Australia: Moving South from Cairns

On Saturday morning we got a rental car and hit the road again. We had been hoping to get a camper but would have had to wait until the following Wednesday to get one. Apparently it was busy season for campers! We drove through the Atherton Tablelands where there were beautiful views of the countryside and coast below us. We stopped at Lake Eacham for lunch before going along the waterfall trail to Millaa Millaa Falls, Zillie Falls and Ellinjaa Falls – I wonder who named them all!

That night we got as far as Mission Beach and stayed in a lovely hostel called the Treehouse. They were having a group barbeque that night so we joined in. A good tasty meal for just $5 so we were happy! The following morning we tried some sea kayaking. Unfortunately we could only hire sit-on-tops but we made do and spent a lovely hour floating on the South Pacific.

We wanted to keep moving south so we drove on to Bowen that day, arriving in the renowned Airlie Beach the next morning. Having looked into going on a tour of the Whitsundays we finally decided not to. It seemed that we would be spending 2/3 days on a boat just to see some islands and go snorkelling, which we had already done. So, after a quick swim in the lagoon in Airlie Beach and lunch we moved on towards Mackay.

On the way there we took a detour inland to the Finch Hatton Gorge, which turned out to be really worthwhile. Watched by cheeky cookaburras we walked through the forest to the cascades, a pretty waterfall, and on to the wheel of fire! It was a nice pool where we decided to go swimming. The water turned out to be really freezing, but after the initial shock it was wonderfully refreshing. The best bit was we had it all to ourselves, having finally managed to leave the busloads of tourists along the coast!

Ever moving onwards, the next day we made it to Rockhampton and had lunch after a walk through the Kershaw Gardens before continuing to Gladstone where we found a “fun and fitness” course. It was pretty tough – a running track with about 14 stops along the way with different exercises to do like sit ups, push ups, chin ups and lovely things like that! It did make our run much more interesting, and challenging, that evening! We tried it again the next morning before hitting the road.