Mission completed! And reached Cairns....

G'day Mates,

Mission completed; Our little house on wheels is sold and I cried my eyes out when they came to pick it up and drove away. My God that hurts!

So that means; there still will be a few of my stories which includes our caravan but as soon as I catch up, there will be only us with the car, BUT, I promise, the adventures are not over YET!

Lets continue though with the trip with Danny, this will be the last one with him, then it's just us again. OK here we go......


I Hope you enjoyed my previous story? As I said, Paronella Park has a sister attraction and that's were we are going now, it's on the way to the Atherton Tablelands and named Mamu Tropical Skyway.....

Snake again??

No worries, this was a harmless little creature, its a tree snake and really beautiful!

Here we are on the 37 m high observation tower with two viewing decks, enjoying spectacular views over the North Johnstone River gorge and surrounding rainforest.

There is an elevated walkway, 350 m long, 15 m above the ground, meandering through the canopy of lush tropical rainforest...

After this nice experience we continued our trip to the Atherton Tablelands where I had booked a caravan park in Millaa Millaa, very nice again!

People who have been to the Atherton Tablelands know that it lies high and the road towards it is not very steep but goes up a very long way; result; cooking engine again! How can that be?? We just had a new radiator in Kalgoorlie ! We have to stop twice on very dangerous conditions on the side of the road and had to fill up the radiator again.

Anyway we managed to get to Millaa Millaa and next day we of course did the Waterfall Circuit...

We start with of course; Millaa Millaa Waterfall..

The surroundings are great!

and very green.....

Zillie....

Ellinjaa....

The Curtain Fig Tree near Yungaburra, which by the way, is a very nice little town!

Dinner Falls....

My intention was to drive from Millaa Millaa to Port Douglas, were our next stop was, via Malanda, Mareeba and Mount Molly but you can imagine that, with these problems with the car we didn't dare to do that so we went all the way back to Innesfail, hill going down, through Cairns to Port Douglas.

Again we had a great caravan park; the one I wanted to book; "Tropic Breeze" was booked out as there was a festival in Port Douglas during the time we were there, weren't we lucky!

The park with still a spot free was; Pandanus, Great Park!

At night the parade; sorry picture is not too good....

Port Douglas Beach....

Also during the day there were a lot of activities, especially for kids....

Sand sculpture competition...

After a great time in Port Douglas we went to Cairns for the last few day with Danny.

This park is very payable compared with the others in Cairns and again was a terrific choice;

Cairns Sunland Leisure Park!

The Cairns shore is amazing with nice BBQ spots.... 

Cairns at night....

Who do you think as been eating here?

The last night together...

And then, 5 weeks gone within a second, much too quick but the inevitable has come, packing the bags...

And then drop him off at the Cairns Airport....

A little shot from the flight radar from Singapore Airport where he had a few hours to spend till the next flight brings him to Amsterdam. 

We have to race back again to Townsville where we have a house sit, AND we bought a house in the Netherlands without being there, curious?? Stay with me then!

That's next guys, till then!

Cheers

Highlights: Help! Snake at campsite, Paronella Park; a dream

G'day mates!

The caravan is clean and for sale, no responses yet! Finely I found some time again to work on the next story, put already approx 8 hours into the last story and then something happened during my writing and everything was gone. My God I had to start all over again! My idea was to finish the trip with Danny to Cairns in one last big story but now with all my work gone I will make two stories, OK lets go....

We left Bluff towards Emerald were we stayed one night at the Showgrounds and I must say, that was fantastic! Better even then some caravan parks, new amenities, water, power everything you need!

Danny wasn't happy with the $ 5.00 chair we had bought for them at Bunnings  (Sheila wasn't that fussy 😂😂), so he bought himself another comfortable chair in Emerald, we also did some shopping as we are going to Clermont which is very small and we thought it might not have a decent super market.

I hear you thinking, where the hell is Clermont and what's there to do? GOLD people, there is Gold and of course I wanted to show Danny how it works and what we have been doing all the time in the West. The caravan park (there is just one) was very nice and we had a three night stay there, the name of our "street" seems appropriate...

Now it's time to try out the chair. 

Chair is approved!

Next days we tried our luck and found some gold. Danny was a great help, he did all the digging, unfortunately he didn't like it that much (which I can imagine) so after a few hours I was on my own again with my detector, Danny was exploring the bush and Fred was busy with the catering as usual.

It maybe would have been nicer for him if he could have a go with the detector but that isn't allowed, the license is only for me, even Hubby isn't allowed to walk around with my detector.

Then we had two nights in Charters Towers, again a great Caravan Park; Dalrymple Tourist Van Park. There I had a nasty experience with Facebook, well not Facebook itself but with a group I join. Let me explain;

You know the area at Charters Towers is pretty dry and the caravan park had a sentence on their invoice which says; "After 5 years of drought we are doing it tough. Can you please NOT wash cars/caravans, there is a car wash in Gill st." . 

Then I see someone washing his car AND caravan at his site and I'm getting furious! Nowadays it's dangerous to personally try to say something about it so I wrote my frustration on Facebook in the group Caravan Camping Australia" . Crikey, the shit I got over me, don't get me wrong, a lot of people agreed with me but there were also people saying to mind my own business. Was I that wrong to mention it? We all know how tough the people do in the drought areas,  not only the farmers. Anyhow, they took my post off the site, pfff!

 Danny was preparing himself for the next route....

From Charters Towers we went towards Townsville and we stopped just out of Townsville at Rollingstone free camp, this was also something what we wanted to show Danny as something like that is out of the question in The Netherlands!

Well, it was a great experience for both Danny and us! Not because of the free camp, which we are used to of course but we had company sneaking past us at dusk, very close to the caravan. A snake!

Our neighbours, a couple from France or Spain, can't remember, just had been sitting there having their dinner where it was crawling now. I think of all the excitement I forgot to make a picture. Danny made a movie, it's hilarious a bit shaky, which is not a surprise, but come and have a look, I have to apologise though for the Dutch Language......

Movie time:

By the way, besides the snake, that free camp is great and there were enough people so we dared to leave the caravan and go for a day tour to Paluma Range National Park, were we, of course did some walks at little Crystal Creek and on top of a mountain there is a little village named Paluma, from there were some nice walks as well......

a gathering site...

Wildlife sneaking up on me....

A nice little bridge....

It's beautiful out there!

Of course at the end of all these sight-seeings and walks we had a picnic at Big Crystal Creek, no pics of us eating again this time.

After a second night (didn't had the snake as visitor anymore) at the free camp we drove to Wongaling Beach, close to Mission Beach, to the caravan park Bali Hai one of our favourite spots! Previously the caravan park was the host for the Sky Divers, unfortunately that's not the case anymore but the park is still great, very busy in winter with Grey Nomads!

We didn't had too good weather but that didn't withhold Danny to walk over the beach to Mission Beach, very brave actually because here is an outlet of a river of which they say can live crocodiles....

With bad weather its good to have a camp kitchen....

In the distance our site!

I like this visitor more....

Then, I had booked something of which I really didn't had a clue what it would be and what we could expect: Paronella Park! Heard so much about it so I thought, lets check that out! There are caravan sites, powered and unpowered and it's worth going!

A little history, got from the Park's site:

Everyone has a dream but not everyone’s dreams are fulfilled. José Paronella’s dream was to build a castle. He chose a special part of Australia and created Paronella Park. On 5 Hectares beside Mena Creek Falls he built his castle, picnic area by the falls, tennis courts, bridges, a tunnel, and wrapped it up in an amazing range of 7,500 tropical plants and trees (now a lush rainforest!). It opened to the public in 1935.

Unfortunately due to storms, cyclone's, flooding and even a fire, the castle and park were destroyed several times and every time Jose managed to build it up again, till 1948 when he died of cancer.

With the admission of the park you get tours, done by guides, during the day but also at night when all the lights are on. They tell you the whole history and it really is very interesting!

After our guided tour in the afternoon we did some exploring ourselves....
Enjoy the pictures.

Bamboo bush

little paths leading you to all parts of the park...

A thick, fat Eel!

Mysterious.....

Teresa Falls, named after his daughter....

Kauris Lining Kauri Avenue...

there are ruins all over the place....

The big stairs, 47 steps....

Paronella at night...

The Mena Creek Falls.....

The was a beautiful light show with music at night at the castle.... 

Paronella Park; A Must Go!

The current owners, Mark and Judy Evans, bought Paronella Park in 1993. They are not building t back up again but try to keep the ruins as good as possible so we all can enjoy it as long as possible.

They also own the sister attraction of Paronella Park; 

The Mamu Tropical Skyway, which is situated on the Palmerston Hwy towards The Atherton Tablelands, not too far from Paronella Park, but that's next folks!

See ya soon.

Cheers