Quick tracks to Cairns

Poor Maya is ready to go home. This morning she had a little meltdown, declaring her hate for "this tiny motorhome". We told her we were just going to get to Cairns, and after we were done in Cairns we would turn and head back to Sydney. She was happy to hear that, and seems to be willing to enjoy the rest of the time travelling instead of resenting it all, as long as we're heading back soon.

We left Airlie Beach, aiming for Townsville, about 300 kilometres away. On the way, we drove over Burdekin River and I so wish I would have taken a picture of it as I have never seen a river that colour. You know the brown that a river turns when it is flooded? This one was almost orange, like clay. It was huge and bizarre, and for some reason it scared the crap out of me.

Townsville was odd, like a work in progress. It seemed deserted. We had our lunch at The Strand, the centreish area on the water. Water that you can't go in, due to stingers and... wait for it... crocodiles. We're in croc country. There was a netted-off area for stinger-free/ croc-free swimming. We just stayed at the playground.

The kids were happy to keep driving, so we scratched our plan to stay for the night and moved on.

At dinnertime, we stopped in a small town called Cardwell (which Lonely Planet claims has a population of 10,000, but we couldn't for the life of us work out where they were all hiding their houses. There didn't even seem to be a grocery shop). We treated ourselves to grilled fish and chips - local barramundi, sooo delicious - and had a picnic near the crocodile infested water overlooking Hinchinbrook Island. Here is the warning sign:



The warnings seem so mild.

Here was our picnic view:



The kids were, again, happy to keep going, so we decided to push on to Cairns, only about an hour and a half north. Nate had fun snapping pictures in the backseat:





We didn't quite make it and stopped for the night at Innisfail. We left early this morning for the rest of the drive, and it was so beautiful. Very rainy, very dark dramatic clouds obscuring the tops of the very green, jungle covered hills all around. Here's a shot from the moving vehicle:



We are really in the wet tropics now. I'm so looking forward to seeing more of Cairns.