Far North Queensland

28th August 2010
Ok….well…… We are pretty behind.
Monday night earlier this month, back up in Cairns, we found ourselves back in Gordonvale with old mate, his little brown dog and the travelling cockatoo!

The next day was overcast and wet so we headed to the movies to catch Toy Story 3. We also attempted to sneak into Karate Kid however the cunning movie centre staffs were on to us pretty quickly so we had to make a fast getaway from their little flashlights!

Right on dusk we stumbled into some great entertainment on the foreshore, the local Zuumba Class. Unfortunately we had plans for later in the night so we quickly cooked up tea on the BBQ and sat back and enjoyed our dinner with a free show. That Nights entertainment was a Magic show at the Casino performed by Sam Powers. It was a good show very entertaining and Meegan even managed to get up on stage and please the crowd as Sam’s sexy assistant! After the show we cruised up to our vacant block at Redlynch to catch some sleep!

On Wednesday we actually managed to find our beloved Lemon Meringue Pie Fruit, or Rollinia Deliciosa. For those who haven’t been fortunate enough to try it, it’s worth the effort of hunting it down for a week. If you ever come across it make the purchase your taste bus will defiantly thankyou for it. Later in the morning we made our way up to Mossman gorge, a beautiful spot which follows along the length of the river, again it was raining as we made our thru the gorge (I guess that’s why its called the rainforest).

Craving some sunshine we cruised over to check out Port Douglas another famous Queensland getaway, with beautiful white sand, calm azure blue water and lovely coconuts palms along the beach. We must have missed this part of the beach as all we saw was mangroves with brown silty water with mushy knee high chop, and gunky sand. I may be biased but I think WA beaches $%^& all over Queensland beaches. Anyway we didn’t spend long at Port Douglas, it has the feel of one of those towns that used to be really nice before it became what it is now, much like Dunsborough.
That night was spent at our illegal little spot down the road on our own private beach paying a total of $0 for the night, take that over priced caravan parks.

Thursday morning we awoke to a nice sunrise over the ocean, where we devoured our sour sop, rollinia, passionfruit, chocolate pudding fruit and many other delicious tropical goodies. We then headed back to Mossman, a town we were becoming all to familiar with. Luckily we were finally able to pick up a set of shiny new number plates. 1DLA819

Heading back toward Cairns we decided to head up to the quaint little town of Kuranda. Which is basically just a large tourist attraction with 2 “original markets“ a series of small shops, bird parks, koala parks, butterfly gardens; pretty much any animal that can be breed and displayed there was a dedicated park for it.

We opted for the butterfly hut as the birds in the rainforest are prolific and all the other animals we have already seen. The butterfly house is home to over 2000 butterfly’s, from over 12 local species, with the largest moth in the world; the Hercules moth which has a wingspan up to 27cm. The only problem is it cannot eat so it only lives for 48 hrs of its body fat.

One of the best things we saw in Kuranda was an old fashioned lolly shop where everything was hand made, the lollies are made with natural flavours with no added preservatives. All the lollies were wrapped and created with machinery from the 1930’s. The lollies where so tasty and natural we decided to buy some for Brett’s nieces and nephews. Unfortunately they weren’t posted in time and we ended up eating them, sorry kids but they were delicious.

After Kuranda we decided to donate another $350 to the local tyre company as we are sick and tired of being so cashed up! We than headed down to Innisfail for a night out on the town. You see we had been together for 4 years on this day and being the hopeless romantic Brett is he decided to take Meegan out for a big night on the town spoiling her with his love. (There is no money for spoiling, so love is all Meegan gets)
Anyway Innisfail was the biggest town on the map in the area so we where sure to find somewhere to wine and dine. First we needed to give ourselves a scrub so we went to a caravan park to pay our $2 for a shower.

Except no one told us that showers actually cost $3 in Innisfail, which is no big a deal, however we only had a $5 note left in the car. So Meegan decided to head into the shower with a stern warning from the lady at the front; Brett wasn’t to try sneak in as well. After pleading with the “lady” for a $2 shower (seeing that we only had $2 left) Brett was firmly told “$2 is NOT $3” Brett was sent to back to the car where the lady morphed into a bitch and positioned herself with a prime viewing of the shower area. Not satisfied with her bitch status she decided to up the ante, and have a go at Brett for offending her with his offer of $2 for a shower.

After Meegan was cleansed we headed into town to find some grub. After 30 min’s of driving around town we discovered Innisfail was a dud. Luckily it was late night shopping so we went to Coles and purchased some divine treats instead. Then it was off to the movie store to rent a movie, we then ended up back at the free camp by the highway (having bucket baths) where we belonged. In short do not go to Innisfail for a holiday. (It actually is a very beautiful area unfortuanlly that night we ran into a few problems).

Since Thursday was a shambles we concurred to move our 4 year togetherness date to Friday instead. So we arose early and made the short drive up to Josephine falls. We then cut up what was left of the rollinia, sour sop and custard apple fruit, ventured up by the river where we sat on some rocks enjoying our fruity feast. After a short walk to check out the falls, we returned to the swimming hole to slide on the rocks and a jump in for a very brief, cold dip.

After breakfast we had a look at the nicer side of Innisfail down at flying fish point, where the river meets the sea.

That afternoon we headed to one of the most incredible places in Queensland Paronella Park. Paronella Park is a park which was designed and constructed by one man Jose Paronella. It is an amazing place which has its own waterfalls, lakes, castle, hydro electric power station, ball room and 5 acres of tropical gardens with over 7000 trees and plants.

It can’t be explained in one page, it has to be seen to be believed. The only problem is it was made over five years in the 1930’s by Jose. Everything was done by hand and most of the materials for the building were sourced from the property, and most of it was lime from a quarry up the back. As this area of Queensland is prone to cyclones it has been through at least 4 major cyclones, every 5 years the bottom half of the property floods and a major fire destroyed much of the castle 20 years ago.
These days it doesn’t quite possess it’s former glory, however you can’t help but feel the passion that went into this place, the vegetation may slowly be taking over as moss covers the stairways and roots are devour the buildings, but it is a truly incredible property with a very interesting history.

After spending the morning photographing Paronella park we were both keen on a bit of beach action so on the advice of the locals we headed to Kurramine beach, a quick dip and we were on the way to Mission beach.














Watch this space for updates!

Believe it or not even in the life of holidaying we still are runing out of time to type about it! Updates coming soon.