Far North Queensland

We've made our way north from Townsville to Mossman, 75km and about 1 hour north of Cairns on the edge of the Daintree Rainforest National Park.  Total distance is about 450km so we did the trip over 2 days.

We stopped for lunch at Cardwell.  This small coastal town was the centre of international interest in early 2011 when it was at the centre of Cyclone Yasi, a huge Category 5 tropical cyclone which crossed the coast here.  The cyclone devastated a huge area - the eye of the cyclone had a 100+km diameter - and it's effects were felt hundreds of kilometres away.  Much of the town has been rebuilt (as have many other affected coastal towns) and the trees have mostly recovered from their battering.  We travelled through here in late 2011 and saw just how devastating the cyclone damage was so it's good to see the recovery is well under way.   We usually stop at one of the bakery/cafes for lunch or coffee on our way through.

We travelled on and camped overnight at Babinda about 50km south of Cairns.  The campground is a credit to the Babinda community and was well patronised.

The next morning we made our way through Cairns - the tourist hub of Far North Queensland.  Cairns is much smaller than Townsville.  It will become our major centre until mid-2017.  The Bruce Highway ends at Cairns and we travelled further north along the Captain Cook Highway.  About 30km of this road passes through the World Heritage Area "Where the Rainforest Meets the Reef".  The scenery is magnificent and there are a couple of lookouts where the scenery can be admired.  We'll be stopping of at them all over the next few months.  The road itself is narrow and winding with few passing and stopping areas so it takes about an hour to cover the 70km to Mossman.

Now we are caretaking the Rainforest Estate about 5km from Mossman.  I'll do a separate post on our new home.  Our new "Big Smoke" is the holiday town of Port Douglas about 15km away.