Mossman Gorge, FNQLD

Loved exploring the rainforest around Mossman Gorge. Exceptionally beautiful area. The water was so lovely to swim in too. Thanks Samsung for making the last couple of models of Galaxy phones waterproof - accidentally took mine in for a swim!

Port Douglas, FNQLD

Having spent so long in the caravan, we figured it was time for some luxury, so we've left the caravan at Mum and Dad's and headed up to a resort in Port Douglas for a week.

We're planning on visiting the Atherton Tablelands, the Daintree Rainforest and go snorkeling on the Barrier Reef before we reluctantly have to start heading south!

Mission Beach, FNQLD

24 Aug.  Arrived at Andrew's mum and dad's place at Mission Beach this arvo. Great to see them again, as it's 11 months since we caught up with them for a couple of days as they passed through Deniliquin, NSW. Andrew's aunt and uncle, Barb and Ric, are also visiting, so we're enjoying a bit of a family reunion! Apart from catching up with all the news, we've enjoyed our first walk (of many I'm sure) along the beach.

27 Aug.  We've really enjoyed spending time with Mum and Dad, as well as Barb and Ric. We've been on heaps of walks up and down the beach across the road, played beach cricket, swam, shopped, played many games of Scrabble, cards and Uno Attack together. Last night we introduced Matt and Tim to the Blues Brothers. They'd listened to the soundtrack for years and really enjoyed finally being allowed to watch the movie. It was just as much fun to watch their reactions to the movie, as it was to watch the movie. It's also cool to watch movies and recognise places in them that you've actually been! We just loved Chicago!

Longreach to Aramac, Torrens Creek, Charters Towers and Townsville

Long drive planned from central north QLD to the coast over the last few days. We left Winton after breaky yesterday and after checking out the Qantas museum in Longreach in the afternoon, pushed on for an overnight stopover at Aramac. Left Aramac for Torrens Creek and beyond this morning with a full tank of fuel, only to discover (a) the road was a rough single lane road - no probs, just had to really concentrate and be prepared to get off the road when faced with four-trailer road trains barrelling towards us, (b) we were fighting very strong winds - not good, fuel economy towing a caravan is bad enough, but fighting a headwind whilst towing a big brick is really bad for fuel consumption, and lastly (c) the 30km of road that we knew to be unsealed, was in a pretty poor state. Like most of the other unsealed outback roads we've been on, it was a  mix of rocks, corrugations, patches of bull-dust and sections of deeeeeep loose sand. One bloke in a Navara overtook us in a great cloud of dust and then promptly completly destroyed a tyre and rim! All of which resulted in challenging driving, bouncing and sliding and trying to stop the van overtaking us, and absolutely horrendous fuel economy - average of 29l/100km! At one stage whist wallowing in a deep sandy patch I glanced at the trip computer and spotted 55l/100km!  Lucky it was only a short 30km section that was unsealed. No complaints from the old Territory, it happily powered along as usual, except that it went through virtually the whole tank of fuel in 270km. We arrived at the  Torrens Creek servo with 30km of fuel left, only to find that both the servos in town had given up and closed, permanently. Nearest fuel was 51km away! Hmmm, could be a problem! The long and short of it was that I left Heth, the boys and  the van behind and took off for the next town in ultra-fuel economy mode. Made it comfortably, but there's no way I would have made it dragging the van into the wind. In nearly 11,000 km travelling so far this trip, today was the first time our Hema maps and fuel apps have let us down, but it turned out OK in the end, just cost us an hour and a half. The rest of the day went smoothly and we arrived in Townsville for tea. The car and caravan now have another layer of orange paint protection! I hope the stains will come out!

The Qantas Founders Museum, Longreach, QLD

The boys and I spent the day at the Qantas Founders Museum today. We all enjoyed the interactive displays, but liked the tour of the jets the best. To be able to climb on/in/under them and go into areas of the planes we'd never seen before was enthralling. The tour guide was an extremely tallented guy; he really made it a fun experience. We loved it!