Step 98 Archer River – Mareeba

Wednesday 3rd August

Alright what's going on here? Grey clouds. It's not warm. Better brighten up soon!

Breakfast this morning from the food parcel we got from our Bestie Westies. Pancakes & maple syrup. That's cheered me up a bit.

Further cheered up by the scenic drive to start the day. Not far up the road from the free camp we cruised into the National Park to check out the Millstream Falls. Allegedly Australia's widest single drop falls. Not exactly the Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe but impressive nonetheless.

The scenery has completely changed now from even a fe days ago. We are into real “East Coast” scenery. No more outback, it's all forest and hills an green. Some parts of the drive this morning are even like the Black Spur road to Eildon.

The first town we came to today is Ravenshoe, Queensland's highest town, beating it's near neighbour Herberton by 15 metres. (I am truly fascinating aren't I? This blog should be prescribed reading for school children).

Obviously we had to visit Herberton. I would like to say that Herberton is just down the road from Vickiville in the Shire of Hertaeg. But I won't. Because it's not. 

Unfortunately the town of Herbert was not as interesting, or attractive, as the man of Herbert so we kept driving.

Atherton, not far up the road, is a surprisingly large country town. It's that civilised that it even has a Caltex Woolies petrol station, so we filled up and took advantage of the 4 cents a litre off.

In the continuing theme of the day (places and things named after people we know) one of the pubs in town is the Carrington Hotel. I told them I know Ricky, but didn't get a free beer. Mind you at least I didn't get thrown out.

What's that train doing in the middle of the park

Stephen! Get away from the controls.

We've moved out of National Forest now and travelling through fruit and sugar cane country. Avocado's $2 a bag rather than the $4 each out in the bush.

The next big town, and our destination for the night, is Mareeba and we're excited to see a reasonably large RSL with lunch time specials. Unfortunately it doesn't quite live up to expectations. Although to be fair it was after 1:30 when we went n for lunch. Normal lunch time for local RSL patrons would be somewhere around 11:45 by the look of it. After picking two things on the menu that were no longer available we both settled for Chicken Parmas. Unfortunately the chef was so excited about getting a customer after 12:00pm she sent the Parmas out nearly raw. Dilemma for Steve:

If I eat raw chicken I'm going to die of food poisoning;

If I send the meal back the chef is going to do nasty things to the meal (and I'll die of food poisoning);

If I don't eat I will die of hunger .

Proof readers note: A little melodramatic Stephen. But well done for being brave enough to take the meal back. And we didn't die did we?

Mind you the beer battered chips were very nice. On top of the pancakes for breakfast we didn't fell the need to eat dinner tonight.

A slightly delayed check in to the Mareeba Tropical Caravan Park as the manager had locked herself out the office. But when we eventually got to the check in process and she asked our names, the lady said “oh Kendall, yes you booked ahead. For tomorrow, for four nights.” Amazingly that wasn't me. I thought it might have been at first and that I had just forgotten, as I am prone to do. But no, the contact number was different. So there you go more Gypsy Kendalls. We didn't stick around to meet them just in case it really is us and there is some sort of warp in the space time continuoum. As we all know, from Back to the Future and Doctor Who and possibly Einstein, it's important that your two selves do not meet each other.

Quiet night tonight, catching up on some blogging and reading