Mossman, Atherton tablelands, Millaa Millaa, Innot hot springs, Croydon Normanton, Karumba and the Gulf.
After some shopping in Mossman we set off on the long trek home, still a lot of places to see, but
we’re headed west. We headed back along
that magnificent coastline to Cairns, through Cairns then turned right towards Gordonvale. We are
headed for the Atherton Tablelands. The road starts going up and up, I’m getting used to it these
days, the scenery is fabulous, stopped at Malanda for lunch then on to Millaa Millaa and had a look
at the falls there. Very pretty, but a lot of people there, it’s the first waterfall we’ve seen that has
been landscaped and made into ‘real’ tourist place. We’ve decided to head to Innot Hot Springs for
the night, we’ve had conflicting reports on what the place is like so have decided to find out for
ourselves. En route we visited Millstream Falls, the widest falls in Australia. They don’t have a very
long drop so aren’t as spectacular as most we’ve seen but were worth the short detour off the road
to see them.
Innot Hot Springs was great – not a flash park by any stretch of the imagination but the people were
very friendly and the springs themselves great. They have several pools, one normal swimming pool,
lukewarm, a fair size spa pool which was warm/hot bath temperature and one very hot pool. We sat
around in the middle pool having a chat to a few of the other travellers and it was so relaxing it was
great. The bird life was phenomenal, magpie geese, multi coloured parrots, and heaps of others,
fabulous. In the morning we had breakfast at the shop, it cost us $5.00 each and it was enormous,
bacon, eggs, tomatoes, toast etc. very nice. Innot comprises of an Hotel, a car repair business
and the caravan park which has limited supplies.
Back on the road, it is single track bitumen, so when anything comes towards you you have to swerve
off, the trouble is the side of the road isn’t graded very well and it is sometimes a good three to six
inch drop as you go off, and the side is very corrugated so driving is quite intense. Quite chilly and
rainy again, very overcast. We go past the Undara Lava Tubes but decide against a visit there and
are headed for Croydon. The Lonely Planet book was not very kind in their description of the park but
you don’t have too many options out here. We needed to do some washing so a caravan park was
our best bet this night rather than some of the very attractive sounding bush camping areas. When
we arrived at Croydon we were pleasantly surprised, it is a council run park, $15.00 a night, the
amenities block was large and clean and believe it or not you got cable TV – at least 15 channels,
Clive was in his element with the remote control. Washing all done and dried, tomorrow we’re off to
the Gulf of Carpentaria. We are not expecting to be able to stay overnight a Karumba as we
understand it is totally full due to the school holidays but we will see what happens.
What happened was a late take off. We didn’t unhook the van yesterday when we arrived and also
forgot to take out the plug, so consequently a totally flat battery. We rang good old Landrover
assist and they sent the local mechanic out to us – he was already working on another vehicle in
the park which was in much worse shape than we were. He confirmed it was a flat battery, brought
us a new one and we were on our way, via the shop/garage to pay for the battery, and pay heavily
for a few grocery items, eg. $4.00 for a loaf of bread!! But it was the oldest store in Australia but
the bread was freshly frozen!
We passed through Normanton on our way to the Gulf and had a quick look at the van park which
we had been warned about – it didn’t look too bad so if we can’t find anywhere we’ll be back. We
are now having glorious weather, cool nights, warm sunny days, fabulous.
After passing another load of cattle being driven along the roadside we arrived at Karumba on the
Gulf. The water was blue with the sun glinting off it, very pretty, weather as I said glorious, but the
town was PACKED. No room anywhere except on the golf course on the outskirts of town, which
looked very rough. We even enquired about units, motel rooms everything but no. It was a bit
upsetting for want of a better word. We settled for a lunch of fish and chips, which was
outstanding (the people in Croydon told us to go to this shop as they would drive 3hrs. there and
3hrs. back just for their fish and chips).
Well we drove back to Normanton and decided after all the driving to treat ourselves
to a room at the Motel, which made a nice change. We also had dinner at the motel which made
an even nicer change. Come morning we have to refuel for the next leg of the journey, guess what
most of the town was out of diesel! We got to a garage that still had some and luckily the coach
driver ahead of us said we could fill up as he needed a lot more than us and could wait for the
truck to arrive!
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