Having left Townsville we motored up the Bruce Hwy about one hour to the small community of Mutamee and stayed in a lovely park behind the service station.
Our stop here was to spend time travelling to the falls and water holes in this region.
Our first afternoon we drove north and then west to Jourama Falls, a rocky walk in with timber platforms transversing the cascading waters. This walk in was awkward for me as you will see in the video, mostly because I walked in in thongs instead of my walking shoes, big mistake.
The drive up was through rainforest and going over creek crossings all very picturesque. (on second video at bottom of blog)
The view of the falls was not easy to see and the lookout walk was closed for maintenance, so we clambered to the water hole before the water fall, where John went for a swim. I found the entry point too hard for me to get into the water. (see video). .Just as we were ready to leave we were visited by a green water python snake who sat up to observe our presence, only a python but creepy all the same. He was very inquisitive.
This journey is on our video along with Johns swim here at the Jourama falls, his under water Go Pro footage at the lower Jourama swimming hole and little and big crystal creek swimming holes as well. It also shows some banter between John and I as we have fun on our adventures, teasing each other as we do.
The second video is our drone footage over some great lookouts, Wallaman falls and more.
below is some photos of Jourama falls and our friendly phython.
Jourama falls
On the way out from the falls we went through some creek crossings and John went in for a swim in the downstream swimming hole here, getting some footage of the fish, while I watched the bush turkeys that were roaming around the picnic areas. I should of had a swim but didn’t want to disturbed the fish and turtles which disappeared where John got in.
The following day was a drive up a narrow and windy road into the Paluma ranges, Our first stop at
Little Crystal Creek
What a delightful swimming hole with the cascades entering a swimming hole and overhead was an old historic bridge built in the 1930s, it made for a beautiful setting. The water was cool and refreshing, the temptation too great not to swim in this spectacular place.
Afterwards we headed up to Paluma a small community high up in the rainforest. First stopping at
McClellands lookout just before the town. John put the drone up to capture the scenery. On first video at the bottom of blog.
The town of Paluma had a small museum with photos about the town which over the years had survived on the three “T” industries. Tin then Timber and now Tourists. The drive and the road had got worse with another 12 kms of narrow hairpins on the side of the mountain, certainly not a drive we would do again.
Then another terrifying drive down the mountain always hoping that something wouldn’t come the other way as passing other cars etc was scary with no room to move over and a long drop over the side of mountain in some areas. Unfortunately we did have to pass many cars and this was neither easy or pleasant, with one driver barging past us in the opposite direction when there was clearly not enough room forcing us right onto the edge of the drop off.
We went to Big Crystal creek in the afternoon
Another large swimming hole and another great swim with lots of large fish circling close by Debbie as shown on the second video.
A Few 100 metres up the road were rock slides in the rapids, John trying the small rock slide but not an activity for me, the chicken.!!
Both days on our return to the van park we had to stop at Mr Frosty for mango ice creams, really good!!
Next
Onto the Hinchinbrook region and after an hours drive to Ingham and half hour extra to Taylor’s beach we are back on the coast. The small van park was full of regulars that come here to fish from all places south and they stay here for months.
We had hoped to hire a boat and do some fishing here but everyone told us we had struck the wrong tides and winds, so we didn’t bother. The tidal difference was 3 metres, so very easy to get into trouble if you don’t know the local conditions.
We had also hope to do a day trip to Hinchinbrook Island just 5 kms off the coast but no day trips were available or running anymore. You could only get a ferry transfer and then stay on the island for a couple of days and do long mountain hikes and camping. No thanks!
So we toured the local areas first seeing Taylor’s beach where Victoria creek enters the sea. The tide was extremely low
And a day or two later seeing it at high tide, what a difference! 3 metres difference between high and low.
Then on to Lucinda where a huge bulk sugar mill exists and a 5.76 kilometre wharf , the longest in Australia and it acts as a conveyor for the sugar to reach the ships for export.
Lucinda also has a small wharf locals use for fishing and John scootered over to it to speak to a local fisherman. We thought we might throw a crab net in for a while but he told John the tide and conditions were wrong so we didn’t bother. How convenient the scooter was to quickly check on things before we dragged everything from the car out on to the wharf.
After sight seeing more of Lucinda it was on to
Dungeness and the Enterprise outlet for the Herbert river. We watched a man from Sydney lying down on a low pontoon to fish, all too close to the water for us as crocs do inhabit this muddy estuary. He had no idea the danger he had placed himself in.
The area was very picturesque see below
Then back to Taylors Beach via a local pub for a beer.
Wallaman falls was the next days journey. This is Australias largest single drop waterfall at 269m high and is in the Girringum National Park. The fall and surrounding gorge stunning especially catching a rainbow though the waterfall.
The flat part of the drive in we had to detour around Brahman cows who planted themselves in the middle of the road and wouldn’t move but on the way home they were on the road edges only. The paddocks around these areas are full of these cows, some looking very skinny despite the amount of green pastures. The bull was really big.
On our return we shopped and had lunch in Ingham viewing the tiled murals in Mercer lane and read about the local industry of sugar cane and how the cane toad was first introduced in 1935 as a predator to the grubs that become beetles and eat the roots of the sugar cane rendering the cane useless in the wet and causing it to die.
But we all know now what a pest the cane toad has become!
The tiled murals show the sugar cane industry and in one picture the children are playing in the black snow (ash) while the cane is burnt pre harvest.
Lee’s pub in the Main Street claims to be The pub with no beer, but Taylor’s arm pub near Kempsey also claims this.
This pub says it had no beer after American soldiers drank it dry during WW2!!
Who knows which pub has the true claims but Slim Dusty made a song about it and was famous for his song. He lived near Taylor’s Arm so I go with the version that Taylors arm is the true pub with no beer.
We looked at the interpretation info on the wetlands located at the Ingham info centre but came back to walk the wetlands after we left Taylor’s beach.
Our last day in Taylor’s beach we visited Forrest beach just south of here and returned to the van for some time out and to attend to blogs etc, the internet was being useless and not much was achieved. We seem to spend a lot of time fighting with the internet, so often poor if not in a major town.
We had a day up our sleeves so drove into Ingham to do the wetlands walk, a 3.8 km walk. Quite beautiful but the whole way round we had our eyes open for the croc that was sighted here just two days previously and hoped he wouldn’t appear on the track which was often very close to the lagoon.
We ended up staying at the towns RV site and this ended up another few nights more as the van brakes are doing the fail thing again and we needed to wait to Monday so we could find an auto electrician AGAIN. Let’s hope the fix is permanent we are getting sick of this intermittent problem and with lots of steep hills and ranges to climb we have to get it sorted. But the news was that one wheel was causing the fault and needs a brake guy to fix it. the other three wheels brakes are working so we were able to move on and have booked a brake guy in Cairns. The fault turns out to be connected with our tyre blowout in WA 18 months ago and the wire taking till now to finally break.
The Sunday morning we wake up to a chilly morning, the last few mornings letting us know winter is approaching, however this did change back to warm as we headed north.
So our last days activity in this area was to go to the Broadwater picnic area about 40 kms inland. This is in the Abergowrie State forest and provides camping, a rainforest walk that was meant to be full of butterflies but none today. There was a beautiful old fig tree by the river and the river here had a freezing cold swimming hole. As the day was cool and the water icy we opted out of swimming but John took a go pro film from the platform to view the fish and turtle and Swoosh out jumped a big Sooty Grunter and scared the hell out of us but we caught it’s appearance on the video.
Video
Next blog is on the Cassowary coast.
