Getting back on the Highway

At the moment we are sitting in North Queensland in a little town called Mount Surprise and the biggest surprise is that there’s no mountain called Mount Surprise to support the town’s good name – just a small hillock that would make Nepalese tourists hysterical with laughter, if we ever had any Nepalese actually touring around here. The town is small – about 70 people – but a steady stream of tourists bulks up the numbers through the winter period. We came here to see the Undara Lava Tubes, which are a remarkable piece of natural engineering that I had heard about years ago but never got to. They are quite spectacular and it’s hard to do them justice but here are a couple of images that Maurs took on our tour.

                                                       Cave dwellers at Undara

                                             The Lava Tubes are quite spectacular

That’s a long way from Da Nang where I last blogged and no, I won’t try to link in the tunnel tours that you can do in Vietnam with the Lava Tubes – Undara is way more spacious – you could drive a tank down one of these babies. We came here via Melbourne where we didn’t do much at all except hang out with the family and catch up with the McBrides for a lunch at the Windsor Hotel on a bitterly cold Melbourne day.

                           John and Trish trying to look warm at the old Windsor Hotel

We then flew to Townsville where we didn’t do much at all except catch up with friends, walk along the Ross River and get our camping gear back together for the resumption of our next adventure. However I should thank Jetstar for hosting possibly the most annoying child on our flight back there. This kid cried and whinged for the entire flight with a constancy you rarely encounter. I well know that if continual whingeing was an Olympic event that the Poms would wrap up the gold but gee, this kid would have certainly made the Aussie team.

          Cousin Laurie and Gary being kind to the turtles by giving them bread

We’ve been trying to get a new spare tyre after we discovered our spare was a “get you home” only variety that limits you to 80 km/h and disintegrates if exposed to prolonged sunlight. We finally got one last Friday but it necessitated at 450 km trip from Mount Surprise back to Townsville and then back again the next day. Just for variety we travelled a bit north into the Atherton Tableland and then down the coast from about Innisfail to Townsville. Heading that way we saw the effects of what Cyclone Yasi had on the vegetation, even 18 months or so after the event. It was a good one!

We spent the night with my cousin Laurie. He must live in the most sociable street in the world. The neighbours regularly stoke up a bonfire in one of their front yards and sit around for drinks and a chat of an evening. We went down to such a gathering and it was all going wonderfully until the guy’s sprinkler system engaged and doused us all in jets of cold water. There were wet people running everywhere for a while there, including people in dressing gowns and fathers trying to shield their pram-bound babies from the deluge. He said “I activated it today but I wasn’t sure what time it was set for.” Well let me tell you Len, it’s set for 7.13 pm! That’s when my watch stopped working.

                                   Neighbourhood lawn gathering - does your street do this?

We're going back to Mt Surprise where the neighbours ain't quite so "sociable"....