Mount Isa, July 11-13

The town looked interesting with its large copper mine right in the centre. I did a tour of an underground mine created for tourism purpose and I learnt a lot about the way they mined in the past and it was definitely the hard way!
The girls were in heaven at the family fun park: it’s huge and it even has a water play area.

There is a nice city lookout that gave us a good idea of the city.

Clem Walter park and dam, July 10-11

We spent one night at the free Clem Walton park. It was a very nice spot right next to a creek and some mountain ranges. We caught up with our traveling mates Leanne and Joe who told us about the park and we enjoyed a dinner by the fire and some yummy marshmallows too!

Burkes and Wills roadhouse, July 5-6 and 9-10 and Lawn Hill nat.park, 6-9

Burkes and Wills wasn't the best looking roadhouse and  there were a few road trains carrying cows. You can just imagine the lovely smell.

We stored the caravan there for 3 nights and drove to Lawn Hill national park where we stayed 3 nights in a pre-erected tent at Adels Grove. The tent was a nice experience, and a good change from the caravan. Nina and Annabelle had one single bed each and a big crate full of toys that we let them pack. Temperatures dropped a lot when we were in Lawn Hill (it was 35 degrees+ in Burkes and Wills!) and near 0 at Adels Grove. Luckily we were allowed to do a fire beside the tent.

There are some great walks and from what we've seen the  rock formation in the park looked very ancient. Manfred was very lucky to spot a freshie sunbathing on a branch in the water.

Nina had fun canoeing through the gorge and to some cute waterfalls although she fell in the water -did I mention crocodiles?. (Actually Manfred pushed her in the water trying to get the canoe into the river)

Georgetown and Normanton, June 30- July 2 and Karumba, July 2-5

We went fossicking in Mount Surprise and the girls enjoyed looking for shiny topaz in the bucket of wash. The owner of the place even offered Nina and Annabelle some more gemstones.

In Normanton we had a look at the statue of a big crocodile named Krys, that is nearly 9 meters long. Scary monster of a croc but Manfred doubts that it is a life size replica.

After all that driving we decided to spend some time at Karumba,  in the gulf of Carpentaria. This is a fisherman's heaven and there are many people staying for 3-4 months, essentially spending "winter" up there.
We camped right next to the fish cleaning table and saw some good sized fish.
In Karumba there is a barramundi farm,  a community project to restock fish.
On Saturday night, a free barramundi BBQ was held at the caravan park and there were loads of people. It’s on every Saturday and there is also a little show called red faces where everyone is free to participate.
Our neighbors, an elderly couple from Geelong, were very nice and Louise, the lady, entertained the girls and even allowed them to call her "Oma" (granny). They had fun.
Louise offered us a lot of fish, which was very kind.

We caught up with our Canadian traveling mates in Karumba, which was great. We went for dinner at the sunset tavern and enjoyed a nice sunset too. What a nice setting it was!

Undarra, June 27-30

The Undarra site is a great site with various types of accommodation, campground and caravan park and rooms in old train carriages beautifully renovated.
Many bush walks were all around the site, which was very convenient.
We went on a 2 hour tour to see the lava tubes (volcanic formation at Undarra). The formation is amazing!

We did a few lovely walks and saw some very cute wallaroos.

Our traveling mates Sean and  Lisa kindly offered to look after the girls so we could enjoy a nice dinner at the main restaurant.

One morning I went with Sean and Lisa to the  Kalcani crater near Undarra.

Atherton, June 25-27

So we finally said good bye to the east coast and the sea and headed west. After a scenic drive through the tablelands we ended up in Atherton where it was quite grey and rainy (only drizzle rain though).

I had a quick look at the market in Yungaburra and we tried to spot some Platypus in the nearby river, no luck though.
We did a little walk at lake Echam, spotted turtles, fish and a couple of nice looking birds.

On the way to the Undarra lava tubes, we stopped at the Millaa Millaa falls followed by a picnic at the windy hill wind farm, apparently QLD's largest wind farm.

Cooktown and Laura, June 22-24

We spent the night in a cabin of a caravan park in Cooktown: it was very windy and a bit rainy too.
The girls had a good play at the playground despite the wind and they enjoyed playing music at the "musical boat". They were rather fascinated by it.
We visited the main Captain cook museum (the one in the nice house that used to be a convent).

 













On our way to Laura we stopped at the Lions Den Pub for lunch.  It’s a great pub, especially the decorations inside.  A lot of miners used to stop there in the past. There is a campground too.

We stopped at Split rock and I went for a short but steep walk to see the aboriginal rock paintings. Amazing!
We spent one night in Laura, tiny tiny village in the middle of nowhere!
The next day we booked a tour with a guide and a ranger to see the Quinkan rock art sites. The guide drove through the bush for quite a while, it was a nice experience to be in the bush quite far from the main road. And we even spotted a wild pig!

Port Douglas, June 17-22 and 24-26

Nina and I went to the Out of Africa circus. Nice African music, great acrobats but no animals.
I checked the market in town. It was quite big and had a lot to offer. I enjoyed it.

Next day was a hot day so we spent half of it on the beach (Four Mile beach) and on the playground. From the beach, the mountain range looked very nice.

We left the caravan in storage and drove to Cooktown and Laura (see separate post).

We stayed an extra night in Port Douglas on our way back from Laura. After a lot of driving we needed to relax a bit, and go back to the beach for the last time before leaving the East coast.

Wonga beach, June 14-17

The caravan park was located right on the beach, halfway between Port Douglas and the Daintree rain forest. Unfortunately it wasn’t very sunny and it was very windy. Our car got a blanket to protect the windscreen from falling nuts- every now and then we heard a loud bang on the roof.
There was a swing on the beach- well rather a large stick on a rope, Nina and Annabelle had loads of fun.

We did a few day trips from there:  we had a quick look at the Daintree village, we also spent a day in the Daintree rain forest where we did an interesting botanical walk followed by a nice picnic.
Manfred and the girls did some sandcastles while I went for a nice walk on the beach near Cape Tribulation.

Cairns, June 10-14

We stayed at a very peaceful BIG 4 at Redlynch, a few kms outside of Cairns. It didn’t have much for the kids but the mountains around us were very nice. Cairns was a bit of an admin stop, time to catch up with post, get the car serviced and so on.
The girls enjoyed jumping and sliding down a jumping castle at the Esplanade while I had a look at the markets.

The butterfly sanctuary at Kuranda was a highlight for the girls, we spent a few hours there as it was very enjoyable to see all those beautiful colorful butterflies flying around us.

The day we checked out of the caravan park we stopped at the Crystal cascades. Although the walk was 2.4kms return, the girls walked very well.
On our way to the next spot we drove past Palm Cove, a trendy and upmarket place north of Cairns. This could be a great spot to escape Sydney winter.