Mrs Mac's Pharmacy

You have to see this, in order to believe it.

I quote from an official advertisement in a local paper:

" Mrs Mac's Pharmacy:
Furniture, prescriptions, gift lines, Vet lines, film processing, childrens toys & clothing, plant nursery & all gardening requirements".

And yes, Mrs Mac's really exists: In Karumba.

for the dutch readers: "meubelen, apotheek, cadeaus, diergeneesmiddelen, film ontwikkelen, kinderspeelgoed en kleding, plantenkwekerij en alle tuinbenodigdheden"

I will never doubt the Australian versatility again !

Normanton / Karumba

Sundayafternoon in Karumba. North Queensland at the Gulf of Carpentaria. Back at the water again after crossing the northen peninsula of Queensland from east to west.
We left Georgetown on thursdaymorning and headed for Normenton. The first part of the road towards Croydon was one lane bitumen, so we had to pull over to the side quite a few times to let some roadtrains pass (55 m long !). But once near Croydon it was all nice road. From that moment on we had the car in cruise-control at 90 km/h.
We arrived in Normenton in the early afternoon en set ourselves up for one night in the caravanpark, just opposite the purple pub. Have a look at the pictures why the pub is called that way.
Fridaymorning (Anzac-day) we attended the dawnservice at the local war memorial and after a coffee we hit the road again towards Karumba. On our way out of town we passed Krys, the savannah-king. Krys was the largest crocodile in the world ever cought : 8.63 m !!! HolyDooley what a monster. The statue is a replica in its original size !
Karumba is only 70 km out of Normenton, so after an hour drive we set ourselves up in the caravanpark there. we plan to stay here a few weeks, it's BEAUTIFUL !
Karumba is a fishing town: boats, boats and boats in the caravanpark, all leaving in the early morning, returning around 1 pm, and then everybody starts to fillet their catch. We will have a go ourselves in the days to come. I will keep you informed.
By the way, the sunsets over the Gulf are very beautiful to watch with a cold drink on the errace !

Sherreen

A morning visit to "Terrestrial" in Georgetown QLD , home of the Ted Elliott
gemstone collection. A beautiful display of a lifetime hobby, collecting
gemstones, minerals, precious stones, gold and silver in the area and from
all over Australia. The collection is now Shire property.
We were welcomed by Sherreen (I hope i got her name right, if not, she will
forgive me) and I promised her to put her on my blog. So....Sherreen here we
go, and I am curious how that pink party dress will look on you !!!

Innot Hot Springs

We left Atherton on saturdaymorning, heading west, inland. It's not good to
drive the car up those slopes in automatic gear. I discovered that when a
red light came on: "Automatic Transmission Oil Temperature". We had to pull
over in the middle of a long slope and alow the baby to cool down. The rest
of the trip I used manual second gear on longer slopes and we had no further
problems.
We ended up in "Innot Hot Springs", vulcanic hot springs in the creek. The
creek-water is cool, but there are plenty hot wells, so you can make the
water as warm as you like by digging a hole. The caravanpark was right on
the creek and had its own hot spa's and swimmingpools, fed by the mineral
spring water. A nice hotel at the other side of the creek run by Larry and
Ross. No internet, phone and TV in Innot.
Tuesday morning we left again and headed further west along the Savanah-way
towards Georgetown. We are there now in a nice quiet caravanpark and will
stay here propably 2 or three nights and then drive on in the direction of
Normenton/Karumba

8000 Km

After filling up the dieseltank of the car yesterday, I wrote down the amount of litres and the km reading. I noticed we had just done 8000 km (to be correct: 8007 km) since we bought the car and started travelling.

I keep track of where we have been until now on a map of Australia and thought this might be a good moment to share.

Especially for the dutch readers it shows what small part of Australia is covered by driving this distance in 4 month time. Sh.t this is a LARGE country !!!

Millaa Millaa

Sundayafternoon, just back in Atherton from a nice drive through the Atherton Tablelands to Millaa Millaa. This is no spelling error it is really double-Millaa. Several towns in Australia have doubled names: Gin Gin, Ban Ban Springs; don't ask my why. Anyway, in Millaa Millaa are the same-name falls and a great lookout over the area. Beautiful ! We had a tour around via Malanda and Ravenshoe. Lunch-picknick and back home to our caravan. a Nice 200 km drive.
When we leave Atherton next saturday (thats the plan) part of our drive will be in the same direction. That will be hard work for the Toyota again. Wow, we had some narrow, winding, steep slopes ! And that is called the Kennedy Highway. For the Dutch: pull your caravan up through Sweykhuizen, and down just outside the village to the right to Spaubeek through Stammenderbos. That is whats called a highway here in Australia. It will be a challenge again for this 13 m, 4.0 ton combination.

New photobook

I added a new photobook for april 2008. See the menu to the right.

Atherton

Last Saturday we left Port Douglas and headed southwest, inland. Our goal was Lake Tinaroo near Atherton. The route was a beautiful but narrow winding and climbing road up into the Tablelands. The Toyota had to show (and use) its muscles pulling the 2.5 ton caravan and its own 2 ton up to Mount Molloy. No problems, although some other cars behind us were not impressed with the speed.
We passed a nice and impressive world war II monument near Mareeba where we had a coffeestop. Within a few minutes Kelly the Ranger of the park showed up with his dog, he was glad somebody stopped, so he could have a chat.
From there it was a relative short drive out to lake Tinaroo.Di sapointment ! A nice lake, but the caravanpark was at the other side of the road, no view over the lake. This was not what we had in mind, so we decided to move on, directly to Atherton, to see what the parks were around there. Our first choice was a park just outside the town and we hit the nail right on its head. This is definitly the most beautiful caravanpark we have been in. Tropical rainforest all around, birds, wallabies, nice grassy and shady spots, swimmingpool, perfect toilets etc. We will stay here a while. Its a great basecamp to discover the tablelands.
Sunday we had a trip to the local market in Tolga: Great ! More news soon !

PS: Nan, manoeuvring the caravan is just a matter of beiing a good driver and getting the right instructions from your partner. Just back in, a few times forward and backwards, and then step out the car knowing that everybody in the caravanpark has been watching you.