Mossman Gorge and South Again

July 17 – Mossman

We were up early and ready to hit the road. We drove north to the Mossman Gorge expecting to go for a nice walk through the rain forest. We smelled some sulphur on our drive up and worried that it was the battery. Maybe the check battery light had actually come on for a reason. We arrived at the visitors center and found out a bridge was damaged so only a small section of the path was open. We also had to pay $5 for a shuttle bus up to the start of the path. We figured we were here anyways so we might as well go. The board walk route was fairly short, maybe a kilometer loop but the rainforest was very pretty. There were a bunch of people around though too. You could go swimming in the river but it wasn't all that nice out so we opted to not. Back down at the van we called the RACV and found out where the nearest accredited shop was. We made it back to the little town of Mossman and had our battery checked at an auto-parts store. The guy deemed it toast due to overcharging and recommended we see an autoelectrician to find the cause of the problem. Fortunately the mechanic was just around the corner and were able to squeeze us in in about an hour. We left Dotti at the mechanics and went for a little walk around the town. We stopped into a bakery for a meat pie and sausage rolls for lunch then headed back to the mechanic. We read in the reception for a bit and found out a there was a wire shorting out that blew a fuse and pooched our battery. $300 later the problem was solved and we had a new battery. We drove south back past Cairns, got some groceries and gas along the way, then stopped for the night about 200km north of Townsville.

Mossman river

July 18 – Townsville to MacKay

We chatted with a Polish woman for a little bit at our rest stop before breakfast. She was quite the talker but very nice. We hit the road and headed down to Townsville. We skipped Josephine Falls again because it was raining. We had also talked about going to Magnetic Island but the weather wasn't reliable and we had a lot of ground to cover so we decided against it. Once in Townsville we stopped for lunch at Hungry Jacks and got updated. Beau called his dad to wish him a happy birthday. After our hour rest we got back on the road and drove all the way down to Mackay. We ended up staying at a rest stop/gas station for the night. I wasn't entirely sure if we were allowed to stay overnight but there was no sign saying we couldn't. We made instant noddles for dinner. There were also showers at the stop so we took advantage of those too.

Driving photo

July 19 – Mackay to Gladstone

We were up early and headed out of the reststop with making breakfast. We had thought to stop into a Hungry Jacks for brekky and wifi but weren't able to get to one. We drove south of Mackay then stopped into another rest stop for some belated oatmeal and coffee. We then drove the boring drive down to Rockhampton. It's about 300km of nothing. Once in Rockhampton we found another Hungry Jacks and had lunch while doing more updating. After an hour in Hungry's we headed down to a rest stop just west of Gladstone on the Calliope River. It was a nice little spot a bit off the highway. We arrived in late afternoon so we spent some time sitting outside before the sunset. Beau played some guitar and I read. We made pasta again for dinner and then read a bit in the evening. It was pretty frigid out tonight and I could see my breath on the walk to the bathroom.

Great Barrier Reef Day 3 and back to Cairns

July 14 – Great Barrier Reef Day 3

We were up bright and early for our 6am dive. We actually went in the water a little later than that as we moved dive sites and headed back to Fish Bowl. Our dive wasn't as exciting as some of our others, we headed down the wall to start our dive profile off deep enough. We saw a sleeping turtle and some fish but otherwise it was pretty quiet. Back at the boat we got some breakfast which was similar to yesterday then had to pack our room up and check out before our 8am dive. It was a bit of a rush. We got back in the water and it seemed the fish had woken up. We saw a juvenile bat fish, a couple of reef sharks and a well hidden blue spotted ray. Back at the boat the sun had started to show its face, finally! We moved back to 360deg Coral Garden and had our last dive at 11am. We got the see Larry the barracuda that usually hangs out under the boat. We also saw a huge school of parrot fish, I didn't know parrot fish hung out in schools. We had some lunch up on the sundeck in the sunshine. We could still go for a snorkel at 1pm but I decided to enjoy the sunshine instead but Beau took advantage and hopped in with the water camera. Then we had to say goodbye to the Kangaroo Explorer and board Reefkist. We had a 2hr ride back to Cairns with a short stop at Fitzroy Island again. We had a quick stop for some whales too but they weren't as active or as close as last time. I read my book up on deck while Beau pseudo-napped. Once at the marina we were shuttled back to the dish shop and picked up Dotti. We headed to the caravan park we stayed at before and got settled in. We both enjoyed a hot shower before setting out to find some where to eat dinner. There ended up being a good little Thai place up the street and we had a yummy meal of padthai. Beau had an e-mail from Bombardier confirming a phone interview in 3 weeks time. We went to bed pretty early since we were both too pooped to poop.

Yellow one is a Foxface Rabbit Fish

Nemo!

Briggs Reef from above

July 15 – Cairns

We sort of took advantage of the fact we didn't have to be up early but really we didn't sleep in too late. We did some laundry before heading into town. We were all excited because we had two showings of the van today. Once in town we met an Italian couple and they had a look over the van. Beau took them for a test drive but for some reason the they didn't actually drive it themselves. We thought we had a second showing an hour later but it turned out to be the same couple. They had e-mailed us and texted and we replied to both but obviously they didn't keep track too well. Their English wasn't great either. We had some lunch at an Irish pub which included a pot (small glass) of beer. We wandered around downtown and got a 30 cent ice cream to enjoy on the board walk. We decided to head back to the caravan park and maybe hang out at the pool. Back at the park we got changed but then decided to try to fix the windshield instead. It didn't go as well as we had hoped and the sun hide itself away so it wasn't really good pool weather anymore. We did get a text from the Italians wanted to know about getting QLD rego and if we'd take $6000. We said we'd get back to them because we wanted to see how the safety we had scheduled for tomorrow would go. We took our camp chairs over to the pool area, the seats their were full of French people, and started doing some research on changing over the registration. It looked to be simple enough but we figured we should give them a call about the proof of address thing; in NSW just a receipt from a motel was good enough. We made some dinner and watched some tv. I set to work on updating my journal and trying to get some pictures fixed up. We got some stuff posted to our websites before bed.

Cairns Harbour

July 16 – Van stuff

We had to get Dotti in for her road worthiness check this morning at 8am. We dropped her off and walked into the Cairns CBD. It was pretty quiet since most things hadn't opened yet. We wandered around checked out some used bookstores, and souvenir shops. We killed some time in an electronics store too. We called the QLD rego people but found out we had to have a permanent QLD address to change our registration. I'm not sure what other backpackers do but I guess we wouldn't be able to do the registration here. We finally got a call about the van about 3 hrs after we dropped it off. We walked back to the garage and they had some bad news for us. She hadn't passed her road worthiness and had quite a few deficiencies. Crap... some of them were dumb though and I don't think we'll have a problem down in NSW but we'll definitely have to fix some of them. On our way back to the caravan park we popped into an auto parts store to start pricing out the parts we might need. Back at the caravan park we started googling some of the work that needed to be done hoping we (Beau) could do it ourselves. We called the Italian couple to tell them about not being able to do the QLD registration and they said they didn't want it then. Fine, we'll just sell Dotti to someone more deserving then. We started looking at some of the easier fixes in the van, we found the windshield wiper pump needed to be replaced and a fuse was blown for the heater fan. We rode our bikes down to the auto parts store and picked up these items as well as detoured to the grocery store. We now have functional wiper juice and heater. After dinner we started planning a route back to Sydney and figured out any stops we might want to make on the way back down.

The Great Barrier Reef Day 1

July 12 – The Great Barrier Reef Day 1

We were up very early this morning and had Hungry Jacks for brekky. We parked in an area that was pointed out to us as free parking and walked the short block down to Cairns Dive Center. We got checked in, filled out safety paper work then were loaded in a mini bus and driven down to the dock. We boarded Reefkist, the day boat the would be taking us out to the liveaboard, Kangaroo Explorer. We boated out to the reef with a stop at Fitzroy Island. We also stopped for a bit of whale watching along the way and saw a couple of whales breaching. It was awesome they were actually jumping out of the water. We made it out the reef and transferred over to Kangaroo Explorer. We went through the welcome brief then got a tour of the boat before being assigned our cabins. Compared to the last boat we were on these cabins were luxurious. Actually compared to the van it was spacious too. We had some yummy lunch then got ready for our first dive. The first dive was with a guide so they could assess our skills. We went in at East Timor on Moores Reef with Tanya the Dive Master. She is very energetic. We got to hold sea cucumbers, Tanya loves sea cucumbers, and touch some giant clams. I went through my air fairly quickly though. I'm not sure if I just was cold, excited, nervous or what. Previously Beau would go through air faster than me but then again I'm not sure if we really had equal amounts in our tanks. They were also smaller tanks so the air doesn't last as long either. Anyways it was still a good dive. We then moved dive sites to the Fish Bowl at Briggs Reef. Beau and I had our first unguided dive and really enjoyed it. We saw several sea turtles, one only had three legs! A few more giant clams and tons of fish. We also decided to rent a dive camera and attempted to take lots of photos. After that dive we had a break and some dinner before our very first night dive! Since it was our first night dive we had to hire a guide. There were 6 of us in our group plus the guide and it felt crowded. I guess we have been spoilt in the past since we usually have 4 or less in a group. We did see a bunch of white tip reef sharks as well as a sleeping turtle and some red bass. The red bass use the torch lights to help them hunt but we didn't get to see them in action. After our night dive we had a shower then were pretty much too pooped to do anything else so we went to bed.

Cairns

A breaching humpback whale

The Kangaroo Explorer

Underwater Beau

Underwater Diane!

Turtle

Can you find Nemo?

Turtle!

Trumpet Fish

Three legged turtle :(

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Townsville to the Daintree Rainforest

July 8 - Townsville

While we had breakfast I finished charging my computer since it didn't have enough time last night to fully charge. After, we wrote up our ad for the van since we hope to sell it in Cairns. We think if we post it a few days before we arrive we might have some hits. We also cleared most things out of the van and took some “staged” photos of the interior. We hit the road to continue to Townsville. Along the way there was a guy selling seafood so we bought some local blue salmon for dinner. Once in Townsville we again stopped into Hungry Jacks for wifi and got the van posted on Gum Tree. We headed into the CBD but had to take a bit of a roundabout route since there was a few road closures due to the races. Once downtown we tried to go to the info center but they were closed. We were pretty annoyed since it was only 2pm and it's supposed to be open till 5pm. We could see there was a big rock formation in the downtown area so we decided to check it out. We drove up to the top of Castle Hill. It was a very narrow and windy road and there were a lot of pedestrians on it. Beau felt bad that we didn't hike up but I was okay with it. Up at the top we went on two short walks and enjoyed the look outs. Or at least enjoyed as much as we could see, it was pretty overcast and grey. You could, however, see some the racing going on and there were quite a few people on the hill with binoculars. Once we had enough we headed down to find our caravan park. We also picked up some lemon and tinfoil so we could grill our fish up nicely. The fish turned out yummy for dinner and we had a veggy risotto (made from a box) with it. We watched some tv in the kitchen for a bit then I had a shower while Beau played guitar before bed.

July 9 – Driving

We had a slow morning with breakfast and coffee while watching the news. Beau had a shower and I set to work packing up the van. We back tracked a bit and checked out the price of fixing the window ourselves. It was about $35 for a fix kit so we thought we'd we find out how much it was at a shop. Back at Hungry Jacks again we looked up the price of fixing the windshield and from the website it looked like over $100. Obviously we're going to do it ourselves... once we get some sun! We started driving towards Cairns and made a pee break after a little bit. When we got going again the battery charge light was flickering on and off then stayed on. Beau was worried our alternator might be toast or else the battery might be shot. We kept driving until we hit a small town and pulled into a garage parking lot. We checked the voltage of the battery while the car was running and it read about 15V so obviously the alternator still works. We then turned off the van and were able to restart it with no troubles so we think it might be a loose connection. We kept driving through the rainy foggy day and then stopped for a late lunch. We made our tuna wraps then drove on to a rest stop just past Innisfail. We drove about 250km today, originally I had hoped we would go to Magnetic Island today but with the weather being the pits it wasn't worth it. At the rest stop we continued to try to trouble shoot the battery light. Both batteries were fully charged and we don't know where the wires go but we are next to positive it's just a loose connection. Maybe the light will turn off by magic... or removal.

July 10 – Cairns

It rained all night and into the morning. Beau heard that it had rained about 7 inches last night! THIS IS DRY SEASON! Since it was yucky we were pretty slow moving. We drove the 100km to Cairns. It was pretty warm out even though it was overcast and obviously quite humid. We stopped into Hungry Jacks for wifi but they didn't have their $1 menu so we bought a coffee instead which cost a lot more. We then headed into the CBD and grabbed some free parking. We started walking to try to find the tourist info center. We were stopped by a delivery guy who needed a hand with getting a box up some stairs and he pointed us in the right direction for the info center. At the center we asked about going out diving but apparently its high season so there were no deals on and many were booked into next week. Feeling a little dejected we start off down the street but decided to pop into to a tour center. This one said they had a good deal on with Cairns Dive Center where you paid for 2day/1night and got upgraded to 3day/2night unfortunately after she called to book us the deal had expired so we were back to paying full price. They did, however, have one room open on the boat for the 12^th to 14^th. There was also supposed to be a good weather window at that time. We decided to go for it and booked our dive trip. It was $570pp for 3 day/2 night and 10 dives. We'll be double our number of dives. Feeling poor and hungry we split a sub for lunch and then discussed what to do tomorrow. We decided to head up to Cape Tribulation. We drove to the Daintree River Ferry Crossing, caught the cable ferry across then continued to a caravan park 16km further. There were cassowary crossing signs everywhere but we didn't spot one. Our caravan park had a small reptile display and there was also to be crocodile and kangaroo feeding in the morning. Once we found a pseudo-dry spot to park Beau set to work taking the dash a part to try and find our lose connection. Sadly he didn't find it so we just pulled the bulb :P While we were doing this our phone rang and there was a girl interested in seeing the van. Turns out she lives and works in Cape Trib and we set up a meet for tomorrow morning. We then set to work give the van a good scrub down. We made some dinner, chatted with a British guy in his early 20's about traveling then headed to bed.

The Daintree River Ferry

On the Daintree River

July 11 – Daintree Rainforest & Cape Tribulation

We woke up around 8 and met up with the park owner for his daily scheduled crocodile feeding. He has a 3 meter crocodile, Doris, who was rescued from a pet shop in South Australia. Doris used to be known as Boris because the crocodile farm she came from had sexed her as male and it wasn't until after she had laid eggs her new owner realized the mistake. Since it was pretty cool out Doris wasn't very hungry so she didn't eat anything. Afterwards we headed to the kangaroo pen where he had some rescued roos and wallabies. Most had been hand reared since their mothers had been killed in car crashes so they would never survive in the wild. We got to feed the kangaroos and wallabies. It was weird feeling their teeth graze your palm but super cool too. People pay big money for this at the zoos and we got to do it for free. The ground was saturated from the rain and extremely muddy. We had a shower and then breakfast before heading out. We headed to a backpackers to meet up with this girl to show the van. She didn't show up to the meeting until an hour later and only because she had to work. She said she lost track of time. We gave her a quick run down of the van and she seemed interested but we need to get a road worthiness certificate to sell it. We drove up the road to Cape Tribulation and went to the Kuluki lookout. We took a little walk along the Cape Tribulation beach as well before getting back in the van and heading back the way we came. We stopped at the Dubuji Boardwalk and took a nice 1.2km walk through the mangroves and rainforest. We then had some cheese, crackers and tomato for lunch. We headed back down the the Daintree River ferry but sadly did not see a cassowary. A cassowary is a large emu like bird with a big nob on its head, google it, they are very strange looking. They are also in Fern Gully! Once across the river we stopped into the public wharf to find out about river cruises. We decided to go out on the Solar Whisper which is a smaller, electric powered boat. It also had solar panels on the roof. We went for a 1.25hr cruise along the Daintree River and saw 3 adult crocodiles and many baby crocs. Some for the babies were only 6 inches long. We also saw a python that was coiled all up around itself in a tree. It was an enjoyable and quiet way to see the river. Back on land we returned a call regarding the van to the girl from this mornings uncle. He was headed up this way so we agreed to meet him and he could have a look over the van for the girl. We met him around Port Douglas and he had a quick check over the van. Back into Cairns we found a holiday park for the night and had a late dinner. Beau had an e-mail about Bombardier so he gave the agency girl a call and she'll be officially submitting his resume. We got ourselves all packed up for our trip out to the reef tomorrow then headed to bed.

Doris the Crocodile

Feeding a Wallaby

Cape Tribulation

Adult Crocodile

Younger Adult Crocodile

Baby Crocodile

Python

On the Daintree