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May 21 to May 27
Bowen to Cairns
Wow! I can’t believe we are here; Ten weeks after Australia’s lap and we have practically reached the end of stage one. The east coast of Australia has been traveled by so many people, but it is often where it ends. I am excited to get to Tropical North Queensland, but also excited to continue this trip to the west. However, before we move forward, there is still a ton of things to see here. Some of these places need blog posts for themselves to wait for.
Townsville
The first of the two main cities that remain on the east coast, I have been waiting for a time. Not only because of its proximity to the magnetic island, but only for some serious tropical vibrations. You know, when described as hundreds of palm trees that border the esplanade, it will look good. To guide us, we drove directly for Castle Hill; A huge brown rock that rises over the city below. This is basically the equivalent of Gibraltar’s rock, although it is probably not so large (I have never been). From the top you get excellent views of 360 degrees on the coast to the magnetic island and inside to the mountains.
Then we deepen the city center, which, surprisingly, is the home of a street art cracked along with Melbourne. We had seen a huge lizard to the side of a building, but it was not until we collected a self -guided tour brochure, I realized how many pieces there were. Singing with the theme of reptile, my favorite was a great crocodile with a turtle on the back!
The CBD is also home to a fantastic beer in an old post office where I had to try the Townsville Bitter. Interestingly, here, the Australians call some of the ‘bitter’ beer. I don’t think I can handle an adequate English bitter; especially in heat.
Magnetic Island
We spent the night before Maggie outside a service station with about thirty trucks. We did not have the best night of sleep so tired that we obtained the twenty minutes ferry to this beautiful island. Half asleep, one of our cards refused twice and we couldn’t believe why. It turns out that we had $ 60 on that card. All our income had gone to the other. Woops! Maggie is located just 8 km from the coast directly in front of Townsville with many beaches, a fort of World War II and many Koalas. It is said that there are 800 on the small island and this is as north as it can detect them. “You have surely seen enough beaches, why go to another island” And I could agree with you. However, here you can hire a car in topless and run around 12 km with the wind in the hair. This made the trip worth it, since it was very easy to go to the island and it was like driving a kart.
In addition to driving, the most prominent aspects were Horseshoe Bay and the walk to the fort of World War II. It was a hard walk through the mountain in the heat, but we were rewarded with excellent sea views. We also saw two Koalas on the way back; It is not 800, but we had only seen one before in nature!
There is not much to do on the island, which makes it excellent to relax. It makes no sense to return directly to the continent given how much has spent on the ferry and car rental. We spend the rest of the day running along the coast road before seeing the sunset while we take the ferry home. We couldn’t stop another night at the service station, so we drove half an hour along the road. Here we had a much quieter and more appropriate rest area!
Wallalaman Falls/Cardwell Spa swimming pools
Not far from the road, or so we think, Wallalan Falls; The highest waterfall in the fall of a single of Australia. When you look at a map, you never expect something to be so far with anything in the middle. To get here, we drove Ingham on the road and then split 50 km to the west. It was an effort to get there with us having to turn for gasoline, the rivers of crossed crocodiles and weave wild cows and pigs. I am quite sure that we also run over a snake: there is no way to have escaped. There is nothing around the waterfall, but it is still quite popular among tourists. Our first look of the cataracts was a watchman perched on the edge of a cliff. I am starting to get used to the heights now. While the waterfall looked huge, you really do not get the full effect until you are standing at the base with almost 300 meters. However, for that, you have to descend to the valley for about an hour. Yes, a whole hour!
The signals warned how difficult the walk was and were not lying; It was very hard and steep. You really couldn’t enter a rhythm. We have some excellent photos and we had a good break before climbing for another hour to return to the truck. I was absolutely soaked with sweat when we returned.
The only way to cool off was to drive a cardwell spa pools for a couple. These were also a slight deviation from the road on dirt roads. We had the place for us and relax in the little ‘jacuzzi’ when the fresh water spilled over us. Not being able to shower every day means that you must take advantage of these small pools. The deepest section of the pool was a beautiful Aqua Blue!
Parón
This mysterious place had been recommended by other travelers since January. We did not know much, apart from the structures in the form of a castle, they had been built in the 1930s by a Spanish man for his family. Once it is out of the road, it is worth mentioning the trip to the park. The road of the cane makes its way through sugar plantations and banana plantations with misty mountains in the background. The road is dedicated to men who used to work sugar plantations with nothing more than their hands. The average life expectancy of a cane cutter was in the early 40s. Parkella Park is something so out of the ordinary for Australia and the story behind him really deserves a publication for herself. José Paronella had the dream of building a castle, as from his country in Spain. He chose a beautiful place, right next to a waterfall, and returned to Spain to marry his first love. Unfortunately for him, he forgot to write to him as promised while he was in Australia and she had already married another person. However, he kept things in the family and married his younger sister.
The family worked in the ‘Castle’ for years and the public loved it. We loved exploring the land, both during the day and after dusk, and we even obtained camping included in the price of a ticket. There have been so many disasters that have threatened to clean all the structures of the face of the earth but, somehow, it is still standing.
Cairn
We arrived in Cairns on Friday ready for the weekend! We had no idea what we were doing, where we were going to stay and the weather was horrible. As you can know, we like a good house, so we request one that turned out to be next week. It would give us some extra time to relax and refresh us before heading west to the interior. We decided to pay $ 102 for four nights in a caravan park that turned out to be great, since there was a jacuzzi, only for adults. Sometimes there are only so many free camps with which you can endure. Our first full day in Cairns began early with a trip on the picturesque rail to Kuranda, a small town in a tropical world inheritance. It was recommended to take the train to the plateaus and then recover the cable car. However, this would have added additional $ 100, so we stayed with the railroad. The railway to Kuranda is considered one of the best engineering feats in Australia. It was built between 1882 and 1891 and consists of tunnels worth 2 km and 2 km of bridges. It passes through the deep tropical jungle, on steep ravines and past waterfalls. Considering the year this was built, it seems absolutely crazy. Hundreds of men worked on the railroad with their own tools and families by their side, but many of this generation feel here on their phones that achieve nothing. There was a brief stop along the way for passengers to admire opinions about Barron Falls before arriving in Kuranda almost two hours later.[easy-image-collage id=2100]While we wandered through the streets, the first thing I noticed was the great increase in aborigines. In Cairns, there are many aborigines in the streets (mostly drinking), but there were more here. The majority interpreted the Didgeridoo with groups of boys behind them shouting for money if he stopped to look. The stores were quite tourist, but we found some good photographs and art stores, tropical jungle markets and small coffees. We stopped in a small Scottish coffee purely for the buns that you could smell from the street. It turns out that a lot of local tea with four buns served us; Cheese, Plain, Sultana and Ginger & Macadamia. Charming. Our week ended up meeting the house couple to “discuss the requirements.” The house was in a lovely area, but we didn’t know what to expect, since the list did not give too much. We met them at home and turned out that they were from England just a stone shot from where we lived. We got immediately and ended up drinking beer and wine and eating pizza. Too many drinks later, we stayed and treated us with bacon and egg sandwiches in the morning. With HP sauce! A slightly hung on the hot spa was spent preparing for our last week on the east coast.
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