We left Loyalty Beach for the journey south and had a non-eventful crossing of the Jardine River on the ferry. We stopped for lunch at the Bramwell Roadhouse, with a plan to drive on to the Moreton Telegraph Station to spend a few days and probably drive into Lockhart River and Chilli Beach to spend some time on the eastern side of the peninsula.
When we stopped for lunch and opened the caravan we were greeted by lights and warning buzzers from our solar system. This is never good news, so we turned everything off and made our way to the Moreton Telegraph Station Campground as planned. We camped next to a huge mango tree on the grass. Our batteries were flat so we got out the rarely used generator to charge the batteries. After a few hours we hoped they would be all charged up and ready to go. This was not to be and as soon as we turned off the generator the batteries lost their charge. We were in darkness at 7pm with no power going to our lights or, more importantly the fridge.
We decided to head for Laura where we could hook up to power. On the way we met up with some Bushtracker friends at Coen and a check of our batteries confirmed that they were dead. We were pleased to get back onto the sealed road at Laura.
The dirt road had deteriorated significantly during the time we had beed enjoying ourselves at Loyalty Beach, so the trip was slow and teeth rattling in parts.
After a night at Laura we drove through to Mareeba on the Atherton Tablelands. 30km from Mareeba we stopped off for lunch at the Mount Molloy pub. We were "ambushed" by a sloping road camber and leaning pole which "removed" our awning from the caravan. We limped into Mareeba with the awning tied to the side of the caravan. Luckily a we were able to get emergency repairs done by Steve at Bushman Floats in Mareeba. Steve and his team did a great job and the awning was re-attached the next morning. We certainly did our bit for the Mareeba economy while we were there. We got Rob from Brad's Auto Electrical to check our batteries and he was able to determine that only 2 batteries were beyond hope. These were isolated to prevent further damage to the other batteries. We ordered a new set of batteries which would be delivered to Robert's brother's place on the Cassowary Coast in a week or so.
We spent a very pleasant 10 days in Mareeba just bumming around and revisiting the tourist sights we'd seen a year earlier. The Kerribee Park Rodeo Campground was a great place to stay. We made our way towards the coast to spend a few days with Robert's brother at Wongaling Beach. We drove through the wet tropical rainforest and banana plantations. Our new batteries arrived the day before we did and all our power problems were over.
We drove to nearby Mission Beach and Bingil Bay and we visited the 7 Elements Glass Studio to see Sarah Hannigans fantastic landscape glass.
We spent a day driving to the Blencoe Falls, about 70km into the range behind Cardwell. The views as we wound our way up the range were stunning. Our altitude rose from sea level at Cardwell to over 800m and we drove through wet tropical rainforest to dry rainforest as we made our way to the tablelands on top of the range.
We had a picnic lunch overlooking the Blencoe Falls before winding our way back down to the coast.
After our time on the Cassowary Coast we drove south to Townsville where we're spending some time with our daughter and her family.
Early August is the time of the Australian Italian Festival at Ingham, about 100km north of Townsville. The Festival is held at the TYCO Wetlands Centre. There were plenty of food stalls, and lunch was delicious.
A highlight of the Festival was the Flag Throwers. We were kept entertained by the band as we watched flags being twirled and thrown.
We'll be in Townsville for about another 2 weeks when we'll be making our way towards Maroochydore to have the caravan serviced at Bushtracker at the end of August.
