Trying to catch up withouselves here are some updates from last week, or the week before! We are on holidays and we have lost track of time so just enjoy getting through another one of our essays!
Monday morning we headed into cairns to Drop Bob at the mechanic. The morning was spent walking around town, we went for a swim and discovered there were free hot showers down on the foreshore. Bob was ready to be picked up at lunchtime, the overheating problem was fixed, the oil had been changed but somehow Bob had managed to loose his back number plate!
Losing your number plates in a foreign land is not a good idea, even if it is in your own country! After waiting in long lines at government offices and spending the majority of the afternoon on government phone lines, we were given one option; we were not allowed to drive our car.
No more bob, well until our new numberplates arrived, which could take up to two weeks. We possibly could get away with driving with only one number plate but driving with no plates seemed a little riskier! You see even if you are interstate you still need to somehow get your remaining numberplate back to W.A for the transport department to issue you with new plates. So in the end we decided to risk driving up to Mossman (just inland from Port Douglas) as we had a family friend up there and we hoped we might be able to crash out the front for a few days while we waited for the plates to arrive. So we departed cairns and cruised along the Captain Cook highway, a windy little road that follows the rainforest and the coastline. That night we found an amazing camping spot right on the beach complete with coconut palms, turtles and an amazing sunrise to wake up to the following morning.
Tuesday morning after another amazing fruit filled breakfast we headed into Mossman to post off our one remaining numberplate. Once arriving in Mossman and chatting to the locals about our options with the car, we decided the Daintree was a much better place to kill a few days waiting for the plates. So on Scott’s nifty advice, after a quick stop at the printers and $7.00 later we were fitting Bob’s new paper, laminated number plates to the car complete with the photocopiers detailed images of fresh mud and squished bugs. They really looked the part so we then spent the next two weeks touring the country side of far northern Queensland with our rogue plates.
First stop before the Daintree, we found ourselves in the quaint little caravan park come retirement village of Wonga beach. We were possibly the youngest people to ever grace the grounds of Wonga and the locals loved the fresh young blood. We were not invited to craft, like we were up at Karumba, but the care taker insisted that 5o’clock happy hour was the place to be seen. So the clock struck five and we slowly made our way over with our one remaining glass of wine to share between us. We were the last two people in the park to turn up so we seated our selves at the end of the table and started making small talk with a few of “the locals”. A good half hour after our arrival, a young lad in his late 50’s stood up to address the table. In front of the forty or so he stood, chinking his glass to catch everyone’s attention. Oh no we thought, someone’s died or its time to sing happy birthday.
Instead he points straight down the table at brett and bellows “Stand Up”.
“Who me” exclaims a bewildered Brett Ian Woodroffe
“Yes you, we have all seen it that set up of yours, everyone’s been spying on it since you came in, what is it? Who makes it? Details?”
He sits down, leaving Brett standing in a crowd of grey nomads lusting after more knowledge of the mysterious Bob. After informing the crowd of all the details and answering questions like a school project, everyone in the entire campground then managed to get over to have a closer look of bob at some time during the rest of evening. As we left the park the next morning a whole bunch of “old mates” were gathered at the front gates, cameras at the ready, snapping away paparazzi style as we drove out and left the strange land of Wonga Beach.
A short drive up the road and a quick ride on the ferry took us into the Daintree. Apparently once you cross the river its meant feel like crossing into Jurassic Park, which is true except for all the for sale signs, every where, as far as the eye can see. Everything is for sale, as beautiful as it is, there are not many who actually want to live here as its rains for over 300 days a year. The population is only about 100, you can’t imagine how hot and steaming and wet it would be throughout summer.
Our home for the three days was at Noah Beach, another amazing spot especially for only $10 a night! Right on the beach surrounded by rainforest! Whilst in the Daintree we saw cassowaries and bats, turtles, spiders, bush turkeys and beautiful beaches. We sampled amazing tropical fruits at an Exotic fruit farm, including the Lemon meringue Fruit, Sour Sop and Chocolate Pudding fruit. We met a Bat at the Bat Rescue centre. We sampled ice-cream at both ice cream factories, once on the way in and once on the way out. We climbed the highest point, Mt Sonder but unfortunally the clouds had come in so the views from the top really were not worth the 5 hour journey! The hike was still pretty good, lots of up hill but luckily no leaches!
Bob managed to make it up all the hills, without breaking a sweat, and these hills are very, very steep and very, very long! Feeling pretty confident now that Bob was fixed and the success of our numberplate scam, we boarded the ferry on Saturday and Left the Daintree Behind. Ten minutes down the road we heard the all too familiar sound of Psssssssssssssssssssssssspssssssssss. Another bloody tyre!!!
Up another ridiculous hill, we made our way to a camp spot at Mt Molloy for some Saturday night fever. Mt Molloy was yet another beautiful campsite, complete with local Bogans drinking until three or four in the morning. We later found out that this lot had been camping at this free overnight camp spot on and of for 12 months only leaving when the police made them. They would return a week later and set up camp, squatting for a few more months.
Our next stop was the Atherton Table land. This area is the equivalent of the wine region down south, tropical fruit wineries, cheese and chocolate factories, the peanut palace, tea houses, coffee plantations, dairy companies, arts and craft. It was all pretty tasty especially the strawberry farm we found we found on our way back to cairns. We checked out more waterfalls and saw some of the most incredible fig trees we have ever seen.
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Stay Longa at Wonga ... Adrian and I stayed there too when we were heading to the Daintree a couple of years back. You would have been the stars of the show for sure. I remember us drawing quite a few stares and we were in a rental campervan, think it was the fact that we were a good 40 yrs younger than everyone else! Loving the fact you pulled off the photocopied plates! I had some interesting times travelling around the US with missing licence plates, had some run ins with the law which in hindsight can be laughed about but at the time were pretty darn scary even if we weren't doing anything wrong! The fig trees are amazing hey? As for the for sale signs in the Daintree they totally freaked me out too, makes you realise just how much isn't National Park/World Heritage. Don't remember it being like that when I went up there when I was the uni but then again that was oh so many years ago!! Well travel safe, try not to blow anymore tyres! Look forward to the next update! Renee xxx
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