Sunrises and Sunsets

Well, I realised that I'd forgotten to include any of my photos of sunrises and sunsets that I'd taken on the trip ... and those of you who've followed my facebook posts know how much I love to photograph (and share) sunrises.

Unfortunately, there aren't as many as I would've liked - not because we slept in and missed it (well, not all the time anyway ... after all, we were on holidays!), but mainly because the sunrises just weren't there - trees, hills and other things just got in the way!  

So here's my pick of the sunrises and sunsets - in no particular, or logical, order:

Sunrise at Captain Billy Landing:

Sunsets at Loyalty Beach:

 Super Moon Lions Den:

Sunrise at Noah Beach:

 Sunset at Captain Billy Landing:

Sunrise from Cooktown lighthouse:

Home again ... now what?

Because we were heading home, I didn't take many more photos, but did manage to take one of the car and trailer after we got home, before the hard work started:

The car is now clean, the camper is in for repairs, and we've started planning our next big adventure.  Ken has even asked when we're off again, so that puts us under pressure to head off again soon!

Unfortunately, time restraints do restrict how far we can go next time, but stay tuned, and I hope you'll follow us on our next discovery tour of this wondrous, marvelous, enormous country we live in.

I hope you've enjoyed following this trip ... almost as much as we've enjoyed taking it!

Atherton Tablelands Photos

As mentioned in an earlier blog, we took the skytrain above the rainforest:

Facial expressions as the gondola took off were worth recording!

The Barron River from above

Barron Falls - close-up

Barron Falls from a distance

Huge fern up a tree

Cairns and the Pacific Ocean from way up high!

The Crystal Caves were disappointing, but this was their show stopper.

However, the Curtain Fig Tree was absolutely amazing, both for its size and how it actually evolved:

Endeavour Falls and Cooktown

We drove from Captain Billy Landing to Endeavour Falls, just north of Cooktown - over a couple of days, stopping at Archer River Roadhouse, where we had a drink or two and shouted ourselves to dinner:

and Musgrave Telegraph Station:

John with all his mates!

More anthills!

The caravan park at Endeavour Falls was lovely:

Tho it looks curved, the raod was actually straight, and we were all parked in a row.  This is the effect of a panorama shot!

Endeavour Falls were a 50m walk from the park.  Wouldn't swim there, tho!

The park had its own Texan Longhorns as pets!

This tree was at Elim Beach (coloured sands in the background).  I just loved it!

Cooktown, of course was full of history - something to do with a bloke named Cook who happened to land here in the late 1700s!

And I found another dead tree which was quite spectacular:

Captain Billy Landing

I was asked the other day what was my favourite spot, and my immediate response was Captain Billy Landing.  It is in a National Park, so the only facilities were a toilet, and the access road was pretty rough going - an hour to drive 27kms!  But it was worth it!

The only shade on the site was the shed built after the last cyclone, so we sought shade alongside Ken's camper:

 There were caves in the cliffs, so we went exploring:

 The shed was built so that visitors could leave a memento of their visit - here's our legal graffiti:

 I went for a walk along the beach (one of my few exercise walks on the whole trip!) and came across this amazing tree:

From The Tip heading south ...

On the afternoon before we left Loyalty Beach, Bob decided he needed to clean the air filter in his car - but didn't use the compressor to blow the dust out ... as normal people would ... and so ended up with a very interesting coloured face!

 All packed up and ready to hit the road:

 We drove south heading for Captain Billy Landing, but on teh way, stopped for a swim at Fruitbat Falls, a gorgeous spot where it was perfectly safe to swim (no crocs!), so we spent about an hour there ... before the crowds arrived in the form of tour buses!

 Captain Billy Landing was a gorgeous spot in a small cove on the eastern coastline:

 

 and we had the campsite to ourselves.  I took this photo of everyone cleaning their teeth at the same time ... one of those little things that made me chuckle on our trip: