Bye Bye Mission Beach, Hello Cooktown....

G'day Mates,

I've got a very bad reception but still want to try to give you a new story, I'll do my best but maybe it will be a short one, here it comes;


After giving everyone a hug and a kiss, we leave the caravan park towards the Tablelands. Because we've been here about 4 years ago and did all the site seeing you can do on the Tablelands, we now just pass trough. If you are interested in the tablelands you could go to my other weblog: tamfredinkangarooland.blogspot.com and watch the 14-10-2009 story.

When we were just a few k's from Mission Beach we already had a first stop haha; the hazard was a sugarcane-train;

Our first stop was a free camp at Mount Molloy, very nice camp, just a bit busy. Nearly everyone with grey hear going to or coming from Cooktown, stay there. At the same time we left Mission Beach, our neighbours also left together with friends and guess were they were going?? Haha, we were together at the Mount Molloy camp. 

Just want to show you a bit of the road;

Cooktown is the most northern town from Queensland where you can come with a normal car. You can go much more further to the cape but then you have to have a 4WD because all the roads are off-road/dirtroads. 

Cooktown has a lot of history because of the landing of captain Cook on 17 June in 1770.

Maybe for some people it is a pity and for others a relieve but we are not museum people so I can't give you information about the museum from Cooktown which, I have heard, is worth while the visit but sorry, not for us. We rather walk and see some of the flora and fauna but you most probably already have noticed that.

And so we did a walk, through the Botanical Gardens to Finch Bay,

 from there to Cherry Tree Bay, 

over grassy hill to the Lighthouse, 

all the way down again and then back to the caravan park, I think we have walked about 8 kilometres and the track, especially from Cherry Tree Bay to the lighthouse was very hard I can say!! But the view was worth the trip and of course we had our lunch (incl. beer and wine) with us so AGAIN we had the most gorgeous picnic spot chosen out, looking right over Cooktown!

To be continued!

(We've been to Optus because of the bad reception, they say the Tower can't handle all the tourists haha)

See you soon (I hope)

White water Rafting, Tully Gorge

G'day Mates,

This is the last of the Mission Beach Series, we are going to Tully Gorge, the Gorge is approximately 70 k's from Mission Beach and the road to there is very scenic through the banana country.

The Gorge itself has spectacular river and mountain views and there are swimming, camping and picnic facilities but.......we go for the White Water Rafting, NOT to do our self but just to see others nearly drown haha.....no no just kidding, it's very spectacular to see;

This red team took the waterfall different then the yellow team, the red ones went into the water one by one and let them glide through the water down the fall, the yellow team stayed together in the boat and went down by boat;

Of course..........looking for a spot for lunch;

During lunch we could see all the rafters coming in and it seemed they have had a great time;

But we had a great time to and after that also enjoyed the way back because it's through beautiful banana country;

Don't you think because I didn't had much to write that I was trying to have an easy blog!! 

Making these movies cost a lot of effort but hey, I love it!!

See you next time, on the road again!!

Cheers!

Exploring, having fun, celebrating......

Have you recovered from the Sky Diving??

G'day mates!

We are a bit pissed off at Optus who is our provider because they claim to have a coverage of 95 % in Australia but we didn't had internet for 5 days. It's not a problem that we cannot look at Facebook etc. now but we have important things to do for getting a new health care card and now we are too late with giving the requested information. The only option we have now to avoid this problem in the future is to get Telstra as provider but they are extremely expensive.

The other thing of course is that I become far behind again with my weblog. Did you miss me guys? I hope so, ok, I better hurry then to give you this new story. In the mean time we are much further in our travels and we have had a lot adventures; scary, great, amazing, exciting etc so keep on looking.

Back to Mission Beach, what else did we do there;

Explore other beaches...........

going for a walk at Bicton Hill, in Clump Mountain National Park, spotting a lizard....

having great views over Mission Beach......

running in to a Cassowary so now and then during the drives.....

And then the fellow campers on this (funny) caravan park, a lot of them come here for a few years and so they know each other already. When we were here the other years we stayed in another caravan park which now was closed because of the last cyclone. So we ended up in this park and we love it, just because its so laid back.

We are having happy hour at 5 o'clock at the camp kitchen and we have a lot of fun. Once we had three birthdays in one week so a few women made lovely stuff and we all celebrated during morning tea…..

and of course we sang for them; 

But sometimes I feel a bit ashamed you know, because most of these people are on holidays and of course do lots of things and then they give us tips for nice restaurants, pubs or other attractions etc etc and we don't want to nag that we can't afford all these thing, that we have to be selective. Ah well, most probably it's only in my mind and they don't even notice we're not going anywhere haha!
Accept with our home made lunch to a jetty and we are having fun!!

That's it again for today guys, I'm pretty sure we don't have reception for a day or five so be patient, I will come back!!

Till then!

SKY DIVING !! YEEEEHHH

Hi Guys,

Here I am with the promised sky diving adventure, ooh no, not for me, I would have had a heart attack, no no, I'm staying with my both feet right here on the ground!  But we have had some hero's between the fellow campers;

Did you know they jump out of a plane at 14.000 or even 15.000 ft (you can choose) and then you have a free fall of 60 seconds!!! When you lie on the beach and look up to see them fall out of the plane and wait for the chute to open, Oh My God, that seems everlasting!!

Ok here's our first hero; Gladdys

Of course we all run to the beach to see her land.....

Watch this video, we were almost as nervous as she was.....

After the jump, the chute's have to be folded back to jump-position, 2 girls have a lot of work to do, they don't have much time because the next group is waiting to go;

When you are staying weeks, even months (as a few did) at this caravan park and watch this skydiving activity nearly all days (except when it's raining or with hard winds) you end up being a professional in judging the landings of the tandem sky divers;

Just look at us, giving points to the instructors....

 

let me introduce you to the other two brave ones of our fellow campers;

David

and Eileen, they are signing the papers .....brrrrrr

OK people, now it's getting serious, not that Gladdy's jump wasn't serious but with these two I had the opportunity to film a bit of the films they got from the skydiving resort so now we can also see what happens before they land on the beach.

We all are waiting of course on the beach, shivering for fear, especially Fred and I because the day before we had seen that a chute failed and landed in the ocean, fortunately the instructors do have a second one pff.

watch and fear.....

In the mean time we were looking up to see them coming...

The landing.......

Save back to husband and wife;

So people, I hope you enjoyed this!!

Sorry it took so long but we have been to Cooktown in the mean time and didn't had the time, especially because making that skydive movie took a lot of effort.

Dear Gladdys, David and Eileen, I hope you enjoyed it to and I would appreciate a comment.

Thank you guys for being so brave!