Ah it’s so good to be in cooler weather but unfortunately that also means stormy humid days with lots of rain and wind as we spend three weeks exploring Tropical North Queensland. We leave the idyllic Magnetic Island and travel up the east coast to Balgal Beach, Taylor’s Beach, Mission Beach, Bramston Beach, Palm Cove, Port Douglas, Cooktown, Atherton tablelands, Georgetown, Karumba, Normantown and down to Bowen. The vegetation is lush, the mountains are misty, the beaches are brown, the skies are sultry and the water is full of warnings of crocs, spiky fish and stingers. It’s beautiful in its own wild way and so full of growth it gives us faith that nature will prevail!
Week 1 September 6th – 26th 2021. See more of our adventures this week in our OzLap week 22 video.
Monday 6th & Tuesday 7th water, water, water…everywhere
Little Crystal Creek falls 
Taylor’s Beach 
TYTO Wetlands
We left magical Magnetic island on the lunchtime ferry and trotted up the coast a short way to a little free camp at Balgal beach for the night. There is a general store at the river mouth/boat ramp, a good little park gym and a long beach that at low tide is perfect for a morning run.
Tuesday we headed up into Paluma National Park to Little Crystal Creek waterfall and waterhole. The very narrow road winds up and around the mountains and we sounded our horn around every corner as there was no room for two cars to pass! We were rewarded with a beautiful, crystal clear swimming hole and waterfalls. We headed back down to Ingham to explore the TYTO wetlands. This lush 4km loop walk around the wetlands is named after the Tyto owl and revealed pretty water lilies, tonnes of turtles, crocodile warning signs and Curlews galore. We stayed the night at the cute hamlet of Taylor’s beach which is on the Victoria River and so tidal there was almost no water at low tide and it lapped the grass at high tide!
Three things to tick in this area are: 1.Little Crystal Creek waterfalls and swimming hole 2. TYTO wetlands walk and 3. Taylor’s Beach walk.
Wednesday 8th & Thursday 9th big wonders in Giringun National Park & Mission Beach
Wallaman Falls 
The Big Fig Tree walk 
Bingal Bay Cafe
Wednesday was another waterfall adventure day with a trip up to Wallaman Falls in the Girringun National Park. This is Australia’s highest single drop falls with the water plummeting 269 metres into a 20 metre pool. It was stunning and we attempted to walk down to the bottom but turned back half way as we hadn’t brought water and it was getting very slippery and. hot! We headed up into another park – this time the Abergowrie State Forest to camp at Broadwater campground a huge, lush campground on the Abergowrie river. We explored all three of the walks from the park, along the river where there are swimming platforms, along a boardwalk to the most majestic fig we’ve ever seen and through the rainforest. We collected firewood and enjoyed a beautiful fire under a starry sky surrounded by bush turkeys and flying foxes.
Thursday we headed up to the 4 villages of Mission Beach: South Mission, Wongaling Beach, Mission Beach and Bingal Bay. There are signs saying slow down for Cassowaries everywhere here but we never saw any! We walked along south Mission to Lugger Bay, marvelling at the imposing houses hugging the cliffs, stopped off at Wongaling Beach for the night at a cousin’s place then explored the shopping village at Mission Beach and enjoyed delicious coffee and carrot cake at the adorable Bingal Bay café.
Three things to tick in this area are: 1. Wallaman Falls 2. The Big Fig at Broadwater campground in the Abergowrie state forest and 3. Bingal Bay café for killer carrot cake and great atmos!
Friday 10th & Saturday 11th discovering Paronella Park, Josephine Falls and Babinda Boulders
Paronella Park on Mena Falls 
Josephine Falls 
Babinda Boulders
Friday morning we took the tourist byroad, Canecutter’s way, to Mena Creek and stopped to walk across the swing bridge to Paronella Park. This old ‘castle’ was built by a Spanish migrant in 1935 and operated as a guest house for years. We continued onto the sleepy little hamlet of Bramston Beach where we camped for two nights right on the foreshore in the council campground.
Saturday we went to Josephine Falls and did the walk that wound up and around 4 different viewing platform. The water was high and flowing fast and we decided not to swim. We headed next to Babinda Boulders another beautiful swimming hole and walked up and around to the various viewing platforms as well. We stopped in the cute artsy town of Babinda for lunch then headed back to Bramston Beach for walks and a BBQ under a stormy night.
Three things to tick in this area are: 1. Paronella Park and Mena Falls 2. Josephine Falls and 3. Babinda Boulders
Sunday 12th & Monday 13th Lapping up a little luxury in Palm Cove
Beachside path 
Yoga under the palms 
Wine Bar delights
Sunday we did an online fitball class with Melbourne friends on Bramston beach then drove up to Carins for a bit of retail therapy before sliding into the secluded and snazzy Palm Cove. Ah, what an idyllic strip of hedonistic delights! Cafe after bar after restaurant. A spattering of shops and one long winding foreshore track that takes you past it all. We enjoyed bike rides, beach walks, yoga under the Palm trees, swimming, thai food, greek food, stunning chardonnay and cheese board at the wine bar and a long brunch with some old friends who came down from Karunda. Bliss.
Three things to tick in Palm Cover are: 1. Walk along the beachside path admiring all the boutique hotels and scouting out the cafes 2. Yoga under the palms and 3. Sample delicious wines and cheese at the Wine Bar
Week 23 of our OzLap : Port Douglas, Cooktown and Atherton Tablelands
This week we re-discover Port Douglas, explore Cooktown and indulge in big delights in the Atherton Tablelands. See our Week 23 OzLap video for more.
Tuesday 14th and Wednesday 15th in pretty Port Douglas
Lookout Walk 
Yoga on 4-mile beach 
Sugar Wharf sunset
Tuesday morning, we reluctantly left Palm Cove but didn’t go far, just 45 minutes up to the bigger, bolder, busier Port Douglas where we stayed right on 4-mile beach (which is not 4 miles long but named that after the Fourmile family). We enjoyed swimming and reading on the beach, the lookout walk around the point, morning yoga on the sand, sunsets down at Sugar Wharf, dinner at the Tin Shed, sushi at Black Sesame and even ran into an old workmate of Jamie’s!
Three things to tick on a trip to Port Douglas are: 1. The Lookout walk around the Point 2. 4-mile beach for swimming, a morning walk, run or yoga and 3. Sunsets down at Sugar wharf and drinks or dinner at the nearby Tin Shed.
Thursday 16th & Friday 17th Exploring Cooktown
Endeavour River cruise 
The Cooktown Orchid at the Bot Gardens 
Sunset from Grassy Hill
Thursday morning we headed 4 hours up the road to Cooktown, winding our way up and through the northern ridges of the Great Dividing Range. We crossed through dry, almost desert like landscape which was at odds with the Wet Tropics name of the region and came out at the cute Cooktown stretching along the mouth of the Endeavour River. We spent the next two days riding our bikes down to the wharf, the pretty Botanic gardens and along the river. We hiked to Finch Bay a windswept croc-infested beach with imposing boulders and big tides, took a fabulous Endeavour river sunset cruise that went into all the mangrove thick byways of the endeavour river and supplied a delicious cheese platter from the Atherton tablelands Gallo Dairy, enjoyed 360 degree views and sunset from the top of Grassy Hill, had delish fish ‘n chips at the tin boatshed and breakfast at Driftwood Café and enjoyed strolling along the riverfront reading the history of both the indigenous peoples life in the area and the 3 months Cook and his crew spent repairing their boat in the harbour.
Three things to tick on a trip to Cooktown are: 1. The Endeavour river sunset cruise 2. The Botanical Gardens (oldest in Australia) and 3. Sunset from Grassy Hill.
Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th Big Delights at Atherton Tablelands
Mungalli Creek Dairy 
The Big Curtain Fig 
Dinner at ‘Our Place’
Saturday, we arrived in the lush Atherton Tablelands in time for lunch at the famous Coffee Works in Mareeba where we sampled their home brew with a delicious toastie each. We stopped in at the Mt. Uncle distillery to grab a bottle of their botanicals gin then drove on to Yungaburra and checked in to our Tinaroo Lake Caravan Park then did the 5km hike around the nearby Lake Barrine before sunset on the lake and dinner at the very fine ‘Our Place’ restaurant in Yungaburra. Sunday was ‘dairy and waterfall day’ with the first stop at the massive Curtain Fig Tree, wow it is big, then Gallo Dairy for some vintage pepper cheese, then Malanda Falls, Milaa Milaa Falls, Zillie Falls and Elinjaa Falls before stopping in at the super cute Mungalli Bio-Dynamic Diary for the most sensational scones, jam and cream and gluten free cheesecake. We walked it off by doing the 3km hike around Eucham Lake then enjoyed a sunset dinner looking over the lake at our van park.
Three things to tick on a trip to Atherton Tablelands are: 1. The waterfall circuit just past the super cute town of Milaa Milla and stopping off at Mungalli Diary for Devonshire tea and killer cheesecake 2. Dinner at Our Place (get the homemade gnocchi with burnt butter and sage). 3. The two lake circuits: Eucham and Barrine to spot the endemic Lumholtz Tree Kangaroo and platypus.
Week 24 of our OzLap: Crazy Karumba to Beautiful Bowen
See the video of our week 24 OzLap adventures here.
Monday 20th – Wednesday 23rd September The Savannah Way Atherton to Karumba
Innott Hot Springs 
Precious stone collection Georgetown 
Krys the Croc, Normanton
Monday morning, we set off from Atherton through Herberton and on to Ravenshoe (Queensland’s highest town with the largest number of bearded men!) then turned on to the Kennedy highway and passed through Innot Springs – where there is a very shallow sandy hot springs that run almost at boiling point, then through the mining town of Mt Garnet. We then turned east on to the Gulf Developmental Road, aka the Savannah Way. We soon found out why it was called a ‘developmental’ road as it is still not fully developed. Huge sections deteriorate down to a single lane with jagged edges falling off into dirt. This narrow belt of bitumen was hard to handle, especially when the triple-axel road trains came at us from the opposite direction. There was also tonnes of road kill – wild boars, kangaroos, wallabies and huge wedge tailed eagles, kites and hawks all in the middle of the road eating them that had to be honked to clear the way. We made it to Georgetown for the night and stayed at a friendly, shady campground on the (dry) Etheridge River. It was 37c and we were glad to swim in the lovely clean local pool and also checked out the Terrestrial Centre – the Ted Elliott Mineral Collection which had outstanding examples of every kind of semi-precious stones like topaz, quartz, spinel, garnet, cairngorm, aquamarine and sapphires. There’s supposedly 4,500 specimens that Ted Elliot collected from all over the world and was really very striking!
After laps in the pool Tuesday morning, we drove around 2 hours to Croydon then another 2 hours on to Normantown. The landscape was super dry, dusty, windy and scrubby with very little in between the towns except the occasional entrance to a cattle station or mine. We stopped in Normantown for lunch and the obligatory photo in the jaws of Krys the largest crocodile ever recorded. She is 6.6 metres long and the replica is life size and looks more like a dinosaur than a croc. Normanton has 4 pubs, including a purple and green one, and not much else so we pushed on to Karumba, our destination for the next two nights.
Three things to tick on a trip from Atherton to Normanton are: 1. Innot Hot Springs if you like wallowing in a sandy hole full of boiling mineral water 2. Georgetown for the Terrestrial Centre’s magnificent mineral collection and the local pool for a clean, cool swim 3. Normanton to gawk at the world’s biggest crocodile!
Tuesday 24th & Wednesday 25th Ay Karumba!
Sunset Tavern 
Sunset over Norman River 
Jabiru on Norman River
We pulled into the town of Karumba early Tuesday afternoon and found a neat little Spar supermarket; a couple of cafes and a river walk. We continued another 5km down to Karumba Point where we checked in to the sunset caravan park. It was super windy and the place was alive with giant locusts pinging everywhere but we enjoyed a beach walk, happy hour at the sunset bar and a BBQ back at the campground. Wednesday, we ran along the boardwalk that loops back into town and cooked up pancakes which we ate in the van out of the wind. We did some washing, caught up on chores and read by the pool until our 3.30 Norman river croc, bird and sunset cruise departed from the boat ramp nearby. We motored up and down the mangrove lined, opaque green river, spotting Jabiru, white breasted sea eagles, kites, hawks and Pelicans and saw the retreating heads of two crocodiles. The focus on this cruise was actually the food and drinks as they supplied endless drinks and platters of crudites, prawns and mud cake (I only sampled the crudites). It was fun to have a chat and drink with other travellers and watch the sun go down out on the river and we enjoyed a meal at the Sunset tavern to finish the night off.
Three things to tick on a trip to Karumba are: 1. The Sunset Tavern at Karumba Point for happy hour or a meal as the sun sets over the Norman river 2. The Ferryman sunset river cruise 3. Walk along the river in Karumba spotting brolgas and jabiru – Pics in file
Thursday 24th – Sunday 27th Julia Creek – Charters Towers -Ravenswood – Home Hill
Julia Creek 
Tower Hill, Charters Towers 
Ravenswood
We headed back into Normanton Thursday morning spotting lots of Brolgas in the billabongs along the roadside and at Normanton we headed south on the Burke developmental road (aka Matilda Way) 2 hours to the Burke and Wills Roadhouse. No wonder those guys got lost, there’s nothing out this way but flat dry land and a narrow strip of 1 lane bitumen littered with road kill and scavenging kites, harks and wedge tailed eagles. We refuelled at the B&W roadhouse then took the Wills developmental road 200 km to Julia Creek. More vast stretches of one lane roly polly road with wandering cows, wallabies and dry pasture land. We pulled in at our stop for the night: Julia Creek Caravan Park at 4pm.
Friday, we set off on another long drive this time along the Savannah way to Charters Towers. It was a long drive to Charters Towers through Hughenden, Richmond, Torrens Creek – but we’d done the drive a couple of weeks earlier on our way over from NT so knew what to expect. We did a quick shop in the sprawling old mining town of Charters Towers then drove up to Towers Hill for sunset and to look at all the old mining shafts and WWII bunkers, then back to van park for dinner.
Saturday, we headed to the old gold mining town of Ravenswood where we thought we might stop for the night to watch the AFL grand final.This cute two pub and a post office town has a great little sculpture-mosaic art trail but no channel 7 reception so after a picnic lunch under the shady trees we took the 90 km gravel back road through the Burdekin valley to Ayr. Now Ayr had 5 pubs, all dominated by pokies and upon enquiring, all were watching the Rugby League and so we moved on a little further to Home Hill a sugar cane town that had a free ‘travellers comfort station’ which was a free rest stop with free showers and toilets! Two of the three pubs in town were shut but we tracked down the Community Sports Club which opened up and put the AFL grand final on for us while we played bowls under a purple haze sunset – courtesy of the burning sugar cane. We moved on to the pub to grab a meal before they shut and watched the rest of the grand final from there.
Sunday morning we were up early and off to the beautiful coastal town of Bowen – our destination for the next three nights. More on Bowen in the next blog post!
Three things to tick on a trip along the Savannah Way from Julia Creek to Charters Towers then on to Ravenswood are: 1. Julia Creek town for its lovely bath house, pretty visitor centre and cute town 2. Charters Towers Tower Hill for some great history and sunset and 3. The art-Mosaic trail around the old historical mining town of Ravenswood
