Well the bed seemed too enticing this morning and we didn’t manage to get the early morning dip in. Even with not feeling like getting out of bed, the van was packed up and we were on the road before 9am and heading north to Darwin.

The Stuart Highway was certainly busy this morning with road trains and convoys of caravanners, some of them slow with little opportunity for overtaking.

It should have taken a little over an hour to get to Katherine but of course with a few geocaches along the way, it was closer to 1.5 hours.

With fuel around $1.30 a litre in Katherine, we managed to find a truck stop not that well known in the industrial area for 10c a litre cheaper. And once again we were soon on the way again.

More traffic and road trains with a smattering of road works and we could finally smell Darwin around 3pm. But with all the traffic lights, it wasn’t until 330pm before we made it to the Discovery Tourist Park.

There was just enough time to set up everything then have a shower to wash off the sweat and it was time to head into the Darwin Ski Club for the Officials Welcome Dinner.

There is nothing that compares to a Darwin sunset and tonight didn’t disappoint. It is always good to get free cold beer, a good meal, a chance to catch up with all the firies for the V8 Supercars that make their way to Darwin from all over Australia and the spectacular sunset.

Something that was visibly absent was the midgies. For some reason they didn’t seem to be biting. That will be a welcome change. I have since found out that the moon has a lot to do with them and there is such a thing as a Midgie calendar where you can find out when they will be bad and this week is not one of those week, what a bonus.

Back to the caravan park, with what was going to be an easy day tomorrow.

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Not having power overnight meant for an early to bed and early to rise but still managed around 10 hours sleep for the night. A quick bite to eat and on the road by 800am. That is the earliest we have hit the road this trip. We even beat the grey nomads out of town.

After an easy drive with a few stops for some geocaches, we arrived at Mataranka Homestead just after 1000am. You would think that would be early enough to get into camp but there was 10 people in front of me in the queue and another 6 behind me. It was going to be interesting to see if we get power.

We didn’t need to worry too much as there was a lot of other campers moving out after their stay and we managed a site right next to Gary and Deb who arrived yesterday. They even had scones with jam and cream waiting for us.

After a bit of relaxing, it was time for a bit of soaking. Headed down to the now expanded thermal pool for 3 hours of soaking. Gee it is hard to take. My gout infected toe even felt great after the soak. Will need to go again. Oh wait, we are here for a couple of days. 🙂

Another night of dining out, this time at the Mataranka Homestead and a feed of Barra for something different. The Barra at Daly Waters Pub last night was better though.

There was supposed to be a band for a couple of hours but someone forgot to tell the band as they were still up in Darwin. Whoops.

A little later on, Nathan “Whippy” Griggs, a whip cracker put on a show and it was a great show. If you ever get a chance to see his show, don’t miss it. Plenty of tricks, cracking of whips, audience participation (great to see the looks on their faces as whips crack around them) and a grand finale of flaming whips. He certainly made up for the lack of the band. And I even bought one of his stubby holders.

In all of this, we held a geocaching event but the only attendees were myself, Jenny, Gary and Deb. We have another event planned for Thursday at Mindil Beach. Maybe we will get some more attendees then.

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Last nights cartons must have quietened down the locals overnight as there was no sign of any when we left Borroloola this morning.

Today’s journey is on the Carpentaria Highway through to the north-south Stuart Highway. It consisted mainly of single lane road for most of it with some normal two lane road on the crests and where the road has been replaced after being washed away.

Not far from Borroloola is the Caranbirini Conservation Reserve, which we were told by the caravan park is a must stop for with a permanent waterhole and sandstone pillars. So I guess we had better stop.

We are glad that we did stop. There are a couple of different loop walks and we took the 2 kilometre walk around and through the centre. From the outside, it looked like any other sandstone outcrop seen in the Territory but once you got into the centre area, wow.

The pillars and sandstone features were spectacular and well worth the stop and the walk.

There were a constant stream of 4 trailer road trains coming our way once we were back on the road and given it was single lane road, they were welcome to it and I pulled off as each of them passed. Soon we found out where they were coming from, the McArthur River Mine. I believe it is a bauxite mine and they ship out of Bing Bong, not far north of Borroloola.

We stopped at an oasis called Cape Crawford for lunch which had a nice spot with shade and green grass. Jenny had a craving for hot chips and luckily they cooked them here. There was a variety of bird life here and Jenny made the mistake of tossing the Apostlebirds a couple of chips, they are now her friends for life.

It was just now time to sit back for another 270 kilometres on the single lane road, getting off for the occasional road train.

Pulling in Daly Waters, it was like Rundle Street with cars, caravans, motorbikes and trucks. By the looks of things, it looked like the caravan park was full and it was only 330pm in the afternoon.

A quick abandonment of the van in the street and I joined the queue of hopeful travellers. The powered sites had all gone but the overflow unpowered site was filling fast. We were lucky enough to get one of the last sites. It wasn’t long after we parked up that the chains went up on the main park and the overflow, with all others being moved on.

Last time I was through, the Daly Waters Pub was up for sale and finally the pub and caravan park has sold to a bloke from Coober Pedy who has a number of businesses around Australia. He takes over in October.

Meals are a little different at this pub due to the large number of people needing feeding. They do a “Beef and Barra” meal with $32 a head. There is then a number of different meal times starting at 630pm then each half hour after that. Ours was down for 730pm. In the meantime, it was drinking and music time while we waited in the beer garden. Tom Maxwell was a country singer that wasn’t too bad and he was followed by a rock and roll guy that was pretty average.

I estimate that there would have been close to 200 meals served tonight and this happens every night. There would be some pubs back in Adelaide that would kill for those sort of meal numbers. Oh and the “Beef and Barra” was good too.

Back to the van for some reading before hitting the hay. Tomorrow is an easy drive with 168 kilometres to Mataranka but we will need to get on the road early to beat the grey nomads to the powered sites.

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Well things didn’t quite go to plan today but more on that later. What did go to plan was the weather but of course the blues skies appeared as we are leaving the Cairns area.

We have a week to get to Darwin and we wont get there if we keep hanging around here.

First order of the day was to get Rachael to the airport so that she could return to the colder climes of Blackwood. She was not too happy about it either. After a bit of poking and prodding she was eventually ready to go. In fact we had the van all packed and ready to go but not connected to the car as I didn’t want to drag it through the airport again.

Leaving the caravan park at 9am, we dropped off Rachael by 930am then back to the caravan park and connected, out the gate just after 10am. All going well so far.

Our journey to Darwin will follow the Savannah Way which runs across the top from Cairns to Broome but we will only be going the first half to the Stuart Highway in Northern Territory.

The first obstacle is the climb up the Great Dividing Range to Kuranda. It looks a long way up from down the bottom but it is deceiving as it is a gentle climb and was able to maintain 60kph with no problems.

There was a lot of changing landscapes as we moved west. Starting with the rain forest of initial mountains, we came out onto the Atherton Tablelands which reminded us of the North Island of New Zealand, then some gentle rolling hills that are similar to around Meadows in South Australia before opening out in Savannah which is very similar to the Northern Territory.

At one point there was a section with Boab trees which took me back to my travels in Africa.

We stopped for lunch at Mount Hypipamee which had a volcanic crater as well as the Dinner Falls. A chance to put the new improved foot to the test (there was some walking involved) following the steroids and it stood up well.

The original plan was to get to the Undara Lava Tubes for the 1pm tour but that wasn’t going to happen with 180km to go. A quick check of the website revealed a 330pm tour which is more than doable.

Along the way was the Innot Hot Springs where hot water around 78C bubbles up in the creek at the back of the pub. They say it is natural and has amazing properties but is this just snake oil selling. It mixes with the cold water of the creek and you can soak in the water mix. This is similar to the Douglas Hot Springs in the Northern Territory. Unfortunately there was not much flow today so most of the pools were stagnant so no dipping to be had by us.

We arrived at the Undara Lava Tubes just after 3pm so plenty of time to make the 330pm tour or so we thought. The staff decided that they didn’t want to run one today and the next one will be at 1030am tomorrow. Well that is not the right way to please 10 paying customers that all arrived around 3pm.

They must be rolling in cash as they turned away at least $600 and probably more because most of the caravans would have stayed the night. I am sure it would have been cost effective to put on a guide for the couple of hours a tour takes. Soon there was a convoy of vans heading out the gate. Maybe we will see the tubes in 5 years or so.

We were going to stop the night at Mount Surprise following the lava tube tour but since we now had some more time, we pushed the extra hour to Georgetown.

The leg between Mount Surprise and Georgetown harked back to driving the Stuart Highway back in 1987 when it was just a single lane of bitumen and when a car came the other way each vehicle drove with one wheel on and one wheel off as you passed. The Gulf Development Road is just like that now in 2017. Of course if a road train is coming your way then the idea is to get right off and let it pass.

I guess one old mate thought pulling a caravan made him a road train so there was an interesting game of chicken between two cars pulling caravans for a little while with me wildly flashing him. He eventually straddled as we came together. You can view the dash came here on YouTube.

The hope was tomorrow to ride the Gulflander train but checking the schedule that is now not going to work out but we may get to see it along the way. Our destination will be Normanton and we are now an hour closer than planned.

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Finally some blue skies that might last the day. That will be essential later in the day as we will be going White Water Rafting.

Today gave us a chance to have a sleep-in, for the activity for the day was not until after lunch and pick-up point was at the front door of the caravan park – how convenient (may have been planned that way).

Once everyone was up and ready, it was time for some retail therapy for Jenny and Rachael but only a small amount for we headed into Cairns to check out the beaches.

Coming from South Australia with our pristine white beaches, the tidal flat beaches of Cairns didn’t impress. I guess the climate has the appeal more than the beaches here.

Right on time the bus arrived from Raging Thunder to takes us up to the outlet of the Barron Gorge Hydroelectric Power Station. Driving up the gorge there seemed to be more rocks than water. It seems that the power station lets out water at a certain time of day which coincides with the white water rafting. I am sure there is some sort of contractual thing with the various rafting companies.

Our group had 3 rafts. Ours with the three of us and a family group of 3 from Dallas Texas, a second one with 6 Chinese and a multi cultural raft to make up the three. We were accompanied by three kayaks as rescuers but as the rapids were class 2 or 3 (probably closer to 2), they would have a quiet day.

Even though the rapids were not the more exciting 4’s and 5’s we have done in New Zealand it was still a fun afternoon. Of course have way down you have the get out and swim for a bit. Its was certainly welcome as the sun had stayed out all afternoon so we were getting warm. Just as we got back into the raft there was a large python floating in the water (luckily it was dead).

We finished the rapids section and made it into the Lake Placid, when our guide Paul mentioned that we should check out the banks and rocks to see if the resident crocodiles are about. Initially I thought this was a to scare the tourists but it soon came apparent that there were crocs present when around the corner was a crocodile trap. This lake used to be used for all types of recreational activities but has not for the last 12 months or so due to crocs being present.

It is just brave white water rafters that use the lake to get from the rapids of Barron River. We all made it through and don’t have any bite marks.

Tomorrow it is time to move on and for Rachael to return to the cold of Blackwood.

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It looked like we were not going to get clear skies today as we ventured up into the Great Dividing Range west of Cairns.

Our ride up to the tourist (sorry historic) town of Kuranda was the Skyrail. The Skyrail is a 7.5 kilometre gondola cableway that takes you up, over and into the rain forest that surround Cairns. There is a couple of stops along the way.

The first stop is in the rain forest where we took a ranger guided tour along the boardwalk, learning a little more on the origins and life of a rain forest and of course it was raining.

The next stop is Barron Falls and we nearly made it to the falls without rain but no down it came. We did get to check out the falls and return to the Skyrail without getting too wet. The Falls were spectactular but there was a not a lot of water flowing over today. Most of the water is now diverted to produce hydro-electric power with enough water going over to maintain the falls.

The end of the line was the village of Kuranda. The town has history in mining but it is now purely for the tourist and the Skyrail is responsible for bringing in thousands each day. There are plenty of different tourist offerings from markets, museums, shops, gift stores, restaurants and cafes of any cuisine that you are looking for.

We decided on visiting the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary. And it was an experience with some 1500+ butterflies in the aviary including the colourful blue Ulysses and the majestic green & yellow Cairns Birdwing. I need a bit of practice to get a decent photo of these two. There is also an opportunity to see the nursery where eggs are hatched and caterpillars are transformed into butterflies. New butterflies are introduced into the aviary every day.

As soon as we left the butterflies, it started to bucket down. Luckily I was prepared with a poncho in my bag. Jenny and Rachael retreated to the shop to grab one each for themselves.

It was lunch time and there was all sorts of cuisine at tourist prices. All I wanted was a pie. Jenny and Rachael settled for Vietnamese while I got my pie. One more stop before boarding the train back to Cairns.

It was the Golden Drop Winery whose specialty is mango based wines. I was wondering if we were going to make our train as Jenny and Rachael made sure to taste every variety of wine before deciding on their purchase.

The Kuranda Scenic Railway took an hour and a half to do, not so much because of the distance but due to the drop of 328 metres from the top to the bottom. There was also a stop at the Barron Falls where we got a better view from the southern side of the Barron Gorge. The history and construction of the railway was interesting and there is an App available to listen to the commentary given on the journey down.

A bus trip from Freshwater Railway Station back to the car and we finished our day of Planes (well sort of – we were in the air), Trains and Automobiles (cars and buses).

I could no longer stand the pain of the gout in my foot. It has been over a week now and it has never lasted this long. I found a local doctor who has given me a course of steroids that he assures will cure me over three days. If not, I should have the strength of 10 men. It had better be on the mend by tomorrow as we head out onto the Barron River for some white water rafting.

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