Blog for October 2022

Elliot Falls National Park . Atherton Tablelands Waterfalls . Paronella Park . Lake Placid Caravan Park . Cairns . Etty Beach . Mission Beach . Sapphire . Carnarvon Gorge . Lake Nula Nula . Moura . Gympie . Rainbow Beach

Perentie Wandering October 2022

Day 250, Saturday the 1st October, 2022

We started our trip back to Cairns today, catching the ferry back over the Jardine River.

The Ferry station on the south side of the river

The first night we stopped at Eliot Falls camp ground. The last time we had been here, we had not seen “The Saucepan”, so we made sure we saw it this time. As with Eliot Falls and Twin Falls, the water was clear and warm. We also visited Twin Falls again and had another dip the next morning.

Our early morning dip at the top falls of Twin Falls

Day 251, Sunday the 2nd October, 2022

We continued our journey down the Bamaga Bypass road, there were lots of corrugations, and occasionally we would get a bit of road with tar on it. There were lots of remnants of cars and caravans who did not make it to the end of the road. We stopped for Lunch at Bramwell Junction Station.

Lots of corrugations, at times it seemed that the truck would be shaken to death

occasionally there would be sections of tar

one of the licence plate trees with plates of the cars who travelled the Telegraph Track

We spent the night on the side of the Coen River.

Cormorants sunning themselves on a rock on the river

A Currawong, it had been a while since we last saw one of these

Day 252, Monday the 3rd October, 2022

We continued our journey back to Cairns, we stopped for the night at the McLeod River, Mulligan Hwy Bridge camp ground.

The road was quite diverse in landscape but quite spectacular

Our free camp for the night was very pretty, right on the McLeod River.

Day 253, Tuesday the 4th October, 2022

We ended up in the Atherton Tablelands on this day, beautiful part of the country, very rural very picturesque, full of waterfalls and waterways. We visited some of these places but not all, just not enough time. Today we visited The Coffee Works and Malanda Falls before ending up at the Millaa Millaa Falls camp ground.

The Coffee Works was not just a coffee shop as we had expected, it was also a fascinating Coffee museum and an abundant coffee gift shop including a chocolatier. We spent about 2 hours here, just wandering around, then ended our visit with Bob having a coffee, Me a hot chocolate, and we shared a couple of cakes.

These are only a few pictures from the museum, you have to see it to believe how many different coffee machines, pots, presses, grinders and much more have been used in history to gain the perfect coffee cup, or their version of the perfect coffee taste.

One story I found interesting. In 1727, The Brazilians, neighbours to the emerging Coffee plantations being grown in the French and Dutch Guiana, were desperate to get hold of some coffee plants. Both the French and Dutch jealously guarded their plants and refused to let any plants fall into Brazilian hands. However at the same time, the French and the Dutch are having a border dispute. The Brazilian emperor offers one of his confidants, the handsome, and somewhat of a womaniser Lieutenant Colonel Francisco de Melo Palheta as arbitrator. Francisco then proceeds to have an affair with the French Governors Wife whilst he is staying in their house. Upon his departure, the Governors wife presents him with a bunch of flowers, one of which is a coffee plant. The first coffee is planted in Rio de Janeiro and the rest is history.

The museum features an extensive collection of Coffee machines, pots, grinders and many stories from all over the wall. It also described the history of how coffee progressed, was grown and was used around the world

Malanda Falls was pretty, but for some reason, they put a concrete pool at the bottom of the falls, which ruined it a little for me.

We also did a bit of a walk, where we managed to see amazing rain forest trees and plants, some turtles in the creek and a Green Ring Tail Possum just sleeping on a vine, it was very cute.

Not sure what this was growing on the tree

you can see the greenish tinge to his fur, which gives him his name

We stayed the night at Millaa Millaa Falls Camp ground

At the camp ground, we had yet more Scrub Turkeys, this male just ran everywhere

Day 254, Wednesday 5th October, 2022

We continued our journey, and today was a busy day, we visited lots of waterfalls and travelled a long way, ending up at Innesvale.

First stop was Millaa Millaa Falls, I loved this waterfall, it was just beautiful

This tree was covered in strangler fig, but when we looked inside the the cavity in the base….

We found a Scrub Turkey mound that was being tendered by the builders.

We then visited Zillie Falls, it was a harder walk down to the falls.

Then we travelled to Ellinjaa Falls

These two were wandering around the car park. Must have escaped from a nearby farm???

We had coffee at the little town of Millaa Millaa. A very pretty little town.

This was a 400 year old Kauri Pine that fell over in a storm. These trees that can grow to be one of the tallest and oldest in the world.

We stopped at the Mamu Tropical Skywalk for a rainforest walk and some tree top views

A hut built by the traditional custodians of the land, the Mamu People.

The little holes in these leaves looked pretty against the sky

Our trip revealed some very beautiful countryside

Day 255, Thursday the 6th October, 2022

Today we Visited Paranella Park, this was recommended to us by our friend Leisa, and it was a great recommendation. The place is amazing, it was first created by Jose Paranella and sold about 20 years ago by his descendants after he passed away and were unable to keep up with the maintenance and upkeep.

José Paronella arrived in Australia from Catalonia in Spain, in 1913. For the next 11 years he worked, cutting sugar cane initially, then purchasing, improving, and reselling cane farms, he became very rich. In 1924 he returned to Spain and married Margarita in 1925. The trip back to Australia was their honeymoon.

José first saw this 13 acres of virgin scrub along Mena Creek in 1914. He eventually purchased it in 1929 for £120 and started to build his pleasure gardens and reception centre for the enjoyment of the public.

The earliest structure, the grand staircase, was built to facilitate the carrying of the river sand to make the concrete

First they built a house to live in, then they started on the Castle itself.

Turtles, clambering over each other for turtle food

The local fish liked the turtle food too.

one of the little creeks had an eel in it

This turtle had a freshwater shrimp walking over it

Lots of beautiful and unusual plants and flowers

Turquoise Jade Vine, yes I know, it looks like a bad fake flower, but it isn’t, it is absolutely beautiful and unique.

This is a flower from a Cannonball tree, which is native to Central and South America

The Cannonball tree, it was absolutely beautiful, the flowers and fruit was born on the trunk

Isabella Falls, built by Jose Panella by rerouting a spring. He wanted to name the big waterfalls after his daughter, Isabella, but that was already named after the publicans daughter as Mena Falls after his daughter Philomena, so not to be outdone, Jose built these falls.

a corridor of Kauri Pine trees given to Jose to plant as they were becoming endangered. The gift was given with the promise that Jose would never sell the wood. Kauri Pines are very tall and very straight and can live for over 400 years.

Lovers lane, built by Jose extra wide, so lovers could walk hand in hand comfortably

The river from the falls, the castle is on the left

With entry you have one night of camping. This was our site. The ticket also gives you right of return to the park for 24 months

With the entry fee, you can take 2 guided tours, the first is during the day the second is at night. The night tour describes how Jose would use lights for displaying his castle, gardens and waterfall at night and for functions

The electricity was produced on the grounds from the first water generator created by Jose. Panarella Park had electricity before the local town did.

The night tour is a celebration of music and light

Day 256, Friday the 7th October, 2022

Heading for the Lake Placid Rainforest Retreat caravan park again. We need to be in Cairns for some odd jobs and this caravan park is great to base ourselves from.

Still amazed at how pretty the country side that we are travelling through is.

Day 258, Sunday the 9th October, 2022

Bob wanted to visit the Australian Armour and Artillery Museum. He was very impressed by the collection of WW1 and WW2 tanks, guns, etc. Most of the machines were still usable and or drivable. They have been sourced from all over the world, lovingly and meticulously restored and maintained.

Our motorhome looked right at home next to this tank

Day 263, Friday the 14th October, 2022

I walked down to Lake Placid, just down from the caravan park. It is a lovely little lake, with parkland around it.

Day 264, Saturday the 15th October, 2022

We are on our last day at Lake placid, so I took a photo of our favourite Curlew.

Day 268, Wednesday the 19th October, 2022

We said our final goodbye to Lake Placid and the friends we met there. One of our neighbours, Chris and Fred only live 20 minutes away from us at home. We will definitely be catching up with them when we get back home, lovely people.

We made our way to Etty Beach. Chris had told me that there were Cassowary’s there. I had tried desperately to see and photograph a Cassowary for the last couple of months whilst in Cassowary territory, but they had eluded me.

Along the way we stopped at Josephine Falls for lunch. The falls were very pretty and lots of people were there swimming.

Whilst at Etty Beach I saw and photographed 2 different Cassowary’s. I was very excited. They are amazing birds, they look like dinosaurs, and they need to be treated with respect as one of these birds is able to seriously hurt or kill an adult person if they feel threatened, however these ones were quite chilled, unfazed by the people following them around taking photo’s.

I just kept my distance and allowed them to come to me. One of them was just walking around the camp ground, sticking his beak into the tents and peoples tables seeing what they had for breakfast.

Day 269, Thursday the 20th October, 2022

We continued our trip and ended up spending the night at the Reid River Campground.

Along the way we stopped at Mission Beach, we did not see any more Cassowary’s but the beach was gorgeous.

Day 270, Friday the 21st October, 2022

We continued our trip, deciding to go inland due to the rain on the coast.

The day started with blue skies, towards the evening we got storms, then cleared at night.

We ended up the night at a roadside free camp south of Charters Towers.

Day 271, Saturday the 22nd October, 2022

We drove to Sapphire today and decided to stay a couple of nights so we could do some prospecting.

We stopped for lunch at Hoods Lagoon in Clermont

As we approached Sapphire we started to see the mining sites

We got a prospecting licence and settled for the night as we got there too late to do any prospecting today. We stayed at the Gem Fields RSL Club camp ground. You have to be an military or ex military to be able to stay here.

The bird life around the camp ground was great, there was also fossicking or specking areas around the camp ground, can’t wait till tomorrow to do some specking (just looking around to see if you can find any Sapphire’s or gem stones) or some fossicking (digging up dirt and using machinery to look for gems).

Day 272, Sunday the 23rd October, 2022

We decided to do some fossicking this morning and some specking in the afternoon. We chose one of the fossicking parks, where you buy a bucket of dirt/rubble that you collect with a shovel from a pile that was brought in from the owners mine. The owner then shows you how to remove the dirt, wash the rubble and pick any gems from what is left. We did get quite a few sapphire and zircon chips as well as a couple of larger sapphires from this fossick.

It was a fun way to spend the morning, even though it was incredibly hot and this work needs to be done in the sun because you have to look for the shine in the rocks to identify any gems.

We definitely got the itch and decided to go specking in the afternoon. We did not find anything, we probably walked past a number of sapphires and did not even realise…

The fossicking park where we learnt how to fossick

We drove to the gem fields where we could do some specking, when we got our licence we also got a map.

These gem fields were also full of mining claims that were bought by the die hard miners, we had to make sure we stayed off their claims

Claims are purchased for 10 year periods, after 10 years, they can either re lease their claim or leave. If they leave then they have to remove anything they built and re fill all holes, therefore, the buildings are all temporary which makes the place look a little like a shanty town.

Day 273, Monday the 24th October, 2022

We left our camp ground at the RSL

We decided to do one more stint at fossicking and chose a commercial mine this time. The place we chose was called Armfest and was a lot more professional. They provided bags of rubble that had already been cleaned, so you only had to look for the gems. We were a little sceptical in thinking that if the stones had already been cleaned, that they may have already picked out any good stones, but we found quite a few gem quality stones.

As we drove out we came across a flock of Brolga in the dam.

We started our trip to Carnarvon Gorge. The trip was very picturesque. The day started with blue skies and light fluffy clouds, but as the day ended the grey clouds and rain came in.

There was a lot of water around from the recent rains, most of the creeks were overflowing

There were lakes where there were not supposed to be lakes

We decided to free camp about 50 km outside of Carnarvon Gorge to avoid the exuberant caravan park fees

The camp ground was quite pretty with great views

Day 274, Tuesday the 25th October and Day 275, Wednesday the 26th October, 2022

We woke early and headed for Carnarvon Gorge. The whole gorge walk was about 20 km, we only did half of that and ended our walk at the Moss Garden. We did not have enough time to do the whole 20 km as we had to get to our next spot, Lake Nuga Nuga before any potential rain hit, and definitely before dark.

The gorge walk was lovely with lots of different plants to look at and a few birds. We were a little disappointed that we could not see the river along the way, as there were too many trees, but we could hear it and caught glimpses where there were breaks in the trees. It was very hot, but it was still a nice walk.

The Moss Garden was beautiful, we had to do a little climbing to get there, but it was worth the walk.

The little waterfall at the end was just beautiful.

After Carnarvon Gorge, we continued to our stop for the next 2 nights at Lake Nuga Nuga.

We stopped at the site where the American airplane, The Dakota crashed in 1943 en rout from Darwin to Brisbane as a result of an electrical storm.

The 5 American Armed Forces personnel and 14 Australian Armed forces personnel were all killed.

We also came across this family of Emu’s.

We also saw our first Boab since leaving the Northern Territory.

We reached our destination for the night by late afternoon, we had read that Lake Nuga Nuga was a great free camp on a lake with lots of birdlife, and we were not disappointed. It was a beautiful spot, we were lucky enough to be there on our own, the lake was magnificent and there were lots of birds and kangaroos. The sunsets were also spectacular over the lake. We stayed here 2 nights.

Common Thistle, yes I know, but they are still pretty

The next morning we awoke to a beautiful clear and still day. The lake was at its best with lots of Pelicans, Ducks, Egrets and Cormorants to name a few. Another spectacular sunset and a flock of Spoonbills flying in during the sunset, just perfect.

White faced Heron on a crystal clear lake

The western side of the lake with lots of wild flowers

Little Black Cormorants, you can see some Pied Cormorants in the background

I think this is a very bedraggled Orchard Butterfly, you don’t have to be perfect to be beautiful

And then a flock of Spoonbills landed in the lake, right in front of our truck – wow

Day 276, Thursday the 27th October, 2022

We left Lake Nuga Nuga and headed for the coast, we stopped at a little town called Moura for the night in a donation camp ground, $5 donation to camp in their town park. There was a little traffic noise, but overall a great overnighter.

You could tell it was spring with all the wildflowers along the road

Day 280, Monday the 31st October, 2022

We catch the barge from Inskip Point to K’gari (aka Fraser Island) tomorrow, so we have booked a camp in the national park on Rainbow Beach so we are close for an early trip onto the island, it is low tide at 7:00 am so we want to get on early to be able to get to our camp site before the tide gets too high.

Can’t get over the wildflowers, so pretty

Rainbow beach is really pretty and we walked all the way to Inskip Point to watch the cars get onto the barge today, seeing if there was anything we needed to be aware of for tomorrow.

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