Its the journey not the destination (barf)

Frances refused to say the above words since both "journey" and "destination" have been devalued by the jargon purveyors.  While "journey" has been trashed by the heirs of the snake-oil vendors,  "destination" has been removed from polite conversation by the tourism vendors. They are approaching "experience" as chunder-inducing non-words.  That being said our outing today was to look at the countryside and towns we passed through as much as getting anywhere particular so the phrase is no too far off.

On the subject of chunder, the Palmerston Highway, which we traversed today, is nowhere near as steep and twisty as the road from Yungaburra to Gordonvale or that from Julatten to Mossman.

Before setting out we took the small dog for a walk along the creek.  There we encountered a relative of Tinnaroo Man!

 On the way back we came past an intriguing mixed business: pharmacy and fishing tackle.  Apparently the world record barramundi was nailed in Lake Tinnaroo.  (While there have been bigger fish they have been on far heavier line.)

 The shop next door offers confectionery and water pumps!

We headed off towards Mallanda and found the Wet Tropics were living up to their name despite a clean screen of dryness on the BoM radar!  So we went through Malanda and Millaa Millaa.  Our first stop was at the falls just outside the latter.

 A pretty good drop but the place was canophobic so we passed on the next two offerings on the waterfall loop, heading down the escarpment.  We stopped at a look out on to the North Johnstone River (photos didn't come out too well)  but passed on the walking track which appeared to offer a 500m vertical drop in 1600m of horizontal travel.  Perhaps one for the future.  (We did wonder whether Johnstone was a reference to Sir Terry Pratchett's garden designer "Bloody Stupid Johnstone" - perhaps celebrating his cousins North and South?)

On getting to South Johnstone we found the outflow beds from the sugar and quickly nailed the promised Radjah Shelducks.

I also saw a Crimson Finch - bird of the day! - but it didn't hang around for either a photo or for Frances to see it.  White-breasted Woodswallows were much more obliging.

Here is the sugar mill in the town!

We then tried to get to Etty Bay following a basic map.  Unfortunately most of the roads weren't on it so we ended up further South than expected and thus turned right instead of left.  Eventually we found another map and sorted this out.  We got to Mourilyan and found the bakery for pie.  See review below.

Then on to Etty Bay (noting an empty Plodmobile parked beside the road, presumably gathering speed camera infringements while  the operator was indoors having a 'cup of tea') hoping for Cassowary.  None seen, but in keeping with looking for record numbers of this and that we came across this amazing collection of prohibitions.  I'd love to see the voting preferences of the residents - I suspect Our Pauline gets a big show.

 They did have some great mangroves on the beach.

 Retreating from these lictors we ended up at the sugar loading port of Mourilyan Harbour.  This was quite a surprise as I had never heard of it, but it seems huge.  Of course there is an awful lot of sugar grown in the area. This conveyor made a nice industrial sculpture.

A very colourful Coral Tree was near the boat ramp.

There were also a few commercial fishing boats around, with this one puttering in.  To my disappointment it wasn't followed in by a horde of seabirds.

Tough luck if you're a Francophone!

Obviously the Welcome Swallows reckon Spring - or whatever they call the breeding season up here - is on the way as it was gathering beakfulls of mud.

The first 'roo I have photographed on this trip.  I'm pretty sure it is an Agile Wallaby - the white stripe on the leg is a definitive field mark.

We then headed back to Innisfail, noting that the Plodmobile was still there.  Presumably the hossifer was having a second 'cuppa'.  After a very convivial chat with the guys in the VIC (a caravan in the main park) we went for a walk around the historic bit of the town.  The Shire Hall was quite impressive ...

... as was the Catholic Church.  Although it looks rather like the confections seen in Mexico the stained glass inside looked quite modern.

Good posters on the outside of a khazi on the banks of the North Johnstone River.

A pair of attractive old buildings.  From the Dividers at the top of the blue stripe, the one on the right was at some stage a Freemasons Hall.  It's now a martial arts centre.

The walk along the banks of the North Johnstone River was very well done.

As well as the fishing boats giving an air of reality they provided the raw material for some fish cakes which Frances acquired.  She mentioned to the serving person that we weren't sure if she could keep them cool for the trip home and a back of ice was duly provided.  They tasted very nice indeed!

A couple of memorials were above the walkway.  The usual War Memorial   ...

.. and this one to the Cane Cutters.  The Italian community of the area was greatly involved in the establishment and maintenance of this memorial.

As we walked back to the car we found ourselves passing the electorate office of Bob Katter (which may explain a few things about Etty Bay).  The front door was well covered with posters about the North Queensland Cowboys!

As we rumbled back up the Palmerstone Highway we stopped at a fruit stall for some produce: the bananas were excellent, but the papaya was sold out, as it was at a second stall we paused by.

Our final stop was at Blomfield's Swamp to check for Cranes.  A good flock were grazing below the lookout and on close inspection through my telescope, and a call by Frances, about half of them turned out to be Sarus Cranes rather than Brolgas.  A small amount of dancing was happening.

• Bird of the day: Crimson Finch.  Sarus Cranes were a contender for the individual award but in the end settled for the flock award.
• Vegetation of the day:  Mangroves at Etty Bay (much as I hate to give that prohibitory place an award).
• Memorable moment:  
• Comment of the day: I mentioned to a guy in the VIC that I drove a Pajero and a friend drove a Prado.  He replied "I forgive you both.  I drive a Patrol."  A contender was a guy at Mourilyan who say me tread on a $5 note I'd let fall and immediately called out "I just dropped that
• Pie of the day: Mourilyan Bakery Pepper Steak.  Very nice indeed with obvious chunks of steak and a good serve of pepper.  Crust crisp and strong.  The Queensland champion thus far,9/10.  Frances had an Egg and Bacon open top which she also rated very highly.  The owner said that the next batch were due in 10 minutes so obviously done on tyhe premises which also gets a tick!
• Troppo moment of the day. The lack of signs to Etty Bay when we got the to the Bruce Highway was both an indication that the Roads folk had been out in the sun too long, and caused me to become a bit troppo!

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A brief visit to Johville

The view this morning was enlivened by the steam (or smoke, I am not sure of the technology) from the Condong Sugar Mill hitting a temperature inversion about 100m up. 

Before getting to the topic of the title I’ll just record that at noon the external temperature recorded in the car at Tweed Heads was 19 degrees and there was not a cloud in the sky.  Then I heard the weather in Canberra: 6 degrees and the rain expected to stop by evening. Yes!!!!!

It was a brief visit to the next State to the North, Oh my goodness, yes, don’t you worry about that!  Just long enough to record 6 species of birds for my Queensland list for 2011.  The drive along Tomewin Rd towards Currumbin was quite interesting, and I could certainly see the attraction of the road for the weekend warriors on 2 wheels.  If I felt like working I think I’d open a stall selling new foot-pegs for motorbikes at one end of the road, and franchise someone to do the same at the other. 

Fortunately for the sake of the Subaru I had a passenger who doesn’t like being chucked around (I must get the full race seat belts fitted sometime and throw these pussy inertia-reel jobbies away).  There is also the potential for Chunderpooch to revisit us which is another reason to take it gently on steep and winding roads.  At one point we noted a sign to ‘Bains Rd: formerly Rainforest Glen’.  Obviously Mr Bain had fixed up that naughty rainforest!  Shortly after this we saw a cyclist getting in shape on a 10% grade.  Then we hit the 14% grade he’d already conquered !

So after getting to Currumbin we didn’t go and get Lorikeet guano all over us but hit the Pacific Highway and headed for Tweed Heads, back in NSW and the 21^st Century (CE - I’m not sure about other cultures’ timetables). 

We started with a couple of walks recommended in the Tweed birders pamphlet.  The first was along part of the estuary system covering a boardwalk and a dirt road.  The highlight of this was an Osprey – my first for some time.  We next went to an area off Vintage Drive.  As we went in the names of the streets – all types of wine – seemed familiar and then daylight dawned: we had been to this spot in 2008 on our way back from Brisbane.  Still good as we added a couple of simple birds (Black Swan and Coot) to the trip list.

We then decided to find our way to an Aldi store in South Tweed Heads.  The main problem was that one of our maps only showed about half the roads (and some of the names were out of date) while the other one only showed half the area.  This meant we took a fair tour of the area, but eventually got where we needed to go. However we got there.   Coming back a surprise right lane turn caught me out and we spent some time touring the largest and most confusing set of roadworks in creation.  I think this must be some sort of test to keep undesirables from migrating from Queensland: it was much better signed to get to Brisbane than anywhere else.

Eventually we made it to the road to Fingals Head where we took a signed track to the beach.  This was the perfect beach: wide, gently sloping clean sand, beautiful surf rolling in and about 6 other folk on the 5km of sand!  Dogs allowed!  Just before we got to the turn-round point (ie close to a couple of other folk and about 1.5km from where we hit the beach) we saw some dolphins surfing.  One of them did a complete aerial off the top of a wave!

Frances had noticed a lighthouse on top of a headland so we decided to visit it.  It was a great spot- dogs welcome on leads on a great walk though a bit of forest (picking up Bar-shouldered Dove en route). 

 Several folk were on the headland watching the Humpback Whales disporting themselves as they migrate to Hervey Bay.  We saw quite a few spouts, several tailfins and a reasonable collection of breaches.  As we headed back to the car we saw more dolphins. 

As well as this the area was signed to the Giants Causeway: not quite as spectacular as (I am led to believe) the place in Ireland (apparently the Scottish end of that formation is part of Fingal's Cave: thanks Rob for the correction) but the guy fishing off the top was going to have trouble getting off as his escape route had waves breaking over it. 

Other fishermen were not as daft.

On getting home I gathered some material to light my fire (in the slow combustion stove) when I spotted someone in the valley doing a better job.  To my surprise it had died down in about 15 minutes (and no one else lit up after dark, drat it).

The Doctor’s run

The first business of the day was to visit the Caldera Farmers Market at the Murwillimbah Showgrounds.  The use of the term caldera refers to this area being the cratered remains of a massive volcano which went feral some time ago.  Mount Warning is a plug left over from that explosion.   The market was less explosive but full of very good produce, some of which was acquired by Frances while I escorted our small friend around the showgrounds.  There were various rules about what could be sold, ensuring that it was ‘farm grown’ and not someone flogging off a bunch of stuff they had just acquired at the back door to Woolworths.

We then headed back up the road a short way to watch some cane being harvested.

 Frances commented that this didn’t look much like the “Summer of the Seventeenth Doll”.  It was quite skilful keeping the trailer in position with the harvester, and the turns at the end of the swath were an intricate dozy-doh. I was most impressed with the movements of the flock of Cattle Egrets flying out of the way of the harvester and dropping immediately in behind.  At another field nearby (cut yesterday) White-faced Herons and Masked Lapwings were also getting on the deal.  A little further up the road a Black-shouldered Kite found a cleared paddock a good place to ingest a mouse plucked from an uncut field of cane.

We next headed to Tumblegum (mainly because I liked the name).  It turned out to be an historically interesting village with an old cemetery that had been ‘restored’ by a community group.  They had done a great job of putting up an access path (more like a long flight of stairs) and some interesting notice boards.  However nature was striking back with ferns in particular covering much of the ground.

 In one case a tree had obviously started growing soon after the little boy was interred. 

That was North Tumblegum and the village proper was on the other side of the Tweed.  A nice little place, although the river appeared to be used for water skiing (which probably explains the 74dB limit signs).  Another sign indicated the height of the 1959 floods – about 2m above the road beside the river. On the dry side of the road were a few shops, one of which had some very nice wood carvings.  Frances was taken with a wooden seat (referred to as a Jack and Jill seat because it was set up as a two seater with a small bench – suitable for resting pails of water or glasses of wine – between them).  Surprisingly the statement by the owner of the shop that he had shipped a seat like that to Melbourne for $370 didn’t get the credit card to appear (yet).

After a quietish afternoon I decided to go for a run up the road.  There were two possible routes: along the Garden of Eden Rd (there may well be more about this thoroughfare tomorrow) or continue on the Tomewin Rd to the Queensland border.  I decided that the latter was the go, despite the lack of a verge in some places.  This led me to think that the run should be sponsored by a doctor. I just wasn’t sure which doctor, with the choices being Phillip Nitschke or (the late) Jack Kevorkian.  I did survive it, as (apparently) did the surprising number of push-bike riders using the road.   My visit to the North Eastern State was even briefer than yesterday’s, at about 15m.  The most amusing sight was a pair of White-headed Pigeons with the male attempting to impress the female.  His routine consisted of two quick steps and then a hop, the latter causing him to jump about 5cm in the air. 

Tammie posed nicely on the deck with some mountain or another in the background.

After dark, and while preparing a barbecue, I noticed what appeared to be a very long line of flames to the East of Murwillimbah.  Obviously a large cane field has been lit up – this one was still going some 45 minutes later.  In fact it was still “going” about 3 hours later, which made me think it was actually some street lights or suchlike.

Nearly Mt Cougal

I had thought to climb Mt Warning while in the area.  However what we read about it made it seem quite hard, so I decided instead to do the Mt Cougal walk, which has the further advantage of starting off more or less straight behind our accommodation.  Frances didn’t like the look of the words in “Take a Walk” by John and Lynn Daly so decided to stay behind.

The start of the trek was along Garden of Eden Rd for 2 km.  This was enlivened by some folk grading the Road.  I commented to the lady with the warning sign that I thought the road was pretty good already but she said that folk round here complain if their road isn’t graded once a year.  She didn’t know anything about the Mt Cougal track but thought the truck driver might!

 Indeed he did and it was just as well since on getting through the gate I took off along the nice vehicle track which was WRONG.  The truck driver pointed out the error of my ways, and opined that the track hadn’t been used much.  The walking track was a single pad heading off through some tall grass immediately beside the quarantine fence: yes folks I was back in Queensland.  The tall grass soon gave way to lantana, which in places arched over the track.  Someone ought to read the section on ‘maintenance’ in the bushwalking book!  This section was pretty uphill: I don’t think Frances would have liked it much!

After a bit of mucking around through clumps of sugar cane I eventually got into the rainforest.  I was still following the fence which was a fairly impressive bit of work, in terms of the number of pickets and quantity of wire used.  A pity it was so overgrown in places that any vermin would easily be able to clear it.  At one point a nice wooden gate had come out on the losing side in a battle with termites: that made it even easier for the vermin – up to and including humans – to cross the border.

Some of the trees were very impressive as were the figs growing up them. 

I had also noticed a lot of pinkish-red fruit lying on the ground: presumably these were fruits which the plethora of columbids were dining on.  I didn’t see any of them, but did add Russet-tailed Thrush to my life list. 

The next landmark was an official blaze on a tree dating from about 1864 when the border was surveyed in this area. 

I’m not sure when the fence was erected but I was finding it hard enough to walk up here, let alone shlep a lot of fence poles and wire up.  Shortly after this (a bit longer into the walk than described in the book) I got to a stretch described in the guidebook as very steep.  Brother they were not joking.  My guess is that it was about 1 in 1, or 45 degrees, or a 50% grade.  After about 15 minutes of climbing this, basically using the tree roots as steps, my legs were grizzling more than somewhat.  Even the sight of a Russet-tailed Thrush (my only lifer for the trip) didn't inspire me greatly. 

When I then got to an area where the track veered away from the fence into an area of broken rock and largely vanished, I decided that a number of ducks had lined up.  However, rather than forming a pattern which would allow me to shoot several with one bullet, they were line abreast with beaks pointing away from me.  I thought of the legal maxim ‘ex cloaca anseriformes nil bonum venit’ (ie nothing good comes out of a ducks bum) and decided to pull the pin on the expedition.  A bit of a bugger, but I had had a nice walk in some rainforest and added a bird to my life list.

As is always the case with out and back walks I found that on the way back there had been a lot more downhill in the first half than I had realised: another duck!  On my returning Frances commented that this sounded like the family day walks we did in Tasmania which involved scrambling up banks above a 300m drop into the ocean!

Round 2 of the invertebrate wars has just been fought.  I found a small tick on Tammy and was able to keep her still enough for Frances to give the beast a dab of meths and then apply the tweezers with extreme prejudice.  Unlike the last time we did this, Tammie didn’t chuck a wobbly at the application of the meths.

There is definitely another cane fire down in the valley this evening.  As with the previous fire, but unlike last night, it seemed to burn for a very short while.  

It is something I have been very pleased to see this trip, as it has been part of the cane mythology which I had never before witnessed.  When looking at the next image, remember this was taken at night, and the fire was at least 5km away!

The Battle of the Pacific (revisited)

So we left Byron Bay (adding Wonga Pigeon to the list for that area) and headed back towards Bangalow for access to the Pacific Highway.  For those not in Australia this road has a terrible reputation for both fatalities and slowness (a further comment about this history comes on day 25).  On the way North we didn’t find this to be the case from Sydney to Grafton, nor South into Byron Bay, but had been told the bad stuff – exacerbated by roadworks - now ran from Grafton to Byron Bay. 

Certainly the road South from Bangalow was narrow and quite heavily trafficked.  Getting through Ballina – and our current policy position is that this is a good idea, the place seemed to have no redeeming values (think Batemans Bay shifted North about 800km) – was a pain.  We covered about 70km in the first hour, and given that we had about 600km to travel today that was not good.

Things picked up somewhat after that, although we were surprised at the number of folk who drove 10kph below the limit until they got to a bit of overtaking lane, where they suddenly found an extra 20kph!  A few learner drivers added to the fun, but it is probably good that they learn how to deal with roads like this while under supervision (rather than under a semi-trailer).

Getting close to Grafton a very slow truck was labelled ‘Livestock transport’.  At the speed it was achieving I assumed it was herding snails.  Eventually we got past it and it turned out to be Craig Pigg again!  How interesting that we encountered this guy on both legs of the trip.  Perhaps he has heard that I have a pig located behind my belt and is stalking us??

A bit South of Grafton we came across references to the metropolis of Wooli.  This resonated with Frances because it was the source of some excellent tomatoes we had acquired from a street-side stall in Mullaway.  On this occasion the signs were promoting the Australian Goanna-pulling Championships.  My mind was boggled and still is when delving into the history of goanna pulling!

I have always thought of sugar cane as a Queensland crop.  It was thus a surprise as well as a delight to find it in the Murwillumbah area.  However on this leg of the safari it seemed to extend down pretty close to Grafton.  The town of Broadwater had a mill which dominated the scenery from some distance away. 

 (As the images show it was raining again!)  I was intrigued that, as was the case in Congdon, the mill had a conveyor or such like going across the road – why?

We had a comfort stop in a small town where Rugby League was happening in the park adjacent to the dunny.  Unfortunately I felt a need to keep moving on, so that we got to Topi before dark (after floods etc the prospect of the dirt road and bush track in the last 2km were a tad awesome), rather than watching the game.   I did find it within my plans to stop for a pie in Frederickton – who could resist signs about 50 varieties of meat pie?  - and excellent it was, despite the Marilyn Monroe statue outside the shop.  After a fuel replenishment in Kempsey (where flood evidence was clearly visible on the outskirts of town) and the acquisition of some vegies at a roadside stall we pressed on.  The only additional stop was in Nabaic to buy bread: the folk we asked for directions to the bakery were so helpful that even though the bakery was closed we wanted to spend some money in their village.

Yes, we got to Topi.  In fact we got there about 6:45 hours after leaving Byron, which was pretty good considering that we stopped 4 times en route.  (I think we would easily have made Newcastle in 8 hours (and probably 7:30 if we hadn’t stopped so often), rather than the 9 quoted in Newcastle.

 Yes, the final road and track were fine. 

Yes the venue and setting were as great as we remembered from our previous visit about 2 years ago.  It is nice that they had laid in enough firewood to get things happening and provided a bottle of welcoming wine: a Chardonnay from Great Lakes Winery.

 We have now settled in and have got the TV and set-box communicating with each other.  It is a source of wonder and amazement (well not really – the private sector are involved so there should be no expectation that the end user will be considered) that there is no standard for how these devices function.  Thus every time one comes across a different device or combination of devices the process of getting them to work will be different.  I am sure that no-one would expound ‘read the manuals’ as a solution: they will be written in some unknown language and these days (probably) only be available on the internet anyway!

I have just stuck my head outside and heard nothing except a distant frog.  How wonderful.  It is even quieter than Carwoola.