Cairns to Townsville
Leaving Cairns, we had four nights to fill before starting our house sit in Townsville and there were a few spots we’d skipped on our way up the coast that we were keen to see.
After topping up with supplies in Gordonvale we stopped in at Behana Gorge where we followed the Cairns water supply pipe out to Clamshell Falls. We weren’t far along the simple undulating walk through the rainforest before it started to rain. But unperturbed in the steamy warmth of the day, we carried on to the tumbling cascades at the end.
We found a spot for the night between the puddles and mud at Babinda Rotary Park Rest Area. We cooked dinner between rain showers and retired early. Babinda apparently competes with Tully for the annual "Australia’s wettest town" title. So we felt lucky to have dry weather in the morning. We packed up and went to Babinda Boulders, which we were surprised to find was a tourist hotspot, evidently on the itinerary for commercial day-trips out of Cairns. If it weren’t for the crowds it would have been a gorgeous spot. Oddly enough, it was where we spotted our first "wild" cassowary. I’m sure it was wild but clearly it was comfortable with human activity as it roamed the fringes of the carpark. Despite having seen a few now in captivity, it was truly impressive to see one in the wild. It looked much more vibrant than I recall the captive birds.
Our next stop, for two nights, was Henrietta Creek Campground in Wooroonooran National Park. I got dropped off on the way in and walked the trail into our campsite, past Tchupala and Wallicher Falls. It was an uncomfortable walk for the fact that it was muddy and alive with biting insects and had two creek crossings requiring shoes off. It was fun for the sake of adventure, but the dense forest made visibility beyond the path challenging.
We lost Hugh to the boys in the campsite next to ours. They sought him out within minutes of setting up their camp. We'd acquired a new scooter in Cairns (Cairns being a dumping ground for all manner of things by tourists retuning home at the end of their Aussie adventure) and Hugh took no time to master it, whizzing laps around the campground with Angus, 9 and Ruben, 7.
We walked the northern walking track with the kids, taking in Nandroya Falls, where Hugh and Matthias braved the cold water. Hugh was devistated when his new friends weren’t in camp when we got back and the wait for their return seemed unbearable. But play resumed with plenty of daylight hours remaining when they did finally get back. A misjudged dirt missile hit to Hugh’s head tested friendships, but peace was quickly restored.
Hugh had an unusual encounter with a woman at the toilets who frustrated him with her insistence that the earth had been created by God. I was equally surprised at Hugh’s anger as I was with her evangelism.
The kids had been wanting to try some sugarcane since Mossman. So when we we're stopped by a passing cane train outside the South Johnstone Mill, I jumped out to pick up some fallen billets. The kids quickly found the effort of chewing on the raw stick outweighed the reward.
We stopped in at Etty Beach where we had it on good authority that a Cassowary sighting was as good as guaranteed. It was a popular, beautiful little beach where the rainforest came right down to the sand. But with no walking trails in the area, short of a cassowary walking out onto the beach, we wondered how we were going to see one. Unexpectedly we spotted a manta ray cruising the shallow water. The two pointed "wing tips" that occasionally surfaced looked suspiciously shark-like, enough to send swimmers out of the water. Satisfied that this was a pretty special wildlife sighting, we left Etty Beach not too disappointed at missing out on a cassowary. And then, on the drive up the hill towards the main road, there was our promised flightless bird, casually grazing just a few metres from the verge.
We arrived into Bluewater Park RV Site at the end of the day, feeling secure in the fact that we'd booked a spot. But bookings didn't appear to be every traveller's priority and we were lucky to squeeze ourselves in to the over patronised free camp.
