Friday, 30 September 2016

Friday, 30th September - 1st October 2016 - Blue Waters to Cairns



Terry at Lake Placid

After a rather wet & windy night at Blue Waters, we continued north to Cairns. We arrived in Cairns and booked into the Lake Placid Caravan Park.  Still a bit cloudy and threatening more rain.  We went for a walk to view the lake and then returned to cook a meal in the well-equipped camp-kitchen.






Lake Placid





Well-equipped Lake Placid Camp Kitchen


Chef Tezza cooking our dinner


The Lake Placid Caravan Park Pool

We stayed at Lake Placid for 2 nights in order to stock up on food and other essential items at Smithfield Shopping Centre as there would be no more supermarkets on our way to the Tip.















Wednesday, 28 September 2016

Wednesday 28th -30th September 2016 - Cooroy - Carmilla - Blue Waters

6am ready to leave Cooroy on our trip to Cape York

Our Triton twin-cab ute is polished up and ready to roll.  Our Aussie Swag camper-trailer is packed and spruced up ready for the big trip!  Have we forgotten anything??? I hope not - still there are plenty of towns on the way up to Cooktown to pick up any necessary items.  Let's go!!


Compulsory Jam & Cream Donut at Childers


Traffic came to a standstill on the Bruce Highway when Police decided to do vehicle checks on all types of vehicles - trucks, cars & motorbikes.  Luckily we were waved straight through!






















Plain sailing until about 150km south of Carmilla, we had a problem with the car loosing power. We stopped briefly and then continued on with the car appearing to be okay apart from a warning light.  We continued on to Carmilla with no further problems.


Dinner at our first stop at Carmilla

Our first day was a long one and we finally pulled into the Carmilla Caravan Park at dusk.  A quick meal of toasted rolls & home-made pumpkin soup made by Terry and a hot shower & into bed after covering 704 kms.  The facilities here were old but clean and the showers were hot.


Thursday - 29th September 2016

The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast & continued into Serena to find someone to check out the warning light.  A small garage helpfully had a look straight away but were unable to help so we continued on to Mackay (a bigger town) to an RACQ service centre.  They managed to remove the warning light but were unable to find any fault.  Fingers crossed, we continued on our journey.

We camped overnight at Blue Waters - a free grassy camping area next to the Bruce Highway with water connections if you get there early enough as it can be quite busy.  There are also toilets.  The area has good grassy sites but unfortunately we arrived too late to claim one of these but we were quite happy with a quiet spot at the far end from the road.  There is also a children's playground.

Grey clouds were approaching so we hastily set up camp and cooked another quick meal before the rain arrived.  (In case you are wondering about the tent - we travel with the awning still attached & pulled up over the top of the tent and do not bother to set it up when it is just a quick overnight stay).



Blue Waters free camp site


Blue Waters



Blue Waters Playground