The Adventures of Nick and Pam

Cape York has been huge on our list of destinations for a long time. It’s home to a few epic 4wd tracks including the (in)famous Old Telegraph Track, the northernmost tip of Cape York is the northernmost tip of Australia, there are beautiful waterfalls and swimming holes, turquoise seas, world-class fishing, and lots of wildlife including some creatures that are endemic to Cape York alone. It’s such an epic trip I think this’ll be a three or four part post – this post will cover the following: Cairns -> Daintree -> CREB Track -> Lion’s Den Hotel -> Cooktown -> Elim Beach -> Rinyirru (Lakefield) National Park -> Coen ->…

The Atherton Tablelands is an area just west inland of the Cassowary Coast, where there are rolling green hills and big blue skies, lots of flourishing farmland, cows, fruit trees, coffee plantations, small towns boasting b&bs, cafes, and fish & chip shops, and the big draw for us – cheese, coffee, and chocolate shops selling wares all crafted from local cows and locally grown produce and cocoa and coffee. As if that wasn’t enough there are also countless waterfalls, freshwater lakes and rivers, rainforest walks, and even local Aussie legendary creatures like the duck-billed platypus. Our first stop in the Tablelands was Mareeba Coffee Works, a combination cafe-tasting room –…

We knew there was a lot to see on the way from Townsville to Cairns, based on the recommendations we’d received from other camping families along the way, but we probably underestimated just how much is crammed into a relatively small area – especially after we had spent the first five weeks of this trip out in the ‘back of beyond’ where everything is pretty far apart! Our first night out of Townsville, we camped only 75km away, at a place called Big Crystal Creek in Paluma Range National Park. We set up camp and went to check out the creek. It was an amazing preview of what we had…

How far would you go for a cold one in a great place? What Pam didn’t mention in our last post is that before reaching Undara, we stopped to refuel in “The Lynd”. It was basically just a truck stop where four major outback roads intercept each other. When paying for our petrol we noticed the roadhouse (Desert Oasis Roadhouse) was selling a book called “Australian Bush Pubs”, a compendium of significant pubs in Austalia’s historical and remote places. It turns out that this place too was one of those notable pubs, and in fact the smallest one in Australia, called The Oasis. This was our second time happening upon…

It was time to check out another recommendation from our Simpson Desert trip leader, Dave from the Sydney Jeep Club (hi Dave!), Undara National Park. We didn’t really know anything about Undara before visiting except “lava tubes”, and you’re probably wondering the same as us now, what on earth is a lava tube? Well, lucky for you all, I’m here to educate and inspire. A lava tube is a geological phenomenon created when slow-moving lava exposed to air solidifies, but lava continues to flow below the surface, leaving a subterranean hollow tube once no more lava flows. Undara formerly was a privately-run tourist operation on a cattle station called “Rosella…

After our whirlwind tour of the Dinosaur Trail we had a look on WikiCamps for a campsite near our final dino-destination Hughenden (home of the Muttaburrasaurus), and hit the jackpot yet again with Porcupine Gorge National Park, just 74km north. Porcupine Gorge National Park covers an area of around 5410 hectares, and extends for about 25km along Porcupine Creek. Over tens of millions of years, Porcupine Creek has excavated Porcupine Gorge, which is cutely known as Australia’s miniature Grand Canyon. Along the bottom of the gorge is a calm, meandering set of rock pools which connect up into a rushing river once the rains come down in the wet season.…

Hitting up the Dinosaur Trail in Queensland was a BIG DEAL to Nick and I, because it was the one part of our trip last year that we really didn’t feel we did any justice at all. We were held up for about three extra days waiting for a radiator, and the three days that we decided to sacrifice in order to compensate were the days we’d planned to spend on the dinosaur trail. This was our second try, and we were determined to make the most of it! Despite having an amusement park kind of name, the Dinosaur Trail is just an area of Queensland where there are heaps…

I’ve mentioned before that Nick and I use an app called WikiCamps to find campsites. Sometimes, the app also leads to cool detours – like our little stopover in a place called Opalton. I learned about Opalton while scoping out campsites near Winton, where we were planning to spend a few days checking out the dinosaur fossils and the world’s only fossilised dinosaur stampede. It was about 100km away from both Winton and Lark Quarry, the site of the fossilised stampede, had a five star user rating on WikiCamps, advertised hot showers, and a price of $2.50 per person per night – sounded awesome to us! Upon arrival, our expectations…

Our next major planned destination was an area of Queensland known as Dinosaur Country, and to get there we had a bit of driving to do and, you know us, a few things to see along the way. None of the places in this post are destinations in and of themselves, but all are interesting places to stop and have a look. First up, just north of Birdsville are these unique trees called Waddi trees. There are only three stands of Waddis in Australia, and the species is thought to herald from the last ice age. The wood doesn’t burn well in fire, and is so hard that it can…