NORTH QLD ADVENTURE - DAY 23 - BABINDA TO ETTY BAY…

 Another pretty chilled out day again today.  The pace has slowed down from our previous couple of weeks and it has been nice…

 We had quite a few showers of rain overnight.  In fact we had to get up and close a few of our flaps as we were getting wet in bed.

 Neither of us slept too well, as it was pretty hot and humid and all we could use was a fan, as the air conditioner was leaking too much water due to the van still being hitched to car and it not being level.

 It was 7am when finally got up.  Elaine and Paul had been up for a good hour or more.  Elaine had the washing done and, on the line, and Paul had gone up to the farm.

 We sat and chatted with Elaine until Paul arrived back at the house a little after 8.30am when we all enjoyed an early morning tea and cuppa together.  Steve and I just had a cup of tea as we had not long got up.  It was smoko time for the others…

Paul then took Steve for a drive out to the farm to show him around, places such as where the local aboriginals grew their local food, they visited his son David who was busy digging a drainage trench when they arrived. They had a brief chat to him before heading off to visit Paul’s brother Carl, (Curly).  He was in for a chat, especially detailing his outback adventures.   He also loaded them up with produce from his garden.

 The boys arrived home closer to 11am and then it was time for us to back up the van and head off.  It looked like rain was coming so we wanted to be packed before that arrived.  We managed to get a few photos all together before we headed off, and are so thankful now that we did.

 Fortunately, we didn’t have too far to travel today.  Etty Bay was just the other side of Innisfail, so all up we had about 54kms until we arrived at our destination for the night which took us about an hour to get too…

On our way into Innisfail we stopped off to take a photo of another of the Big Aussie Icons, “The Frog on the Big Banana” and then stopped once more to pick up cheap bananas at a road side stall.  Paul and Elaine had recommended this stall to us, and told us that they shop for their bananas there all the time…

Another big Aussie icon at Innisfail...

We came across the Big Chainsaw in Innisfail as well..

 We arrived around lunch time.  The caravan park is pretty small, there are only 22 caravan sites but it is right on the beach.  Beautiful setting where the rainforest really does come down to meet the ocean. 

 It was a little exciting when we arrived as a cassowary wandered down alongside our car and van.  This park is known for the cassowaries that wander throughout the van park and is one of the main drawcards to Etty Bay.  I of course took several photos of it whilst Steve went to book us into the park.  

We were situated on the far side of the park right up against the rainforest.  This is the hardest park we have had to set up in as the ground was not at all level.   We had to use several wooden blocks to level up and we had a huge step up to get into the van.  Still we love the van park here.  We only wish that we could stay a week.

 I think our business of the past week has caught up with us, because once we had eaten our lunch, we both ended up on the bed for a nana nap for a couple of hours… 

We woke around 3pm and headed for a walk down to the main office where we bought a couple of ice creams and then went and sat at the picnic tables overlooking the beach to eat them. 

 Once we had finished them, we took off for a walk along the beach to the rocks down the far end… We met up with our neighbours from the park and had a brief chat to them.

We noticed quite a few first aid stations along the beach, presumably these are set up incase people get stung by stingers whilst swimming here.

 At the far end of the beach we noticed a lovely rainforest walk.  When we explored it, there were a series of collapsed rock faces, overgrown with forest.  We even noticed someone driving along it and released that it was also a rainforest esplanade drive through to the end of the beach.

We decided to head back along the beach, although the tide was almost in by now and we had to juggle our timing to get past some of the large trees that had grown right out onto the beach to the water line.

Cassowary poo all over the beach...

The first aid columns are all along the foreshore of the beach as well...

We then walked down to the other end of the beach to where more rocks were but this time, we scampered over the rocks to see if we could find a bay on the other side. 

Unfortunately, the tide was in to far so we decided to leave that for another day…

It was sunset when we made our way back to the van.  Time for a glass of wine and some cheese and crackers…

Whilst we were out walking along the beach, we had some new neighbours pull in beside us.  They were from Western Australia and had come to Etty Bay specially to see the Cassowaries.  What a treat for them, when a cassowary made his way under the awning of their van.  Their girls were delighted and of course we all got some good photos of it.

 We had a chat to them for a while, hearing about some of their travels before finally heading inside as the midgies were coming out and none of us wanted to get bitten.

We cooked dinner inside tonight.  Chicken Kebabs and the last of the potatoes we bought at the markets in Cairns.  As we have no internet or phone reception at Etty Bay, it was pretty easy for us to have an early night tonight…

I finished editing the rest of our photos and we were in bed by 10.00pm