Mission Beach to Cairns

October 12

In the morning I left Michael at the campsite and strolled the 100 metres or so to the shops. It's a well-designed little enclave among coconut palms.



On the beachfront, a group was at work climbing the palms



to cut down loose fronds and coconuts, which they were piling into a wheelbarrow.



Quite a few coconuts tried to escape onto the beach, where they were scooped up by passing holidaymakers. I'm not fond of raw coconut or I would have snaffled one too.



We left Mission Beach rather regretfully, passing more signs for cassowaries but not seeing any.
We did, however, pass banana plantations with the ripening fruit bagged for protection.



And shortly after we joined the highway again, we were passed by the local bikers,



who may have been heading out for a game of golf.



At Innisfail, one of the larger towns, we decided to check out the local crocodile farm. The chances of seeing one of these monsters in the wild is slim, and your chances of surviving the encounter are also slim, so this seemed the best option for our continued health.
We happened to arrive at the same time as a busload of French tourists.



There were lots of crocs, mostly just lying around open-jawed (waiting for something to fly in perhaps?)



One of the employees, waved a chunk of bacon to encourage a little action for the battery of cameras, calling the individual crocs by name: David, Russell, Big Bruno, Maureen.



On enquiry I was told that this chunk of meat was their sole feed of the day; that they stored extra food as fat around their necks; that a pig ( or small child) would last a crocodile for about 4 months; that they were able to lower their heart-rate to a point that allowed them stay submerged in a semi-comatose state for as much as 4 hours before needing to come up for air.

Also in the croc park we finally got to see a cassowary, even if it was behind a fence.



All that was now left to see was a cane toad. We had hopes of Gordonvale in this respect, but all they had was a mosaic wall,



and a play area for kids with cane toad sculptures.



And so we continued uneventfully on to Cairns .

Townsville to Mission Beach

October 11

Whatever we expected of Townsville we didn't find it. The beach wasn't much, the landscape uninspiring, the housing stock ditto. If there was an area of historic interest we missed it.
Their reef museum, a huge tank of coral and fish with an artificial wave motion to keep it all alive was interesting, and would probably have been more so if we hadn't seen it all already "in the wild" as it were during our cruise in the Whitsundays. Certainly, if you didn't want to go snorkelling or didn't have the time, it offered a very fair illustration of what the real reef is like.
What struck me most during our time in Townsville was the wind, blowing hard and ceaselessly. It is a reminder that this coast has been devastated at least twice by huge cyclones that wiped out all but a few sturdy brick or concrete buildings.

The road north was not very interesting either, although there were a few vistas over canefields that were pretty.
We stopped in the tiny town of Cardwell to have lunch at a picnic table on the beachfront, sheltered from the hot sun by a spreading fig. The wind was still blowing hard, whipping the fronds of palms lining the beach.



This was our lunch table - without our clutter of dishes on it:



Shortly afterwards we came to Tully, another tiny township whose claim to fame is that it has the highest rainfall per annum in Australia, about 4,000 mm. On the door of the information centre (closed because it was Sunday afternoon) was this sign:



At Mission Beach we secured a spot in the municipal campground. Cheap, shabby, but right on the beach and right in town.



As we approached the town there were many signs along the road alerting us to the presence of Cassowaries,



but sadly we didn't see any. We had to wait until the following day for that. (See next post.)

However, the palm-fringed beach was beautiful:



"Town" consisted of a small supermarket, one other, high-end, campground at twice the price, two backpacker lodgings, three bars, and about 5 restaurants ranging from hole-in-the-wall to white linen tablecloths and a wine list.
The whole place had that kind of not-yet-discovered funky aura that trendy spots like Noosa and Byron Bay must once have had.

Bowen to Townsville

October 9

We were really entering serious sugar cane and mango country now, with lush plantations coming right up to the edge of the road. There were lots of warnings about cane train crossings, but we always seemed to just miss being at one when a train went through. The best I could do was a couple of shots out the window as they cruised by.



At Townsville we found a caravan park opposite the beach and took a bus into the town, which has some fine buildings facing the waterfront parkland.



The park is full of graceful palms and a considerable number of memorials to combatants in World War II. Once again, the battle of the Coral Sea was prominent with a useful map on a granite wall showing where the U.S. fleet was deployed.



Flinders Street has a fairly attractive pedestrian mall, but on Friday afternoon it was virtually deserted. Most shops were closing and the nightlife, if any, hadn't started. From the opening hours listed on various doors, it was clear that Townsville had no late-night shopping. You'd think that in a tropical town evening would be an appealing time to browse the shops.

October 10

We're getting used to the conventions and idiosyncrasies of caravan parks. Some are full of stern notices telling you to do this or not do that. Some, usually the ones in the middle of a town, have locked amenities for which you are issued a key. Most are fairly leafy, though in Queensland they are often planted with acacias that rain leaves down on your vehicle all the time or, worse, huge fig trees that drop sticky fruit. Some, like the Townsville one which has a recommendation in Lonely Planet, are full of polite but self-absorbed travelling foreigners. Others, usually smaller ,shabbier ones, have a community of permanent residents, mainly elderly men or couples who are keen to strike up a conversation. All are clean, although some show signs of wear. Most now also have small cabins for rent on site, which provide the luxuries of kitchen, private bathroom and TV, and must be giving motels a run for their money.

The leafy ambience attracts lots of birds, particularly cockatoos and lorikeets which wake you at dawn with a racket of screeching and whistling. At Townsville rainbow lorikeets were much in evidence among the palm fronds.




The information centre had told us there was a weekend Greek festival. They didn't mention that the venue was miles away through undistinguished suburbs and shopping malls. When we got there it was disappointing, more of a picnic with rides for the kiddies and Dora the Explorer on an outdoor stage.

On our way back, we stopped at one of the malls to pick up groceries and discovered why the downtown was so dead. Everybody was out in the airconditioned halls of the same old same old chains. A town planner's nightmare.
Townsville's topography, or lack of it, lends itself to this dreck, being a vast, flat tract wrapped around Castle Hill, a brown bump with a scurf of trees. We looked for an older area with some quaint old Queenslander houses, but it wasn't apparent.

Airlie Beach to Bowen

October 8

It was tempting to stay where we were, and we did fill in the morning before moving on. Michael worked on some brush-and-ink work while I went window-shopping. (Somewhere there's a great swimsuit for me at a price I can justify for the rare occasion that I'd wear it. Not here though.)

We didn't go far. Just up the road about 80 km to Bowen. Bowen is the mango capital of Queensland and has the Big Mango to prove it:



Unfortunately for us, it's not quite mango season here, though we are able to buy good ones shipped in from the Northern Territory.

Someone from Bowen visited Chemainus on Vancouver Island and admired the murals there. The town imported the artist and together with local artists, he set about decorating Bowen's walls the same way. On the whole, we thought the Bowen murals better than the Chemainus ones.

In World War II, Bowen was the centre for the famous Catalina flying boat squadrons which did reconnaissance work, particularly in the battle of the Coral Sea. A couple of the murals record this era.



The airport also has a dusty little museum with dioramas...



...and an interesting sign in the ladies' room.



More recently, Bowen stood in for Darwin in Baz Luhrman's drama Australia, and 600 locals got jobs as extras. Posters of the movie adorn just about every shop window in town, and there's a suitable mural on one of the local banks.



The town, which must have been humming during the shooting of the movie, was pretty quiet during our stay. No doubt due to an injection of cash from its starring role in the movie, the town is tearing up its waterfront in a grand beautification project, presumably hoping to lure the kind of crowds that Airlie Beach attracts. It's hard to tell how successful this will be; right now it's miles of dust and chainlink fencing.

Black's Beach to Airlie Beach

October 6 -7

Black's Beach was the sort of place we would have stay longer if we'd had more time. The caravan park has been recently sold to a development company, and it won't be there much longer, superseded by apartments which will destroy the charm it has now.

Our next stop was Airlie Beach which was pretty much what Black's Beach will become: beach backed by a well-groomed park, backed by a street of upscale shops, selling mainly resort-style clothing at steep prices. It's quite attractive, but a far cry from the sleepy little backwater that Black's Beach will soon no longer be.

Airlie Beach is the hub for cruises of the Whitsunday Islands, tropical islets ringed by beaches and coral reefs. The sand is white, the water turquoise, the reef still colourful with coral and fish, although it's sad to see the extent of damage to the coral caused by thinning of the ozone layer, human trespass, fertilizer run-off and numerous other nasty things.

We hoped our own trespass on this fragile ecosystem wasn't going to contribute too much to its decline. There are a ton of different packages available: one, two, three- day or weeklong cruises on motorboats, catamarans, sailing ships or small planes. Or you can book into an island resort. We chose a one-day cruise that focused on natural beauty. It offered no waterslides, imitation coral reefs, jumping pillows(!!) or other kid-attracting features and so the vast majority of our fellow passengers were adults, mostly affectionate young couples, mostly German.

The crew were young, efficient, artificially jolly. They took us first to a hilltop lookout on Hook Island to give us an overview of the area. As every other boat had this on their itinerary, it was a bit like being on a conveyor belt, but there's no doubt that the view was worth it.





Leila, a young Belgian woman we had struck up a conversation with took a photo of us both at the prime viewing point.



On the railings as we marched single file along were plaques explaining the aboriginal myths about the place, though we had scarcely time to read them, let alone line up a photo, as we were chivvied along.



We then cruised to Whitehaven Beach, the distant curve of white sand in my second photo. We had about ninety minutes here to loll on the beach and swim in the warm waters. The blonde on-board photographer spent this time arranging couples in tourist brochure or discreetly suggestive poses, or having the families jump in the air. As she got near us, we got up and casually strolled away to the other end of the beach.

Our last stop was the best. We were taken to a point where the reef came close to the shore, issued with wetsuits and snorkels and had an hour or so of seeing some of the coral and fish that made the Great Barrier Reef so famous.
Amazing fish, and some amazing coral, but many stretches of it bleached-bone grey and dead.
It was a long day, but worthwhile, and met our criterion of something we hadn't done before.

Maryborough

September 29

On the road again, heading for Maryborough, not far north but recommended to us as a town of historic interest.

As we approached, the sky was dark with ominous looking reddish-brown clouds. Bushfire, I thought, but when I commented to the caretaker at Maryborough's caravan park, she shrugged. "Probably cane fields."



Of course. We are now in sugar cane country, and they burn off the fields when the crop has been harvested. No wonder nobody seemed to be taking any notice of the smoke. However, on the evening news, we heard that it was indeed a bushfire and that the firefighters were exhausted from a long day of bringing it under control.

For many years Maryborough thrived as the second largest port after Brisbane, partly because of all the sugar cane being shipped from the mills there. Most are gone or derelict now.

Only this state-of-industrial-art one remains, but the former wealth of the town is evident in the stock of fine old buildings. We enjoyed the informative museum and the general store, operated by the National Trust and maintained as it was in its heyday. There is also a lovely park and lake with great numbers of ibis nesting on an island in the middle.

Despite the grand buildings, however, Maryborough has a slightly sad feeling. No lively bistros or sidewalk cafes line its broad streets. Considering it's school holiday time, there are few young people about, and a preponderance of elderly and handicapped. Some shops are closed, others open only on weekends.
You have to hope that its future holds a second period of prosperity.

One of the fascinating details I learned in the museum was the history of John Carne Bidwill, who gave his name to a number of Australian plants, particularly the wonderful Bunya Bunya, Araucaria bidwilli. I'm glad he is remembered in botanical nomenclature because he had a short life of more bad fortune than most.
According to the museum's information, he came from England to Australia to be the new director of the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney. However, on arrival, due apparently to some bureaucratic error, the post was given to someone else.
His consolation prize was to be sent to Maryborough to be Commissioner of Lands. While there he began to collect plant specimens and develop a garden to showcase them. He also sent seeds, including the Araucaria, to Kew Gardens.
Then his superiors charged him with finding a more inland route to Brisbane than the coastal road. He and his party became lost and were rescued by aborigines after surviving for 8 days without food and water. The experience broke his health and he died soon after, at the age of 38.

After his death, his plants were all auctioned off with two exceptions: a bottle tree, now in the grounds of the local courthouse; and a Bunya Bunya that was transferred to Maryborough's municipal park.
My photo of that magnificent tree was unsuccessful, but here's one of a similar size in Rockhampton's botanic garden.

Boreen Point

September 26

In the morning we went for a long walk along the lakeshore, passing a caravan and tenting site chock-a-block with happy campers. It's the middle of school holidays in Queensland, and many families have migrated to the coast where the kids can ride their bikes, swim and dig in the sand while the adults lounge in folding chairs and drink copious amounts of beer. Some of the tent and awning constructions are quite elaborate, especially where friends appear to have booked adjoining sites and set up a maze of interlocking tents, vans and canopies.

Nevertheless, the lake is so large that it is easy to find secluded spaces, especially if you don't mind hiking along the foreshore trails for some distance.



Cousin Jeff tired us out with just such a walk to what he says is the "prettiest beach in Australia (or did he say the world?)



September 27

We drove to the thriving upscale beach community of Noosa Heads and walked again, along the beach.

A true Queenslander, Jeff was appropriately attired to combat the hole in the ozone layer that lies over eastern Australia.



Others were soaking up the rays.



On our way back towards the car park, we sighted a koala in a tree overhanging the headland. It's rare to see these creatures anywhere but in a wildlife preserve, but they are apparently common in the Noosa area. Not easy to photograph though.




Noosa's main shopping street was thronged with young, beautiful people. Presumably also rich, judging by the prices in the clothing shops. A swimsuit that caught my eye was $250. I settled for a passionfruit icecream instead.

After dinner back at Boreen Point Jeff left to drive back to Brisbane. Tomorrow will be back at the office for him.

September 28

We decided to stay on at Jeff's cottage for another day, just lazing on the deck, walking through the town and along the shore again.
We are both tremendously charmed by the pelicans, which can be seen in groups or singly anywhere that there is water, whether it's lake, river or beach.