CAIRNS TO EMERALD (via McKay)
What an interesting few days we’ve had since we left Cairns. The rain was bucketing down as we drove out of Cairns. It rained most of the time we were in Cairns. Flying up to Cape York allowed us to escape the rain. Despite the rain it’s still hot – hot and humid.

From Cairns we headed south towards Townsville driving through mile after mile of cane fields. Lunch was at Mission Beach, yet another beautiful Queensland beach. The only problem with these beaches in Far North Queensland is if the stingers don’t get you the crocodiles probably will. It’s much safer to swim in a pool. We had hoped to spend the night in Townsville, but with a big RSL conference in town there was no accommodation. We drove a bit further south to Ayres in the middle of cane field country. Just about everywhere else harvests the cane but around Ayres they still burn the cane before harvesting. It is probably the last part of Australia where the cane is still burnt before harvesting. During the day the sky is grey with smoke. It isn’t until night falls that the full impact of cane burning can be seen. The sky is red. It evoked images of ‘Summer of the 17th Doll’. However they no longer cut the cane by hand, it is all done with mechanical harvester; even so it is quite a sight to see the cane fields burning at night.

We also stopped at Tully in cane country. As it is harvesting time the sugar mills are in full swing. As soon as we stepped out of the car in Tully there was a sickly sweet smell pervading everything. Tully is an interesting town. It was built in the 1920’s to accommodate the sugar mills. Loved this town. Many of the buildings were built in the art deco style and very little has been changed. It was like taking a step back in time. The art deco architectural style is everywhere. It is also the town with the highest rainfall in Australia. The giant gumboot shows you how much rain they get.

After Tully we stopped at Bowen for lunch. Most of you probably know by now that Bowen was used as the location for Hugh and Nicole’s new movie “Australia’. Bowen was chosen as it hasn’t changed much in the last 100 years and in the movie it is made over to represent Darwin both before and during World War 2. About the only changes made were to cover the streets in red dirt and put new signs up on the buildings. The harbour and mangroves are very reminiscent of Darwin back in the 30’s and 40’s. Nicole isn’t our favourite actress but we will probably see the movie just to see what we can pick out.

From Bowen we travelled south to Mackay for a couple of days to catch up with our old friends, the Bensons. Mackay was a real surprise. We were expecting something a bit bigger than Bowen, but not the large, bustling city of 85,000 people. Mackay is flourishing because to the mining boom, mainly coal... It has sprawling suburbs and the feel of a real boom town. After spending so much time in remote places it came as quite a shock. Cairns is large, but everything in Cairns depends on the tourism industry. In MacKay it seems as if everyone drives big 4-wheel drives’ and they own big boats. Fishing and drinking are the main occupations of the miners when they are in town.

The remnants of the February floods are still really obvious. Some people still haven’t been able to move back into their homes. Many homes have containers on the front lawn storing whatever furniture that didn’t get destroyed. Because of the coal mining industry it has been hard to get tradies to come up here to do the rebuilding. They can earn much more money out in the coalfields. Many of the builders have been brought up from down south. The insurance companies fly them up for 3 weeks and then send them home for a week on a continuous rotation. It is much the same out in the coalfields. As a result accommodation is very expensive in Mackay.

Despite all of this Mackay is a lovely town. Money is being spent to beautify the river and harbour and it starting to take on the look of a very cosmopolitan city.
We have now left Mackay and are driving to Emerald through coal mining country. There are mines dotted everywhere but they are all off the main road. The township of Coppabella is a railway siding run by the Queensland Railways. All the big coal trains come through here on their way to the port in Mackay. We have seen a couple of trains. They can be up to 1.8 kilometres long. The main hazard on the road has been the oversized loads being escorted by the police out to the coal fields. They are huge semis loaded with huge equipment for the mines. The loads are so wide that the police make oncoming traffic pull over to the side of the road to let them through.
One interesting sight was all these signs on the side of the road indicating where all the car crashes have been. Each sign even has a little illustration to indicate the type of accident – mostly rollovers and running into trucks. There have been a lot of accidents. Those miners work hard and party hard and it looks like it takes its’ toll on them. They drive like there’s no tomorrow.From Emerald we will head south to Roma and plan to visit Lightening Ridge on our way south.

WE MADE IT!

We have reached the halfway point of the trip on the day we walked on the tip of Cape York. What a day. We flew from Cairns to the aboriginal community of Barmaga up on the Cape. The flight was amazing. The rain forest covers the land like a lush green carpet. It is as if the carpet was laid and they forgot to take out all the lumps and bumps. These majestic mountains of rain forest fall right down to the coast. All you can see along the coast are hundreds of miles of pristine beaches. It would have taken us three days to drive up to the tip of the Cape but we would never have been able to appreciate the majesty of the land. Huge rivers such as the Wenlock and the Jardine wend their way through the thick rainforest. It is also possible to see the dry river beds just waiting for the wet season to come. Just when you think you have seen enough rainforest the plane flies over these amazing craters of silica sand in the middle of the rain forest. I hope it is clear enough in the photo.

Once we arrived at Barmaga we were driven for about 45 minutes in a 4-wheel drive to a beautiful beach looking out onto some of the smaller islands in the Torres Strait. From there we hiked through bushland until we reached the tip of the Cape. It was almost impossible to believe that we had finally made it to the very top end of Australia and during the journey had experienced so much of the country. On the way back to Cairns we flew out over the Outer Barrier Reef. The photos show how incredibly beautiful it is from the air. You can clearly see from the air why it is called the Barrier Reef as it really does act as a barrier for the coast. Photo of the barrier reef is not as clear as the rainforesr as we were up much higher because of the storms on the way back to Cairns, but I'm sure you get the idea.

We when arrived at Barmaga an extra person joined out group, He is flying around Australia in his own home-built plane.

It rained very heavily in Cairns yesterday but the weather on the Cape was beautiful. Because of the heavy rain in Cairns the plane had to land at Cooktown to refuel to ensure it had enough fuel in case it was put into a holding pattern over Cairns because of the weather.

When we were travelling in the Outback just as we began to get a little bit bored with all the scrub, rocks and termite mounds we got closer to Cairns and the rainforests opened up.
It has been an amazing trip and on the journey south we plan to explore more fascinating places,
But this has also been a journey of discovery in other ways. Recently I was contacted by an old neighbour through Friends Reunited. Robert Sutherland used to live down the street from us in Webb Street and moved up here in 1984. What I didn’t know was that he had married a girl I went to High School with, Anne McKellar. We had a wonderful time catching up.

Today we are just lazing around and tonight we will take a dinner cruise out onto the harbour at Cairns. Tomorrow we head south and will be in Mackay where we will catch up with old air force friends, the Bensons

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Hope you enjoy the photos of us up north.

This posting is coming from the Cooktown Library. We have spent the last few days travelling through some amazing country, especially at Undara where we walked around the rim on an extinct volcano and climbed through some lava tubes.

Cooktown is a lovely little tropical paradise where the rainforest truly does meet the sea. We are going on a cruise up the Cook River later today.

I was gong to upload some photos but the connection is very, very slow. May have more luck in Cairns.