As we pulled out of Hughenden bright and early (as usual) en route to an overnight stop in Charters Towers, we had a real sense of deja vu......an hooting easterly right on the nose. Does the wind ever blow in any other direction in this part of the world? This is exactly what we experienced on the last occasion we drove across here. Ah well, nothing for it...we were on a a schedule.
Fortunately it did abate within an hour and we arrived in Charters Towers without having sent the fuel gauge past the empty mark. Sadly the few shots I took or our site here, and our visit to the nearby golf club bar, something we had not done on our last visit, have fallen foul of those wretched hackers. In any event, Charters Towers itself is old news, so let's move on.
And next morning there we were, back on the Bruce Highway. It almost seemed like a homecoming.
We had specifically planned our trip east across Queensland to arrive in Townsville at 0900 hours on Sunday morning, and despite the delay of some unexpected roadworks on The Bruce, we pulled into our destination right on the dot.....where?? Dan Murphys of course. We were 'dry'.
We do our best to have very few bottles in the van whilst travelling any distances. The weight penalty is quite surprising. But one can survive on cask wine for just so long and we knew exactly what to expect of the social life at Kurrimine Beach. A significant re-supply was a matter of urgency (given that once at KB the nearest Dan's is 80 kms away in Cairns)
Liz had placed an on-line order some days ago and we were hoping that an early arrival on Sunday morning would mean that we would have minimal problems with the traffic and none with parking. I love it when a plan works.....apart from a few local desperates we had the entire parking lot to ourselves.
Mind you, I think we did raise a few eyebrows with both staff and customers as we demonstrated just how much one can fit on a Dan Murphys trolley. I was relieved that we had only another 200 or so kms to run.....the van's suspension was to about to be tested to the limit!
So far so good this morning, but as we hauled north out of Townsville Plan 'A' fell apart. We had decided to overnight at one of several free camps not too far north of Townsville before moving on into K Beach as expected on the Monday morning. That would have been fine if there had been any room in the free camp parks we had chosen. They were chaotic. There was one space left in the third and last of our options, but it was a shocker.
"OK, Liz, Plan 'B'.....let's ring Cardwell and overnight there". We knew from our previous visit there that Cardwell sports three parks. This should not be a problem. But as you have probably already gathered, there was 'no room at the Inn' in Cardwell. We couldn't believe it. The only two sites left in the entire town were both too small to take a rig of our size.
We still had a number of options available, but on the off-chance that our site at Kurrimine Beach might have been available a day early, we rang to check. Plan 'C' was on.....the folk on Site 12 had just left.
Marvellous....on we went. A familiar right turn in the centre of Ingham,
on through that town, and we were back in serious Far North Queensland cane country again. After days and days of driving through the desolation of the dessicated, drought-stricken outback cattle country, this was just wonderful.
Palms had replaced stunted scrub
and our windscreen was now filled with the sight of the mountains of FNQ instead of endless dry plains.
Even the haul up and over the spine on the range on the approach to Cardwell was now a pleasure.
On our previous trip, this part of The Bruce had been a scene of highly organised civil engineering chaos. What had then been a very trying tow along a single narrow strip of road between masses of huge earthmoving equipment, was now very pleasant drive on a smooth, two laned highway, a pleasure to negotiate. We could not believe the difference.
We were into Cardwell in no time, very keen to see what progress had been made in the redevelopment of the foreshore.
From what we could spot on the approaches to the main section of the CBD, this was a world apart from the debris strewn foreshore (thanks to Cyclone Yazi) of our previous visit...and the sea actually looked blue rather than muddy.
The centre of Cardwell was its usual hectic self, but from the fleeting glimpses of the foreshore we could manage between the mass of parked vehicles, the restoration of the foreshore precinct has been a triumph. We plan to book ahead next year and spend some time here.
What was equally demonstrated by both the full caravan parks and the amount of traffic in the town, is that the Cardwell tourist trade is again alive and well. We were pleased...this town really took a belting (you may recall that it was this Esplanade which featured prominently on the news reports relating to Yazi....the entire seaward half was washed away as some of our photos of our visit two years ago demonstrated).
Within a very short space of time we had left the massive bulk of Mount Tyson and the town of Tully behind us,
had passed the turn off to Mission Beach
and were making our way through the high, flowering cane fields on the approach to the Kurrimine Beach turn off at Silkwood.
The amount of uncut cane had surprised us. When we were last here at this time of the year there was very little to be seen along the highway. We soon discovered that an unusually wet winter (the normal dry season in this part of the world) had meant that the harvesters could not access the muddy cane fields. The whole cutting and production process was seriously behind schedule. We were actually quite pleased...this presented a whole new aspect to an area with which we were quite familiar.
Finally the Kurrimine Beach road sign, with an empty cane train in the background, heralded the last ten kilometres of our dash across the country from west coast to east coast.
Our arrival a day early did cause something of a stir. Our very good friends, the Vogts, who had arrived a week or so before us, and many of the park regulars who had been told of our coming, were all effusive in their greetings, greetings which all carried the question, "aren't you supposed to be here tomorrow?" "Yep, we just couldn't wait to see you all". "Right.....what's the real reason?" All was normal at Kurrimine Beach.
Within a day or so we were fully set up on our home patch...site 12, complete with front verandah
and a makeshift version at the rear to prevent water inundating our slab. What's this stuff falling from the sky? We hadn't seen rain for many, many months and sure enough, within a day of our arrival it bucketed down. Welcome back Mr and Mrs Jonah!
This was certainly something of a shock to our system, but it was warm, our good friends were right next door, we were surrounded by greenery
and within no time the weather cleared, the beer garden sign went out, and the Kurrimine Beach social scene was in full swing. It was very good to be back.
This was just the beginning. To come.....Xmas in July, a camp oven roast, friends coming and going, Friday karaoke, a fathers' day with a difference, some very big fish......and more. This was the beginning of a busy two months.
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