We had initially planned to spend the week with Cate and David immediately preceding our arrival into Kurrimine Beach. In the interim Cate was appointed the manage the forthcoming Census, in Aurukun of all places, which meant she would be up on the Cape during that time. We brought things forward by a week as a result, which now meant we had seven days to fill.
Three years ago we had spent a lovely couple of nights at Fishery Falls (see blog August 2013) where there is nothing but the park and a pub, beautiful surrounds and a fun management team. Why not, we thought. A week of relaxation in the sun, a bit of local exploring and possibly a day in Cairns (a mere 40 kms to the north) to catch up with some of our Sydney friends who were congregating there for their annual Bush Pilots' Reunion.....just the shot.
We packed and prepared for our departure under reasonably sunny skies.
Following heartfelt thanks to our most generous of hosts, we headed back to our transport corridor and set our heads to the north yet again,
off through the ubiquitous cane country we have come to like so much. Mind you, having said that, we were still coming to grips with the fact that so much of it remained uncut at this time of the year, but you all know why that is.
As with the last few missives I'll not bore you with repeated shots or descriptions of a highway well travelled, but I could not help but include this one. Just out of the small highway town of Mourilyan (your challenge for the day is to pronounce this correctly), a tad shy of Innisfail, a new (well, to us at least) roadside advertising sign has been erected.
We love it...it occurred to us that the only thing missing is an exclamation mark, but we decided that would probably not be good for business.....the legal profession is not renowned for a sense of humour!
The all too familiar roundabout into Innisfail came and went
as did another (and, in this case, quite disruptive) section of Bruce Highway roadworks just north of the town
before we found ourselves driving past what had by now become almost a symbol of this cane season....a row of empty can train bins
and, a little further on, more of the same, but here with the inclusion of an idle train as well.
We are all too familiar with the vagaries of the tropical weather, and do expect the odd drop or two even in the 'dry season' but this was looking a little ominous, even for 'The Misty Mountains'.
By the time we had pulled into the entrance of the Fishery Falls park, the clouds had cleared from all but directly above the mountain ridges, and our hopes of a few days in the sun seemed assured.
Making our way along the roadway into the park proper, we could see that our recollections of lush tropical garden surroundings had not been misplaced.
And on this occasion, we had a real surprise, and a very pleasant one at that. When booking, we had told the delightful Dianne (the joint park owner) of our previous sojourn and reminded her of our overall length. We did enquire as to availability of the site we had occupied before. Not to be unfortunately.....it contained a thumping big bus. "But I can get you onto the large vehicle row if you like". "Done".
What choice did we have, particularly given that we had made a relatively late booking into what is a very popular park with many who spend three to four months here each year? Well, expecting to find ourselves on one of the more bleak (here this is a relative description only) sites, we were delighted to discover that we had been allocated one of the wonderful garden sites, where our home away from home was lined on both sides with beautifully maintained tropical plantings, shade trees overhead with a carpet of thick lawn at our feet. Yippee!!!
As we set up in what was by now bright sunshine (this shot was taken some days later) we gave thanks to St Christopher and gleefully contemplated our immediate future.
By now I am sure you can guess what's coming. At first all went swimmingly, although at this point this is merely a figure of speech. We had arrived on a Wednesday and to our delight soon discovered that the local pub (accessed through a gate in the park fence) was hosting a State of Origin evening (this was the third match in the series). A good start and a great night, apart from the outcome of the match (The Blues won).
We did manage a few hours in the sun the following day, and took advantage of the excellent facilities in the park camp kitchen that evening.
But then our luck ran out. By the next morning the normal view down our row of a high mountain ridge in the near distance, was now just a mass of heavy cloud completed shrouding any sight of the range. This was to become the pattern for the remainder of our stay.
In the first few days of the developing upper level trough, which was the cause of all this meteorological mayhem, the rain and mist were patchy. We did manage a spot of local sightseeing during a break in the weather and one tramp up the back hill to revisit the Fishery Falls themselves. The Sunday remained cooperatively clear, and we were particularly pleased that we chose this day to made the trip to Cairns and spent a great afternoon with six of our close Sydney based friends.
Indeed, the weather gods remained sufficiently benign into late Sunday afternoon to allow the lower level camping ground communal fire to be lit. This has been added to the formal Friday afternoon park happy hour as one of the weekly park rituals, and, as always happens,
this presented a wonderful opportunity to make new acquaintances and swap travellers' tales.
We yarned on late into the evening, blissfully ignorant of our pending fate.
The rain began falling in the early morning hours. It had been forecast, and my previous trawl through the various BOM rain and wind prediction charts had not filled me with joy, but hope springs eternal as they say! I should have trusted the experts. We awoke to scene of misty misery,
everywhere we looked. And from this point on until our Wednesday morning departure it rained, and rained and rained and bloody rained.
We don't care too much about rain as long as our under awning area remains relatively dry....at least one can escape the increasingly cloying confines of the interior of the van for outdoor respite. Initially I thought we would be OK. The garden bed between us and the slightly higher ground to our side seemed to be acting as a very useful bund.
But then the rain stopped.....and became a bloody monsoonal type downpour. We had never seen rain like it in all our travels. The result was inevitable. The upper sites became waterlogged, the water began to pool and shortly thereafter our temporary dam burst its banks.
We were inundated, relentlessly.
For the next two days the floor under our awning was awash,
as was the rest of our site
and the entire park. Throughout this time a trip to the heads meant sloshing through water and black soil mud which oozed up through the grass with the inevitable cleanup requirement on return to the van (the water on the floor did become useful as a foot bath!) and we had no choice but to just keep our heads down and hope it would clear before our departure time arrived.
It did, just. To my great relief we managed to pack up under threatening but dry skies, but to say our pull down was anything other than a frenetic and unusually disorganised scramble would be to stretch the truth well beyond the pale. The awning went up wet, the floor was packed into its canvass bag sodden and muddy, and all the ropes, pegs and other soaked bits and pieces were bundled into garbage bags and plonked where ever there was an inviting space. Normally I would be aghast at the very thought of this, but we knew we had but a short trip to Kurrimine Beach and thence, over at least the next six weeks, time to sort everything and dry out. This rain cannot last, surely, surely. Well, didn't that subsequently prove to be a classic 'dream on' moment!
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