea and determine how they were going to get safely back out to sea after the Endeavour was repaired.

We walked back down to the car and drove down to the town centre again. I had also read of a walking tour taking in most of the historic sights around Cooktown. We drove to the harbour area to start this. Here was a statue of Captain Cook, a memorial to the beaching of the Endeavour, a cannon sent to Cooktown in the late 1800s to protect against the considered threat of Russian invasion (hadn’t heard that part of history before), and some other monuments. There was also a ‘musical ship’ which was a ship structure intended for kids to play on and they could make all sorts of music from different ‘instruments’. The kids enjoyed playing on this, and, true to form, Hannah and Bethany wanted to pretend they were Captain Cook and the crew sailing in and having to repair the ship. They convinced Sam to join their play (Lauren was feeling unwell today and so wanted to rest in the car at this point) and asked me to be the narrator. Since I had been teaching them this part of history, I knew the story, so was able to narrate. They had a practice run and then Michael started to video it – unfortunately the batteries ran out before we reached the end, but we got through most of it – I’m sure they’ll enjoy watching that again later – and hopefully that part of Australian history will stick in their memory.

We then drove to the James Cook Museum which we’d heard was very good. It was housed in the old convent building which was the oldest brick building in Cooktown. It had a story all of its own. We spent about 45mins at the museum and I really enjoyed it. We saw the original of the anchor and one of the cannons from the Endeavour which had been thrown overboard and which they’d recovered in about 1969. We read the story of the recovery expedition. One of the most interesting things I read at the  museum was the first hand account of the meeting of Cook and his crew by the aboriginal tribes of the area – the story had been passed down through generations and was told and written down. There were other aspects to the museum – the gold rush which brought people to the area in the 1850s, the Chinese influence (many Chinese came for the gold) and other local history.

Our last stop at Cooktown was the Botanical Gardens which had an information centre and also a display on local flora and fauna. We had hoped to do the walk through the gardens down to Finch Bay, but after doing what we wanted to at the information centre, we realised we weren’t going to have time. The kids were keen for a swim and we asked about safe swimming holes in the Cooktown area and on the way back to Cape Trib. We were given a few options, one being a swimming hole out the back of the Lion’s Den Hotel. We thought this sounded like a good idea. 

So we started the trip back. The Lion’s Den Hotel was only 30 mins from Cooktown. We found the river, which had several nice swimming areas. We had some bikkies for afternoon tea and the kids had a swim for about half an hour. 

Then it was back in the car and another one and half hours back to Cape Trib. It was about 6.15 when we arrived back at the van park. We had found out yesterday that they make wood fired pizzas here every lunchtime and dinner time, so we had decided we would do that for dinner tonight. It was a nice easy and yummy dinner. Usual night time routine.