Sept 13 ... Ingham

After some days of happily sitting around the van being very lazy, we decided to venture forth yesterday. Firstly we went into Ingham to do some shopping. It is another Queensland town full of character. There is a huge Italian population in this area and this is obvious in lots of ways ... the shops, the architecture and the culture. It is common to hear Italian being spoken on the street and we were recommended a "deli" in town called Lou's Food Emporium ... and it certainly is an "emporium". Everything looked fresh and the variety and quantity were astounding. We had a lovely time buying figs stuffed with mascapone, French Roquefort and Gruyere cheeses, and lots of other tasties.

Cheeses from everywhere!

A million different type of olives.

This shop is part of a "Food Trail" for Ingham and I have written it down for next time. Unfortunately, I ate something a few days ago that did not agree with my super sensitive system so I am on toast and vegemite for a while. But this is something to really look forward to on a future visit.

From here we set out for Lucinda via Halifax. This is the area in which my Grandfather, Archie Martin, was born and raised. He was one of five children and he lived with his family on the banks of the Herbert River. His mother's maiden name was Ufer and we easily found "Ufer's Rd" and followed it along to the house. The house was still in use but I think it may look a lot different now to when my Grandfather was a boy in the early 1900's. I know very little about my Grandfather's history, but on a later visit to the local cemetery, I also found the grave stones of Hilton and Alice Ufer, who must have some family connection.

The Herbert River in front of house

Grandfather's Childhood Home

View behind house

The Ufer graves

Halifax was only small but it had a few beautiful old buildings. As usual, the two nicest were the pubs! It is the same in Ingham which boasts the original "Pub with no beer" which apparently was drunk dry by the American Armed Forces when they were here during WW2. Subsequently a poem and then a song have been written about it. The Day Dawn Hotel was built in 1875 but it has subsequently been pulled down.
We pass the Station Hotel, built 1925, on our way to town and I think it is an attractive building with it's Victorian style, cast iron columns and lacework.

A short distance from Halifax is Lucinda where there is a famous jetty. The jetty is a private one that runs from the sugar storage facility, 5.76 kms out to the ship loading dock at sea. It was quite hard even to see the end of it. The "jetty" has a covered conveyor belt on one side and a road on the other. This is the final stage of a massive sugar industry in this area.  As we drive to and from town we see the big harvesters in action and there are long sugar trains everywhere. Their rails criss cross the roads and there are flashing red lights wherever you go, even through the centre of Ingham.

The Lucinda Jetty

Cane Train

The trains take the cane to two mills around here. The Victoria is the biggest and it is on our road. It was CSR's first foray into sugar in 1883 and it was established during the "plantation era". In those days, a plantation was like a small town.
Crushing is in full swing but all the smoke about is not from the mills, rather from a number of bushfires that are burning locally. The refined sugar is stored at Lucinda before being loaded onto ships.

Harvesting Cane

Covered wagons take refined sugar to Lucinda

The Victoria Mill

While over that way we also visited Taylor's Beach. It was low tide but we were still a bit disappointed as we had expected a much prettier place. Despite the coastal areas having heaps of rain lately, this little spot seems to have missed out and the vegetation, especially the grass, is tinder dry and crackley brown. So the parks and foreshores of these little places are not at their best, and it made us appreciate Forrest Beach even more.

Taylor's Beach looking north

Taylor's Beach looking south

We have had a few days of wind here though and it is fairly unpleasant to be out side. It is warm and sunny but better suited to doing things rather than sitting around. So this morning we were off to town again, primarily to buy me Sao biscuits and some ingredients for soup! After our brief shopping expedition, we drove out to the Ingham Cemetery. It was really unusual in that the Italian population have persevered with their tradition of building mausoleums for their family graves. These were mostly tiled, with LOTS of fake flowers and photos. It made for a very interesting walk around just to enjoy the variety of designs.

Ingham Cemetery

Mausoleums at Ingham Cemetery

Now we are back at the van for a quiet afternoon. Garry has his paper and I might get my French back out...or I might just read. We were disappointed that the cloud obscured the full moon last night but that has mostly gone today and we just need the wind to drop and it will be "paradise" again!

Sept 11... Forrest Beach

Coffee on the beach

Thursday Sept 8

Camped beside us in the park are Bill and Ruth from Portland, VIC. They are a very friendly couple and, as they were driving up to Wallaman Falls, they invited us to come along. The Falls are about 50kms behind Ingham and at 268ms they are supposed to be the highest sheer drop waterfall in Australia. They certainly were impressive, but so was the drive up. We climbed steadily for over 600ms and the views across to the coast were excellent.

Wallaman Falls

The gorge was also quite dramatic

 Again we saw lots of signs warning of cassowaries crossing but, again, we saw none. The southern cassowary is endangered so perhaps there are not many left but it was perfect habitat. We did however see another endangered animal, the Musky Rat Kangaroo. As the name suggests it was pretty small and we were lucky to come across two on the road. They scampered as soon as the car approached but froze just long enough for a photo.

Unlike the rocks, I am brown with a pointy nose.

On the drive the cyclone damage was very obvious as many pine plantations had been flattened. The protected valleys gave us an idea of what the vegetation had been like and it was quite a contrast.

We also had a better look at Ingham and it is surprisingly big. We plan to explore it more later in the week.

Bill's boat

Saturday Sept 10

It is amazing even to Garry and I how quickly the day goes and how little we do. I spend a lot of time on the computer blogging, emailing and googling. Garry reads a lot. Unfortunately the beach here is really steep and the sand quite rough and soft, so any lengthy beach walk is bloody hard work and not really enjoyable at all. We have walked into town and had a look around though. 

Last night the wind came up and it really blew. We had to get up and secure things a few times but by 5am we decided to go for a full batten down so we could get some sleep. With the awning in and the roof collapsed, the quietness and lack of movement were most welcomed and we slept through till 9.30 ! The wind is supposed to abate today and I am hoping that for once the forecast is right. It is also supposed to be 28 degrees here today but the wind is cold and you have to sit in the sun outside. How strange it is to be seeking out the sunshine rather than the shade!
Around 5pm things quietened down and I got some nice photos of the beach on sunset. Just off the coast, and featuring in some of the photos, is Palm Island. It was the focus of a riot and controversial investigation last year into Police behaviour when an aboriginal man died in custody. We were surprised as we had imagined this island was much further north.

A moonlit night

Sunday Sept 11
I went to the markets this morning which were bigger than I had thought they would be, but only bought a few books,rum balls and a paw paw.
After a lazy morning of reading the paper we all ( Ruth, Warwick and Stacee ) had lunch at the pub after which, I came home to watch a movie and Garry settled down in front of the TV to watch The Rugby Union World Cup. Happily Aust defeated the Italians so he had a good afternoon.
The breeze is up a bit again this afternoon. It really cools things down a lot to a point where you almost need a light jumper on. It would be too cool to go swimming even if we could. Hopefully it will start to warm up pretty soon.
Tonight we had to say goodbye to Bill and Ruth who are off in the morning. It has been really nice having such friendly neighbours and the six of us have enjoyed some very pleasant meals together and many conversations. It is great to have such nice people to chat to and it has really added to our enjoyment of Forrest Beach.

Warwick and Stacee from Cairns

Bill and Ruth with Shrimp from Portland

Evening at Forrest Beach

Sept 7 ... Forrest Beach (Ingham)

We enjoyed a leisurely morning in Ingham before heading back out to Couquette Point seeking the elusive cassowary ... all to no avail, but the views of Innisfail were exceptional.

Johnstone River

Innisfail

We then drove a little way down the coast and turned off again to explore Etty Bay. This was ANOTHER place that cassowaries had been seen "just yesterday" but there were none there today ... at least in the 30 mins we were about. But it was a lovely little place and it consisted of a few houses and a caravan park, right on the water, so we have noted it down for a future visit.

Etty Bay

Etty Bay

We had decided to give Tully our morning tea money to help with their cyclone recovery and as we drove south through the cane fields there was plenty of evidence of Cyclone Yasi all these months later.
Most of the houses had been repaired but the trees were devastated. In places as many as 50% were just blown over, or snapped off, and most of the rest were stripped bare. The mountainsides looked quite sparse and the creeks were full of logs.
There was a lot of roadworks around Tully and some delays but in general things seemed to be getting back to normal, even though it was obvious that Carwell and Tully had been very hard hit.
We could see that the bananas had come good again but lots of cane fields looked very sad.

Tully was thriving. We had an excellent morning tea at the Ulysees Cafe (blue butterflies everywhere!) and a walk around the shops. Morgan would have spent a fortune and  I was tempted by some really original clothes and other goodies ... but Garry had a lucky financial escape this time, mostly due to the carrying capacity of the van!

Cane fields near Tully

Lots of fields had only young cane.

Further south and it was Cardwell that was the most disappointing to see. Garry and I had been there 2 years ago and we remembered it as such a pretty place. The foreshore was a wide grassy and shady parkland and we had stopped under the trees for lunch. This had all gone. It was replaced with a thin belt of sand and all the tree trunks were in the water. Many of the houses were still badly damaged and quite a few were deserted. There was nothing pretty about Cardwell now.

Cardwell foreshore with Hinchinbrook Island

The foreshore "parkland" at Cardwell

After some fantastic views from the Cardwell Range, we were soon on our way to Forrest Beach, just out of Ingham. This was a recommendation from my Uncle Jim and it was beautiful. On the way in we saw huge flocks of brolgas so I had a good feeling about the place even before we arrived.

Forrest Beach is a small settlement on the coast and the park is attached to the hotel. It only has 50 sites and  and at present there are only 9 vans here. We were very fortunate to get a site right on the front looking out over the water. It is idyllic and we plan to stay as long as the weather holds. Should it get too windy it is a bit exposed but we hope to be here a week or so.

Site 13 at Forrest Beach

20 mteres to the beach!

Because it is such a small park, everyone is very friendly and so far I have been given home grown tomatoes and fresh fish. The hotel is really nice too and we have had dinner there which was very good, and Garry plans to watch the Rugby World Cup on their TV, so I guess we will be going for drinks quite regularly.

North Forrest Beach

South Forrest Beach

Our View.

Sept 6 ... Innisfail (Part 2)

Neither Garry or I thought much of Georgetown but we got in late and left early so we really need to assess it better on another trip. Certainly the caravan park was very average and we will try a different one next time rather than The Midway.

Countryside around Georgetown

Millstream Falls

Again we were on the Gulf Developmental Road and there was plenty of cattle grazing along it to keep us alert. We stopped briefly at Mount Garnett for morning tea at a lovely rest area and then we drove on to the Millstream Falls. These are labelled as having the widest drop in Australia but they looked fairly ordinary to me ... perhaps after heavy rain they may qualify for that.

From then on, we were in the Tablelands and suddenly the world turned lush green, the weather showery and the landform very hilly with lots of tropical rainforest. It certainly was a beautiful vista.

We wove our way in and out, up and down, across some very pretty rivers and finally to Milla Milla. The Falls were only a few kilometres off the main road so we took the minor diversion because they are particularly nice waterfalls.

The Beatrice River

Milla Milla Falls

By now we were getting hungry and we had already decided to go to one of our favourite places for lunch so we began our trek down the mountains. From here we had good views of Bartle Frere, the highest mountain in QLD. The day was quite cloudy and showery so the top of the mountain was in cloud but it was still a nice outlook as we had lunch on the verandah at Mungalli Creek Dairy. This is a Bio Organic Farm and it makes its own yoghurt and cheese. As well as a lunch of delicious pumpkin and parsnip soup and vanilla cream cheesecake, we bought some yoghurt (the creamiest you will ever taste) and some honey.

Mt Bartle Frere

Mungalli Cafe and Dairy

Feeling very satisfied we stopped for a quick look at the river valley at Crawford's Lookout before heading on in to Innisfail. We checked in to the Big 4 there, the Mango Tree, and it was an exceptionally pretty park. It is right on the river so it had suffered during all the flooding and Cyclone Yasi, but now it was top quality again. Our site was bordered by flowering gardenias and orchids. I loved it.

As soon as we could we went into town to do a BIG shop as we were almost out of everything. Then we went for a walk around the town. Innisfail is delightful. Many of the buildings are Art Deco in style and they are well cared for, often strongly coloured and framed with palms. The township is on the river and in the winter months it is an ideal place to walk. We spent a very happy hour just looking at all the building facades and boats on the river.

Colourful Facade

Innisfail Town Hall

We had been told that cassowaries had been seen recently along a local road so we went for a drive to see if any could be found ... but the cassowary continues to elude us! Still, we had some exceptional views and have decided to return in the morning when the birds might be more co-operative !!