Featuring Baby Ebby

11 to 20 July (day 114  to 123)
Lake Placid Caravan Park, Cairns via Coen (1 night)

We were excited to be heading for Cairns for 2 reasons – catching up with Laura and little Ebby and having a ‘city fix’. We stopped for one night behind the general store in Coen and on then decided to continue through to Cairns a day early. 

I had a lovely time in Cairns spending most of it with Laura and the baby.  He is a really good natured and very bright baby so I totally fell in love with him. Laura is coping really well and is very devoted to him.  When she was a teenager she swore she would never have children but she is clearly a natural at it (much more so than I was).  Michael and I babysat one day so that Laura and Ebaia could go out for lunch and the movies. 

I took heaps of photos.  Here’s a few.

     

   

Michael used most of the time to shop for fishing gear and other bits and pieces and doing some minor maintenance stuff.  We had the car serviced (the third time since we left Canberra).  The car and camper survived the trip to the Cape really well.  The only damage were a missing bolt from the steering mechanism (which hadn’t caused a problem), a slow leak in one of the tyres as a result of bark getting lodged between the tyre and rim and the bolts holding the winch controller in place had fallen out (fortunately its lodged firmly behind the bull bar so it was still in place).

 

20 to 24 July (day 123 to 127)
Undara Resort, Undara Volcanic National Park, Qld

 Leaving Cairns was especially sad as I won’t see Laura and Ebby again for several months.  But we were excited to be finally heading west and towards the Northern Territory.

 We are travelling along the Savannah Way which goes all the way to Broome.  Our first stop was at Undara.  This is the site of a large number of volcanos and the world’s largest lava tubes.  The Undara volcano erupted over a million years ago spewing out enough lava to fill Sydney harbour three times.  As the lava cooled a tube over 160kms long was formed.  The outer surface cooled (a bit like the skin on heated milk or custard) and stayed in place.  Some of the tube has collapsed over time leaving a series of tubes (like caves) in place.  You can only see the tubes by doing a tour so we opted for the full day tour so we could see as much as possible.  On the tour we walked around the rim of the Kalkani volcano – it was like walking around the edge of a large ‘bowl shaped’ grassy hill.  We then walked through four of the tubes that varied in length and height.  Most of them were very long and dark so it was hard to take photos that show what they are really like.  The photo below is of the shortest one we visited.

 

 

We had a tour guide who was a bit of a character who made it a really fun day.

 The Resort in itself is quite nice.  We are in the caravan park section.  The more upmarket accommodation is provided in refurbished train carriages dating back to the 1880’s.  There’s a bar, restaurant and pool.  An hour of entertainment is provided in the evening around a campfire.  We have been to a slide show on the wildlife in the area and a bush poetry reading which was really good.

 There are a number of bushwalks around the area and we have done three of them.  The best was around a swamp that had heaps of birdlife around it.  Here is a photo of the swamp – which actually looks more like a lake as a result of lots of a big wet season.

 

 We are leaving tomorrow (Friday) heading towards Karumba which is towards the bottom of the Gulf of Carpenteria and then to Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park which think (based on what everyone has told us) will be a real highlight of our trip.  We will be fairly remote for awhile so I’m not sure how long it will be until our next blog entry.