Kuranda Scenic Railway and Skyrail

We made it to Cairns and were lost within the first 5 minutes. After half an hour we finally found the caravan park, our first impressions of the park was overcrowded and tiny sites but when we set up we went for a swim in the pool and met another family with 3 girls who are also travelling around Australia which lifted our spirits and we had a great stay. We did a day trip up to Kuranda Village via the Kuranda Scenic Railway and Skyrail.

The amazing Ulysses Butterfly

The girls were so excited about the day, we had to be at Cairns central station at 8am ready for departure at 8.30am. We watched the train arrive at the station, waiting on the platform the girls got their cameras out for a shot of the train. The trip up the mountain was very scienic, with the 2 waterfalls, Stoney Creek falls and Barron falls. The girls enjoyed the tunnels and counted a total of 12 tunnels. Arriving at Kuranda station Kate was busting to get to the Butterfly Sanctuary so we jumped on the shuttle bus there and spent over two hours looking and learning about butterflies.  It was amazing the butterflies landed on us and we could pick them up. An amazing place, well worth the visit. 

The trip home was awesome the girls loved looking over the treetops in the skyrail, something they had never experienced before. A wonderful day.

We filled up with supplies, including fitting the car with new tyres ready for our trip up to Cape York then across the gulf.

Thank you to 1T and 3C for their wonderful letter to Emma and Kate, a lovely surprise and they both enjoyed reading everyones letters.

Waterfalls and Tablelands



Josepine Falls



Our trip from Ingham to Cairns was certainly a scenic and enjoyable time. There were so many waterfalls to enjoy, we selected just a few. The Josepine Falls were spectacular with the massive boulders, we found the walk very educational for the girls learning about how water shapes the rocks and creates the many rock pools and also learning about how a rainforest grows, how plants feed off other plants and how they grow. We camped at Babinda Boulders which was a top spot.

We then headed up to the Atherton tablelands from here, a very scenic drive up the mountain. We found more waterfalls, Milla Milla falls very popular, but as you can see from this photo also very unique.
  

Milla Milla Falls



Curtain Fig Tree

The weather was absolutely gorgeous for the 4 days we spent here. We camped on Tinaroo Dam, which is State Forest & National Park. Fantastic camping on the water. We put the boat in but could not find the fish, they were hibinating because the weather was cold. We had a fantastic time using the boat, talking with the other families camping, swimming and relaxing by the fire. A great chance to catch up the school work too. Emma made some damper for morning tea which we cooked on the fire. We had to watch for the hungry Kookaburra's when one took some damper out of Emma's hand, so Kate decided to climb the tree to get it back. 

The curtain fig tree pictured here is just one of many that you find throughout the rainforests. We learnt that it starts out as one fig tree then over time seeds are dropped and other fig trees grow on the branches, so the roots form like a curtain making it an amazing formation. We did see another that was bigger and we could walk inside the roots which was awesome.

Fishing Tinaroo Dam



Early morning fishing



Morning tea - making damper



Kate trying to get the damper off the Kookaburra

Swimming amoungst the lillies



Happy Birthday Aunty Leah

Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to you,
Happy Birthday to Aunty Leah,
Happy Birthday to you.

Emma and Kate went swimming and picked some lillies for you!
Hope you have a wonderful day,
love the Smidt's

Paronella Park





Mena Creek Falls

 Imagine living in the 1930's, what was the entertainment like back then? We visited http://www.paronellapark.com.au/  at Mena Creek near Innisfail and discovered how much enjoyment people gained from one mans dream. At first we were not going to go in, but, we met the owner at the door who gave us a great deal on entry and site in the joining caravan park we could not pass the opportunity. It was well worth the visit and I would recommend it to everyone. The girls loved Paronella Park and enjoyed every bit of it.

A guided tour of the grounds revealed the story behind Paronella Park, Jose Paronella came to Australia to build his dream in 1934. His dream was to build a castle for people to come and enjoy. The first castle was the ballroom and theatre and the second castle was the tea rooms with tennis courts and boche lawns. All this was built on the Mena Creek and he designed the grounds so a view of the waterfall could be enjoyed the the fullest. Kate especially enjoyed the tunnel of love at the end of lovers lane. This tunnel was built to put an aquarium in the tunnel but the walls were too porous and the tanks started to leak, it now houses tiny bats. But still imagine a stroll down lovers lane with views of mena creek falls then thru the tunnel to another waterfall coming from a natural spring. Quite romatic and amazing. The brains and ideas that Jose Paronella had for the park were so clever, he even engerneered and built his own hydro electricity plant to power the park. So imagine back when there was no television or power, going to the castle to watch a film.

Night tour

 Emmas favourite part was the night tour, it was amazing seeing the castles and the falls lit up at night, the girls were both mesmerized.

We went for an early morning walk through the park to see the turtles and feed the multiples of fish. The girls loved touching the eels, they were massive and very greedy. The fish feeding area at the base of mena falls was built in the 1930's as a picinic area, where you could swim or take a (wooden) boat for a row.

Paronella Park would have been a very popular place back in its days. The current owners are doing a fantastic job to preserve one mans dream and share this wonderful story to us today.

Feeding and touching the eels

Paluma Range National Park

Paluma Ranges National Park

Paluma Range National Park is an awesome spot, great swimming, very scenic and some great history to it. We all had loads of fun staying in this area. We camped Big Crystal Creek which had a huge swimming hole, great for swimming and snorkelling. The rocks by the water was our classroom for the morning while the girls wrote in their journals. An afternoon at the natural rock slides, just a short drive from camp proved to be so much fun for us all. Such a unique natual attraction to find.

The girls really enjoyed discovering the tadpoles, Kate found this baby frog and thought it was very cute. We found out that the beautiful, large green frogs that we have been finding are dark brown when they are young and as they grow older they turn into the nice green colour.  The girls were finding lots of the brown baby frogs in the power outlets at the caravan park in Airlie and took one up to the office to ask what type of frog it was and they found out they were baby green frogs. We did see lots of the green frogs in the park as well.




Little Crystal Creek

 Little Crystal Creek was another section with lots of little waterfalls and great swimming holes. This beautiful rock bridge over crystal creek was on the way up the Paluma Ranges, we stopped for a swim and Emma got talking to some girls who are holidaying from Papa New Guinea. The family were very friendly and they are here for a month visiting their family in Townsville. It has been wonderful meeting so many families and couples travelling from all over the world, so we now need to buy a world map to mark the places people come from.

Bowen to Balgal Beach



Bowen Jetty

 Where have we been? Enjoying the warm winter and beautiful swimming. The town of Bowen which you may have heard of as it was the town which the movie 'Australia' was filmed. Firstly we checked out the lookout where you could see the coastline and small township. Everything about the town was old which is why I guess they chose Bowen for the film. The girls really enjoyed walking out on the long and old jetty.

We have been travelling beside cane fields for some time now, but the drive towards Townsville was quite scenic looking at the hills behinds the cane fields.
Townsville is just a big town, which we only spent a day looking around. The highlights were the water playground and the Castle Hill lookout was a great spot for some scenic walks.



Townsville waterpark





Our camping looking at the river mouth

  Our next camp was at Balgal Beach, it was an amazing spot with green grassy sites right on the beachfront and river mouth adjacent. We were there for 3 days and put the boat in for a fish. Darrin caught a mangrove jack and I caught a cod, but both not big enough to keep. But the best catch of all was a mud crab by Emma on her lure. Winding her rod in she yelled in excitment "I've caught a fish" and next thing up came this mud crab holding onto her lure. We were not quick enough to get it before he let go.

The girls had so much fun on the beach collecting shells and building sandcastles and there was a playground there as well. Swimming was not recommended in the beach or river as there has been a crocodile sighting. But there was a georgeous freshwater swimming hole just a few kilometers up the road where we went swimming.

Whitsundays wonderland

Emma diving to the fish

Where do I start? We have been having a fantastic week enjoying the Whitsundays, the girls wanted to stay forever. I would have to say that the highlight of our trip was our visit to The Great Barrier Reef - Emma's ultimate destination. Emma had a ball snorkelling amongst the fish, she was in the water for nearly 2 hours exploring. She was really excited when she actually got to touch a fish. We travelled with http://www.cruisewhitsundays.com/ and they were fantastic, the weather was perfect and we all really enjoyed our day. We were up early to catch the bus to the marina at 7.10am. The girls were so excited and when they saw the size of the boat we were going on their eyes just lit up. Kate was very impressed to see that they served biscuits and milo as we boarded the boat. First stop was Daydream Island and spotting the 3 mermaids was just like a dream come true. Apparently the real story is that captain Cook thought he heard voices when he was passing by Daydream Island and thought they were mermaids.



Waving goodbye to the mermaids on Daydream Island



Once we were out at Knuckle reef we went on the glass bottom boat, snorkeled, went on the waterslide, had a scrumptious lunch, another snorkel and slide and finished off with  a ride in the sub-marine.



The Smidts take charge of the boat



 Kate was over excited when we went out in the glass bottom boat, she went crazy with taking loads of photos of the coral and as you can see she got some great photos of the coral.

Our visit to the Great Barrier Reef is going to be one amazing experience we will all remember. Even though Darrin and I have been to the Reef before, experiencing it through the excitiment of the girls has made it even more unique. Well worth the visit.

 We stayed at the Adventure Whitsunday Holiday Park which was fantastic for kicking back and having fun; they have a great pool with slides, mini golf was fun, we even had a few hits of tennis and the outdoor movies were a hit. We caught up with our friends who we met in 1997 when we first visited Airlie, they cooked us a delicious roast lunch. Our neighbours for the week were a lovely family visiting from Oxford in the UK, they have been travelling for 3 months. Kate and Zoe formed a nice little friendship and we hope to keep in touch.

Kate amazed at the coral



Kates photography