Mareeba Airshow and Granite Gorge National park

Sunday the 19th August, was the Mareeba Warbirds Airshow. We headed out there and were surprised at the roll up. Mareeba was the staging ground for the American and Australian Army and Air Forces during the World War 2. Over 100,000 troops were located here and hundreds of aircraft, 1000's of tons of munitions, factories and equipment.

Mareeba is also the Northern Australia service base for MAF (Missionary Aviation Fellowship) repairing and servicing all of their aircraft from Timor, NT and New Guinea. MAF have recently purchased 5 four year old Cessna Skyvans from a Western Australia company who went into liquidation. These will provide a larger, more reliable aircraft where their 30+ year old aircraft are causing some reliability and service issues.

We got to go for a walk through their paintshop, workshops and office areas, and to chat to a great team of Christians who are using their God given gifts to earn their incomes, but build the Kingdom through "loving their neighbours' across the Southern Hemisphere.

Yesterday, Wednesday, we drove through Herberton and Mt Hypipamee National Park, where we stumbled across a cassowary mum and her three chicks.

We have another 10 days here at Atherton, before we move across to Cairns and Cooktown. We have been attending Atherton Baptist Church over the past couple of Sundays, but this coming Sunday we will head across to Atherton Northpoint Church where an old mate - Daniel Askey-Doran (ex Maroochy Baptist CHurch) and his family attend. It's great to share "the love".

Below are a few photos of our past few days.

Geoff and Gav in the cockpit of the DC3

The Cathedral Fig Tree in Danbulla State Forest

A "Pitts Special burnout"

The Curtain Fig Tree in Danbulla State Forest 

A mother rock wallaby and her baby came to say hello at Granite Gorge

A Cassowary Mum and her three chicks - VERY RARE!!

Gillies Range and Lake Eacham

Saturday the 17th August, Louise and Gavin took us on a "mystery drive". From Atherton out to "The Chimneys" - and old homestead where only the chimneys are left, on to Lake Euramoo - a cavity created by some volcanic vents. This lake is not fed by anything but runoff - and has no creeks that empty into the surrounding areas.

Next we turned off to the Cathedral Fig - an enormous fig tree that you can actually walk 'into' - another fig not far from here is the Curtain Fig - just as old, just as enormous and home to dozens of birds nest ferns and hundreds of tiny finches and beautiful birds.

5 klms of 4 wheel driving and then on to Gillies Range Lookout. What a stunning view!! They had never been there before, and WOW - what a place to have lunch. (Photos below). Not until you actually get out of the car and walk across to the small plateau, do you realise the immensity of the Atherton Tablelands. The small area is all fenced off as the Cairns Parasailing Club jump off the ridge - down into the Gillies Valley. Looking north you can see Goldsborough - and looking east through the valley past Mt Bartle Freer - is Babinda.

All packed up after a barbie lunch, we headed back towards Lake Eacham.  This and Lake Barrine are two volcanic craters, and together the form the Crater Lakes National Park. Both lakes are formed by volcanic explosions, and neither lake has streams that run into or out of the lakes. They are both freshwater and have a constant depth of around 65m. We loaded the kayaks into the lake and Geoff and I paddled slowly out to the middle.

As we were looking across the lake, a voice called out - "Can you help us please?" Two young boys were struggling to swim back to shore, as their two mates had swum off and left them to fend for themselves. Great mates those two!!

Initially I had them both hanging onto the back of my kayak, but eventually Geoff caught up and we shared the load. Later on their Mum came and thanked us, but they were really starting to struggle, so if we had gone the other way around the lake, the ending might not have been as happy. The lake is approximately 1 klm across - and being fresh water, is not so buoyant.

It is sooooo awesome to come back to "my roots" - and see names such as Tolga, Malanda and Millaa Millaa where my family all grew up. If you get the chance, and your parents are still alive and healthy, sit down and record their stories - because once the pass on - your history - is "just that - HISTORY!!

The Cathedral Fig - near Yungaburra

The Chimneys - out in the Danbulla Forest Drive

The Gillies Range Lookout - looking towards Mt Bartle Freer and across to Babinda.
You can see the removable gates to allow the hang gliders to launch

Looking north to Goldsborough and Mt Pyramid

The first thing you see as you come up over the ridge!
The Gillies Highway is directly below the lookout.

Lake Eacham - looking across to where we found the boys drowning

Finally in Atherton

On Friday 9th August we arrived in Atherton. Booking into the Big4 Woodlands we found that they had mixed up our booking, but they found a spot for us and our "Return to the Tablelands" has begun.

We met Geoff and Mary Parry, and their daughter Louise in Innisfail, had lunch at the RSL, and Geoff and I "did the boy thing" (walking around the streets chatting to locals and other grey nomads) while the girls did the shopping thing. Innisfail is a beautiful "large country town" - and provides access to lots of places including Paronella Park and the Undara Lava Tubes. We will be back to spend some tourist time on the way back.  We parked the Kingdom out on the main road with Misty enjoying some "sleep in" while we all went shopping.

Innisfail is an 'art deco' city, with even the water tower getting in on the act. The Greeks and Italians all settled here back in the 1930's growing tobacco and sugar cane. The North Johnson River curves around through the end of the main street - and the South Johnson River meets it at the intersection. Three bridges criss cross over the South Johnson - linking the Bruce Highway to the city.

The Atherton Tablelands is where all of the Hannah's and Ellson's (my Mum's family) raised their families. Dad was one of 11 boys and 4 girls, and most of them lived at Malanda - 300m from the Malanda Falls. Mum spent time at Tolga, Yungaburra, Kairi (pronounced Kireye) and Danbulla - which is a 'region' and not town.

As you have heard, we have Mum's ashes with us, and once we make contact with a few remaining cousins and aunts, we will arrange a "dedication" to Mum by spreading her ashes over Malanda Falls. Being here on the Tablelands is a lot different to my initial images, as there is so much distance between towns, and to hear Mum's stories about her and Dad walking to dances and going to school 'miles away' just blows my mind. Gavin and Louise have been awesome tour guides, as they have lived here for 8 years.

Gavin is a "Special Ed leader" for the Tablelands region, and they graciously took us out to Lake Tinnaroo on Saturday and Sunday for some beautiful rest and lunch. We attended Atherton Baptist Church where we met some beautiful Kingdom people.

Mum enjoying returning to her homeland with a glass of bubbly and a strawberry.

What an amazing location - knitting, joking and toasting 'Living in the Kingdom'.

Looking across Lake Tinnaroo at sunset. There are ten separate camping sites around the lake.

Setting up the red claw traps - unfortunately they didn't receive our email!

FOUR NIGHTS IN TOWNSVILLE

We left Charters Towers and drove towards Townsville, noticing the landscape changing as we got nearer to Townsville.  The forest and countryside was becoming green, something we hadn't seen a lot of in the inland places.  We found Townsville huge, it takes a good 40 minutes to traverse the city, ring roads everywhere.  Parts of Townsville can be pretty ordinary and uninteresting, but there are nice parks and green areas, and an area on the beach called the Strand.  This has had a lot of work applied to it, to enhance its image and amenities.  Directly across the water is Magnetic Island.  We had the most delicious gelato ice-cream down there, I would have loved to go back for more, but we didn't.

Sunday morning saw us at North Reach Baptist Church, a very good church with good teaching.  I met a lady a bit older than me at morning tea and she invited us home for lunch.  After a lot of conversation, we realised that our mutual parents had been good friends.  Small world.......

Castle Hill is in the middle of Townsville and is surrounded by the town.  Many athletes train by running up there and we encountered many on our way up.  Of interest was an athlete cooling station, a horizontal pole emitting a fine water vapour, which I am sure would go down a treat after running up the mountain.  There would have been easily a hundred people going up and down.  We had bought a new camera that day, so it got a workout up there.

We left Townsville on Monday morning (5th August), heading north.

A view of Townsville Harbour/Port

Townsville from Castle Hill, one view of many

Another View

A monument on Castle Hill

From Castle Hill