North Queensland 2015
 
We have to spend nearly two month travelling because there is a Frenchmen in our house which we have an exchange with in August September. A single man but very pleasant and we have the feeling that everything will work out perfectly.
We left Townsville the 3rd of June and only drove 50 KM to Balgal beach where we camped for two days. Just small walks and reading under a tree beside the ocean. Next day again only 50 Km. and an overnight stop in Ingham beside the Tito wetlands information centre. There were two Dutch couples camped there as well so happy hour in Dutch. Further north via Cardwell to Murray Falls national park. A lot of campers here also because a long weekend is coming up. The falls are intersting with well set out viewing platforms. Off to Tully. Tully and Babinda which is nearby always boast about the dubious honour of being the wettest Town in Australia. This is because they both have high mountains nearby. Mount Bartle Frere is the highest in Queensland. Eric and I have walked up many moons ago. The weather is changing as well. Rain and more rain. After two days in Tully we decide to go inland in the hope that the weather improves but not so. We are now in the Atherton Table Lands which has a lot of rainforest. No such forest without rain.

 
 
 
                             Cardwell                                                                                 Murray Falls
 
We did no spend too much time here and drove to Chillago. This is an old copper mining town and they have limestone caves. We have been here 35 years ago. The road in is a lot better now. The countryside is rugged with odd shaped rocks. We did one cave tour. The caves are interesting but not really spectacular. There is still marble being mined and you will find huge marble blocks in the paddocks and you can see how they were cut out of the ground. On the way to Chillago we saw that there was going to be a rodeo in the place we passed on the way back over the weekend. This was a very enjoyable Saturday. A lot of cowboys offcourse and a lot of dust and noise. There were swags and campfires everywhere.
We have to stay in Mareeba for a day because I have a small hole in one tyre and no shops open on Sunday. Stay in the Mareeba rodeo ground. The rodeo here in July is an enormous event.

 
 
 
              Eureka Creek Rodeo  Bucking horses                                            Eureka Creek Rodeo  calf roping
 
After visiting north of Townsville we spend two weeks in Townsville but only one night at home. The rest was with our involvement with the Dam Fine Rally which is a camper gathering. 240 Motorhomes attended. When that was finished we drove south via Charters Towers, Bellyando Crossing over 180 Km of unsealed road to Lake Elphinstone. On the way another busted tyre. It had only done 500 Km but a rock got the better of it. We had heard a lot about this place for years but never got there. It is one of the best freedom camps and luckily we got there just after the school holidays because it would have been packed.

 
 
 


We stayed here for five days and drove to Mackay to Luke and Nikaela. The weather was glorious during the day but at night it went down to four degrees. After a pleasant few days in Mackay back home. On our last days we had a lot of problems with flat tyres. And drove the last 500 KM without a spare. We stayed with Patrick  our French house exchange guest. He had a marvellous time here mainly because he met up with a Japanese lady with whom he played table tennis nearly every day.
Our house guest is gone and only six days before we depart for Dubai. The rest of the blog will be on the French page.