mortiz044

April has been a very busy month and has passed in the blink of an eye.  The trip to Julia Creek for the DirtnDust took up the first ten days then there was Easter followed quickly with a trip to Toowoomba.  Is it any wonder I'm feeling very tired. I have posted about our trip to Julia Creek and now for the rest of the month.  Easter first. It was probably one of the most relaxing Easters ever.  We were invited to a friends place here at Julatten on Good Friday where we feasted on Barramundi, Oysters and Prawns....good christians that we are (not!!).  We sat for hours and talked and talked.  They are great friends and we always enjoy their company. Easter Saturday was spent with our life-long friends who live at Kuranda.  They invited us to join their family for a bbq lunch that was, once again, outstanding.  So much food to choose from and all delicious.  The adults laid out Easter Eggs so that the young ones could go on an Easter Egg Hunt. ...

My mum turned 80 on the 24th April and we, family and friends, celebrated this milestone by having a "Girls Only Days" birthday party.  It had been organised some months ago to have lunch at the Garden Cafe in Toowoomba followed by afternoon tea and birthday cake at Mums townhouse.  The invitations were sent out and there were only a couple of inabilities due to other commitments and distance. The day of the party we were quite busy.  We had to pick up the birthday cake, set out the afternoon tea cups, make sure there were adequate chairs for everybody, organise the food so that it could be quickly put on the table when everyone arrived, organise enough wine glasses for toasting and also get ourselves ready for the midday lunch. In between all of that there was a trip to the hairdresser for mum and a pick-up from the bus-stop. Mum and her great grandson Lucas We arrived in good time at the restaurant and after a quick chat to the waitress we were all seated in readiness f...

We talked quite a lot about where we would spend our last night of our mini camping holiday.  It was decided that we would head back via the Flinders Highway towards Townsville.  Some wanted to stay at Charters Towers but Philip and I decided that we wanted to have a night by the ocean so we would push on to Rollingstone.  In the end the others decided to do the same thing and we were all pleased that we did.  The Big 4 at Rollingstone was spectacular.  It was very well laid out with areas for camping, sites for people travelling with animals, sites close to the pool for those with young families, en-suite sites right on the beach (that we couldn't get hold of unfortunately) and perfectly clean amenities. We were all settled into our sites by 5.00pm and sat around and enjoyed the last night of happy hour.  We fired up the bbq to cook up the last of the steak and sausages with jacket potatoes and tossed salad and sat around telling stories until quite late. ...

We have been to Karumba quite a few times, after all we lived just a "stones throw" away, and every single time we visit we look forward to the next.  Karumba was a sleepy little fishing village until the mining boom and live cattle export gave it no choice but to expand.  Fortunately though, Karumba Point has retained it's original atmosphere. We checked into the Karumba Point Caravan Park that is a well appointed park with plenty of shade and a small pool to cool you down on a hot summers day.  The pool can become quite packed but still enjoyable. We only had one night in Karumba but our friends stayed for two nights.  Our first night was, of course, a walk to the Sunset Tavern to watch the sunset.  This is a tradition that has to be followed when you visit.  After the sunsets it is worth the stop at Ash's for their world famous fish and chips.  Our friends decided on this but we had plenty of food to cook on the bbq.  As it turned out we had co...

The drive from Undara to Cobold Gorge took us through Mount Surprise and then on to Georgetown where we turned south to head towards Forsyth.  From here it is 45 kilometres of good gravel road to finally reach our destination and what a destination it is! The first thing to greet us is a beautiful infinity edge pool overlooking the lake and it didn't take long to check-in to our en-suite campsite and head straight to this oasis. Our campsite is a lovely shaded spot and this is the first time we have had an en-suite attached.  It is such a luxury! We had an enjoyable happy hour with our friends before lighting the bbq and feasting on some delicious roast pork and vegetables.  We all had an early night to prepare ourselves for our tour the next day. The next day shone brightly and we all waited eagerly for our bus to be prepared. The tour consisted of a short drive to the dry creek bed (that wasn't dry!) and then on to the meeting point for a walk along the boardwalk to the...

As we continued our journey towards Julia Creek we made sure that we had a night at Undara Lava Tubes.  Everything that I had read about this place gave it a glowing recommendation so it was definitely on the list of places to visit. We arrived quite early as it was only a short distance from Innot Hot Springs and proceeded to the check in counter.  We stood waiting for almost half an hour while the two girls at check-in dealt with  two customers.  As far as we could ascertain (from our eavesdropping) was that both "customers" were not customers at all, just folks wanting information.  When we were finally served it took us a whole two minutes as we had pre-booked and paid and all we had to be told was where our campsite was! The campsite was a short walk from the main buildings and quite lovely with lots of big gum trees offering a lot of shade but the khaki burr was everywhere!  Anyone who has ever had any experience with this particularly bad weed would ...

Innot Hot Springs is a little place about 120 km south west of us.  We have driven through Innot hundreds of times on our way to Julia Creek and every single time we say "oh, we must stay there some time".  Well, the time finally came about two weeks ago.  For some reason I had it in my head that the hot springs would be in a stream and was very surprised to find that instead of using the stream (which is very shallow) they pump the water into six beautiful pools - three under cover and childfree and the other three outside.  The temperatures range from 25 to 45 degrees.  The 45 degree pool is very hot and I couldn't sit in it but Philip managed it.  He had a nagging back ache and he swears that within a half hour of soaking in the spring water his back was healed! The caravan park was very quiet and we had a large choice of campsites to choose from.  We found a perfect spot that backed onto the creek.  We chatted to some fellow campers, many of w...