Tuesday 21 June, and we have already been on the road for almost six weeks. Now at Cairns, we are enjoying the offerings of Australia’s tropical north – heat and humidity. Not that it is exactly hot, and as I write, it is 22 degrees while Canberra is basking in a relatively warm 9. Today’s drive was from Mena Creek, and it has rained most of the way, though it is more of a heavy mist with occasional squalls sweeping in from the south.

 

A fair bit has happened since Townsville. I was reminded that I had forgotten to mention the football match that John and I had been anticipating for a couple of weeks. Seeing that the NRL was hosting a match against Manly on the Friday we were in Townsville, I bought tickets. John and I prefer to watch AFL which is the superior game, but a live match with a big crowd at the fabulous Townsville Stadium seemed like an excellent way to spend a Friday night, share a beer and pie, and give the girls some man-free space. I was busy planning the getting there and the parking arrangements when John brought me the shocking news that the games was being played 2,000 kilometres away at Manly. I felt thoroughly deflated, though the schadenfreude of my travelling companions was worse. I sent the tickets to Jen’s nephew, a mad Manly supporter who lives in Sydney, but while he already had tickets, agreed to try to hawk them.

 

We headed off on the Sunday, zooming in to church while we had some internet connection. It was good to catch up with a few of our Zoom friends for a short period as well. 

 

I was very keen to visit a spot about 80 kilometres north of Townville called Little Crystal Creek. Jen and I had stayed overnight there in 1977 on a camping holiday over December-January.

 

In 1976 we bought a VW Golf – we had one of the first in Australia, and I had ordered it months before the model had been imported to Australia. We had a little blue 4 x 6 trailer and I had built a rather crude camper for a budget camping trip from Canberra to Daintree, north of Cairns. We camped for free most of the way, taking a new way if it took our fancy. So when, north of Townsville, we saw a sign that said “Crystal Creek”, we happily diverted from the vague plan we had started with on the day. It was a winding, steep and narrow road, but the destination proved worth the effort. There was a large gravel car park where we camped for the night with no neighbours. A hundred metres further along, there is a beautiful, narrow stone arch bridge built in the 1930s, and a series of waterfalls tumbling over boulders into icy pools. It was January, and very hot, so we splashed around to cool down. In those early days there was a tin shed just below the bridge that served as a toilet. Jen went in to use the service and shortly after there was the sound of a massive explosion. Jen swears it was not her, and in any case she raced out of the building with alarm. I went to investigate and there was nothing out of the ordinary. We retired for the night in our makeshift camper, and during the night we could hear the explosions every hour or so. In the morning we realised that there was a giant mango tree, high above the bridge, and every so often a ripe mango would drop about 8 metres onto the tin roof.

 

 

This week, the years had clouded my memory of the drive up the mountain, so we were a bit startled by the sign that warned trucks, buses, motorhomes and caravans about driving the road. I am sure the drive is much longer these days as well. Queenslanders seem to drive with homicidal intent and there were moments of unnerving terror as we met vehicles speeding around corners taking all the road. At the bridge, things were much the same, though the toilet had been replaced with a modern structure near the car park, and safe from mango bombs. The bridge, waterfalls and pools are the same, and we clambered over them but did not raise the courage to go in. There were plenty of other visitors with children splashing around.

 

It was a delightful excursion to relive our journey from so long ago. But we had a destination, Mission Beach, for a night’s stay, then on to Mena Creek to visit Paronella Park. For Paronella you need to imagine the decaying ruins of a Spanish castle set alongside a tropical mountain river and waterfall and rainforest threatening to overtake the crumbling buildings. There are tours, and we went on the day and evening tours. The evening event included a coloured light show and music. The whole things seems so incongruous but it seems to work as there hundreds of tourists every day.

 

 

Today, en route to Cairns, with misty rain and clouds shrouding the mountains, we made another diversion, this time to the Woorooroonan National Park where there is a rainforest skywalk. It was stunningly beautiful walking along the paths with the trees, ferns and vines of the forest pressing in. Then the path merges onto a raised skywalk through the forest canopy. The rain and mist added to the cool beauty of this place. At the end of the walk, there was a 30 metre tower that we all braved which gave us some wonderful views across the rainforest valley to the North Johnstone River rushing along far below. The calm and peace of this Mamu Tropical Skywalk was very refreshing, and a pleasant way to finish off the first half of our time away.

 

 

We are now in Cairns for a few days and on Friday we begin our tour to Cape York. Jen is trying out the pina coladas as an entre to tropical life.