Croydon

All over this part of the country ants are very busy building neighbourhoods!

And the Orb spider is busy weaving webs which becomes a pantry for the young.  It seems the parents just take off leaving the young to eat, grow and get on with it!  This is also a neigbouthood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordgarius_magnificus

Then we arrived at Croydon.

The oldest store with the old fashioned layout within.  

The entrance to the old hotel.      

and the reception room.        

                           The old bank of New South Wales has become the toilet. But far from being in the toilet it is now part of the Westpac group, the 2nd largest bank in Australia. 

http://www.westpac.com.au/about-westpac/the-westpac-group/company-overview/our-history/

We're now on our way to Normanton.                                                                              

Cobald Gorge

Getting there was a nightmare.  We traveled at 20klms p.h. on awful dirt roads for 90 klms.  But finally got there.

We took a hike to the top to look down into the gorge

                        and then we took a boat and looked up 

               The gorge is about 6 klms long. Cobald is fed by several springs which keeps the water level constant.                                                                 
                                                                       

                      

Not bad for a phone camera!

Georgetown

It is now 30+ C didn't know it got this hot in winter.  We were right next to the golf course.

First you rake the path smooth

then you take the measuring string attached to the flag pole and remove your ball from its "lie" to the "path" and putt!  Apparently they are on Golflink!
  

Then you arrive at the clubhouse for a beer and get chatting and told all the stories of fossicking for gold. They're not just stories.  Cathy, behind the bar tells us of her and her husbands finds and offers to show us

some her her jewelery.   She told us that if Dave hadn't found more than 10oz in a day he didn't go to the pub.

This town also has a museum of the most amazing collection of rock crystals and gem stones from all over. Also exhibits of fossils and fossilized wood.

Really nice small park being run for the next 12 months by Les who has

sold his vineyard and taken up a gypsy life for a while.  He fancies himself as a fossicker!

It was 35C and we had had to wash and polish Bugalugs as we had been to Cobald Gorge and were covered in red dust!

Mount Surprise ....a suprise

Mt Surprise has to be the friendliest place we have visited.  Met this 86 year old veteran from NZ .  He told us that when South Africans and New Zealanders recognised each other by accent in Europe during the war, they would call "scrum" and have a scrum.  

Known to us now as Mr Gordon, he is responsible for the dedication plaque to the area's involvement in WWII

Note the Essential Supplies bottom, left.

owner of the van park we stayed at is ex SAS (Burma) and in spite of suffering from Ross River fever proved to be a really good bloke.  

His wife has this sign outside her eatery.

another good sign

....and yet another!

UNDARA

Fascinating place.  An area of 160 volcanoes.  Each one went off once ....not all at the same time! 

The last one went off 190,000 years ago and formed these amazing lava tubes.If  lava is made up of 49% silicon, it has the elasticity to cover distance and that coupled with a continuous spew enabled the flow at Undara to travel 100 miles.

the basalt rocks are formed from rapid cooling.

http://undara.com.au/lava-tubes/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basalt

Tony in a tube

tree roots growing on the floor of the cave.

Accommodation in the park, apart from caravans and tents are railway carriages.  In fact it's a theme....

the dining area

dining in compartments

 

 

INNOT

THIS IS A HOT SPRINGS PLACE........VERY SMALL SPRING!

WITHOUT THE SIGN WE WOULD HAVE DRIVEN PAST IT!!!!

http://www.uq.edu.au/geothermal/index.html?page=135241&pid=80653

THE WATER TEMP IS 80C AT SOURCE AND RANGES FROM 40C  TO 30C  IN THE RIVER AND THE POOLS AT THE CARAVAN PARK.

 

 PHONE CAMERA DIDN'T PICK UP THE STEAM COMING OFF THE WATER, BUT THIS IS THE 

LITTLE SPRING THAT PRODUCES THE WATER FOR THE POOLS AT THE PARK.

THIS IS A 4 1/2OZ PURE ROSE GOLD NUGGET FOUND IN THE AREA SOME TIME AGO.  THE WONDERFUL CHARACTER WEARING IT, FOUND IT WHILE PROSPECTING, TOLD US IT WAS THE 2ND LARGEST NUGGET HE HAD FOUND IN HIS CAREER.  THE LARGEST BEING 22OZ AND PURE!!! NEXT TO IT IS A $2 COIN FOR SIZE COMPARISON.

RAVENSHOE

We've been out of range of all telecommunications in this vast place.  Even Telstra isn't available. We left Branston Beach and headed for the Savannah Way which takes us from the east coast to the start of the Gulf of Carpentaria. As I'm posting we are half way to the Gulf.

. RAVENSHOE

 It's the highest point in Queensland and the temperature plummeted to a freezing 17 degrees!!!! We had to make a purchase of warm gear.  The broken window behind us was the 3rd in as many weeks which is apparently unusual for this part of the world and the shop owner reckons it was to get police attention to  ensure a warm place to sleep.....unemployment thanks to the GFC is high up this end of the world.

PATHETIC HEY?

MAIN STREET, RAVENSHOE

However, 2 klms on from town is the most gorgeous water hole. Little Millstream Falls. The water was quite warm for mountain water ....bit too chilly to remove clothing!

 

                

DOESN'T LOOK LIKE  TONE'S GOING TO

STRIP OFF ANY TIME SOON!!!

Branston Beach

Had a really good 3 days at this beach which we had to ourselves.  Met some interesting people here.  Tony now understands the "don't judge a book by its cover" concept.  The people on one side of us who were in good looking vans, just sat and drank and ate their way through 2 days and on the other side of the park was a derelict looking camper with a couple of real oldies (80 and 84yrs) who were definitely worth the time of day. Very educated and still lecturing in philosophy!  

  Looking down to one end of Branston Beach

just north of Innisfail

And looking up to the northern end....had the beach to ourselves.                                                                                                                     

Tony is happiest without gear!!!!!

While the pictures above look like a beach of yello sand, at the waters edge at low tide this is a shimmering beach of Silica.  The most common usage of silica sand is in glass making for more info you might like to go to:

http://www.mineralszone.com/minerals/silica.html

Rock wallabies of Granite gorge

These little unadorned rock wallabies are only found in the Mareeba area.    

They prefer to come out at night......

Granite Gorge

The Granite Boulders were formed by relatively recent volcanic activity which forced up these huge, dramatic and unusual balls of stone. A stream obviously becomes a torrent during the wet season. But for now is a great little swimming spot for us.

   

Natures spa! 

Caught in a reflective moment. 

 

Not a bad spot.  Very cold mountain water, but at least there are no crocs! The air temperature being so much warmer than the mountain water temperature (estimate not less than 18C) it's easy to take!  

Our estimates are based on past experience of swimming on the Atlantic ocean beaches at Cape town.  There you had to dash into the surf to cool off and dash straight out again because limbs had started to ache from the cold.  If I remember correctly the Atlantic didn't get warmer than 17C in mid summer.