A sn(e)aky experience at Mount Surprise

OK mates, sit down, have your favourite drink and a cigarette if you smoke, but most of all, take your time to watch this;

You remember the road with the elephant bums? Well that's the way we are driving now again but instead of going down to Charters Towers, we now go towards the west. 

Our goal is Darwin but we hope we are not too late because what we experience till now is that we stay much longer in places than planned. Oh well we will see.

After Ravenshoe our first stop was Mount Surprise and Oh My God, it WAS a surprise !! We planned to stay at Planet Earth Adventures 

which consisted of a big shed and next/behind that there were powered and non powered sites in a paddock. 

Further there was a toilet/shower block in a real Aussie style of corrugated sheets.
Very nice showers by the way! In the shed was a great kitchen where the owner: Russell, could conjure a meal........ We had the best fish plate ever! 

In the mean time, the Savannahlander came into " town", this train still operates between Cairns and Forsayth, Forsayth is a very small town you can't even get to without a 4W-drive.

All passengers were somewhere having lunch.

OK guys this was the train, lets go back to Russell's;
One of the things he is famous for, is the snake show he used to give. We understood he doesn't do that to often anymore and we already wondered where the snakes would be till we came in one part of the shed which was established as a museum (OK, we don't like museums but this was a nice small one with things out of the past I could even remember!) 

and there they were brrrr!! 

At about 5 o'clock so called happy hour or sherry time, we sat relaxing in front of the caravan when we saw Russell cleaning the cages of the snakes and we decided to have a look at a decent distance, Russell noticed us and before Fred could even blink his eyes he had a snake around his shoulder, a python! 

And of course after a while I had to face the same fact brrrr. 

The treat for not killing us was a white rat, fortunately he wasn't hungry 

but that was no problem for Russel, he just grabbed another snake who did had appetite!

Sorry Russel but still I prefer this on my shoulder;



As I told you we had that last night a terrific dinner and a very nice time because again we have met lovely people with whom we had a nice chat!!

We will never forget Mount Surprise and Russell with his snakes! (He had about 9 by the way) 

Cheers! See you next time!

Cooktown II

Even though we had sore legs from that first trip, we decided to walk the other half, (the whole walk is called the scenic rim walk) the next day but we left the walk to Mount Cook out. This walk was leading us to the cemetery, through the wetlands to the esplanade 

and at the end the Fisherman's Wharf where we had our usual lunch,




looking at the fishermen catching one fish after the other.


 We nearly crawl back to the caravan park through the main street;

Cooktown is really a nice little town, it's just a bloody far drive!!

With blisters on our feet we sank into our seats and didn't get up again the first few hours.

On the way back, the same way as we came because that's the only way, we stopped at the black mountains for some pictures, very strange mountains;

and a little bit further we stopped again to make some pictures of the surrounding, 

then suddenly we heard a lot honking and there our Mission Beach neighbours, Jack and Cherise, came passed with their friends right behind them, till now that's the last we have seen them but you never know!!

We stopped again in Mount Molloy and continued our way next day.

We have been to a few spots which you know already so I have nothing to say about that, you remember the caravan park in Ravenshoe on the railway precinct? Well in the first place we found a traveler from Tassie back, who we had met at Fletchers Creek approximately 2 months ago......

(that's why I said; you never know with Jack and Cherise)

 

and we did a trip what we hadn't done the other day we were there, we've been to the Tully Gorge again, you know from the white water Rafters, but then from the other side and that was really beautiful too;

Of course we had to do a walk there;

You can see were the arrow points, that's where we were standing on the edge of the water!

Ok people that was it again, the next one will be Mount Surprise and I can tell you;

THAT WILL BE A SURPRISE SO, KEEP LOOKING!

Till then.......

Cheers!