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Big4 Campground, Townsville, Queensland, Australia. 712 km

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Australian word of the day:  How’re You Going? – How are you? Asked without really expecting an answer.

After reaching the northern apex of our Australian voyage in Cape Tribulation, we started progressing southward on Saturday. After crossing the Daintree river southward, we drove through Mossman to Mossman Gorge, also part of Daintree National Park. They have some rainforest walking tracks (trails), and a few swimming holes along the Mossman river. At one such swimming hole a crazy old Aboriginal with a very high pitched voice was making all the white folks laugh. We had a little problem with Orr, as one of her crocs shoe strap broke off. Each time we made a makeshift solution, she kept taking her shoe off and checking out the problem by recreating it.

From Mossman we drove back down to Cairns, stopping just before town center for lunch and grocery shopping. We also picked up a cool water shirt and hat for Ron. Most of the kids here, and many adults, don’t bare their torso or head, even at the beach or swimming pool.

In Cairns we stayed at our first Big4 campground. It is a chain of campgrounds all over Australia, similar to KOA in the US. However, the campgrounds here are much more like holiday resorts, with different accommodation styles. Guests can choose from a piece of grass for their tent, a site for an RV, or cabins, and even apartments. The resort has a pool, playground, recreation room, free gas barbeque, and evening activities for the family. The campground we stayed in was huge, with over 200 families, 3 pools, and best of all for Ron and the girls, 2 jumping pillows. The jumping pillows are huge air inflated trampolines that kids and grownups run across, jump on, and have a jolly good time with. Turns out, that the first one in Australia was installed at this campground.

So before we even parked in our site, we parked right in front of the pillows and had a jumping good time. Orr and Ron climbed and jumped, and even though much bigger kids shook and rocked the pillow, they took it in stride. Shir was a bit more apprehensive, after being flipped over several times, so I was her personal bodyguard.

The next morning Ron got up early and did all his morning chores (peepee, brush teeth, get dressed…) very quickly, so as to get back to the jumping pillows as soon as possible. We spent another 2 hours there and at the next door playground before bidding farewell to the campground and heading south.

We drove about 100km to Mission Beach, or to be more exact, to South Mission Beach, where we spent 2 night in a Big4 campground across from the beach. During our stay, we visited the swimming pool with its tad-too-fast slide, the beach and the playground. On the first evening I Bar-b-qued some meat for us and we ate in the camping kitchen area.

The kitchen facilities in campgrounds here are very good, and that is because many people come in with vans and small Motorhomes, where preparing food inside the vehicle is not possible or comfortable. We are discovering that it is also easier for us.

The bar-b-qs however are not what I expected. They are more like a frying surface than a grill. So your meat is not over a fire, or even a pretend gas fire grill, but rather a very hot and usually oily metallic surface. Not my favorite way of preparing a steak, but the Aussies seem very content to prepare their food this way.

Last night it started raining and it continued all day long today. We took a long 200km drive this morning to Townsville, a rather large town actually, and a regional capital. We’ll be hanging around here for the next few days.

After we found a good parking spot, we had lunch at an Irish pub, where the kids learned about their daddy’s favorite beer (starts with a G..). We then walked a few hundred meters in the rain to Reef HQ, a great marine aquarium. Although not as large as the one in Sydney, the children had a great time. Ron ran from one tank to the other with Shir trailing him. I was able to identify many of the creatures I saw on my diving trip last week. On the other hand, Orr hung on to Paola and would not let go. At 3pm they had a shark and carnivorous fish feeding. We were surprised to see that sea turtles also eat fish. Paola always thought they were herbivores.

At our campground tonight we checked in to a an “ensuite site”. This means that for an extra $5, we have a private bathroom right behind our motor home. Again, the logic here is that most campervans don’t have their own facilities, and that people will pay more for a private and immediate facility room rather than a central campground one. We found it to be very convenient for bathing the kids.

Tomorrow we’ll find some more fun things to do in the area. It has stopped raining and the forecast for tomorrow is dry.

Good night,

-Hemi

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 6:11 am and is filed under Australia, Big Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.