No Cassowary Sightings for Us

[RB]

We felt the 2 walks gave us a pretty good look at the island and we certainly enjoyed the 3 night stay.
The ferry ride back to Townsville was a leisurely affair as our hire car pick-up was not until 11am - there was a bit of controlled burning happening that we could see from the ferry
Last night sunset


Vehicular ferry


Nice day for a ferry ride




Part of the controlled burn

 

[RB]

1300 Meteor.com.au
When we started planning in Dec last year, hire car prices were generally expensive. We just needed a small/medium sized vehicle with unlimited km. I used various comparison sites but kept coming back to this group. I believe a lot of their business is utes/heavier vehicles that are rented out to mining companies. They also have branches in Cairns & Mt Isa. They certainly lived up to their claim of friendly & straight advice. In summary we ended up with a Hyundai Kona with around 20,000km on the clock @ $65 a day. We opted out of any extra insurances and purchased a policy elsewhere. Meteor sent the vehicle to pick us up as we got off the Sealink Ferry & also dropped us back into Townsville at the end of the rental. Car drove well, fitted all our luggage (2 bags, 2 small backpacks, soft esky and some booze) and gave excellent fuel economy-around 5.6l/100km most days, sometimes better. Professional but friendly with the check-in & out of the vehicle & absolutely no problems with highly recommending them.

 

[RB]

Townsville to Charters Towers
We now had the opportunity to reorganise our luggage & get ourselves organised for a fortnight with a car. First stop was Dan Murphys for a few supplies & then to the Flinders Highway (A6). Pretty surprised by the spread of Townsville (never been here before). Found the traffic pretty easy, drivers sensible & not many of the 4 trailer rigs. Bits of random roadworks happening and crossing the Burdikin on the Macrossan Bridge was our first viewing of free campers gathering.

Heritage Lodge Motel Charters Towers
Perhaps a little more isolated from town than we expected but fine for a 1 night stay & reviews suggest it is better than the alternatives. Pretty typical of an Aust country town motel. We found the owners excellent, keen to help and running a super clean motel. It seems a lot of the clientele are repeat stayers-there is a camp kitchen style area set up for people to cook out of their rooms & sit around and talk & have a drink. Our room was spotless, everything worked, bed was comfortable, great shower, wifi fast and undercover parking outside the room. There is an option to pre-order dinner for delivery from a steak house in town.

Queen bed, 2 singles & kitchen . $130 a night less cash rewards cashback

 

[RB]

Around Charters Towers

Charters Towers, QLD - Aussie Towns
I am of an age where Charters Towers was mentioned a lot during my schooling (but like Port Pirie in my previous trip report) so I was pretty interested to look around. The CBD was a bit underwhelming given the number of empty or closed shops but that is not a problem unique to Charters Towers. We enjoyed our walk around ( very few other people) and there are certainly some impressive buildings. Locals seem to be well served by a modern Woolworths supermarket.
Towers Hill lookout certainly gave magnificent views of the vast landscape.
Looking back, perhaps at the time of the visit I marked the town down too far based on the tasteless pie I endured for lunch! Really this was just a 1 night stop to get us started on our loop and we didn’t have any “must do’s” here.

Some of the town's buildings-Post Office building very visible from all directions

 

[RB]

More of Charters Towers buildings

 

[RB]

Views from Towers Hill lookout -certainly no threat of rain

 

[jastel]

Did you go inside Kmart?
It has stained glass windows in the arch part, looks good from inside.
Back when I was a kid it had those slingshot things which shot the cash tin to the cash man on the mezzanine floor up top.
Lot of Heritage listed buildings there.

 

[RB]

Did you go inside Kmart?
It has stained glass windows in the arch part, looks good from inside.
Back when I was a kid it had those slingshot things which shot the cash tin to the cash man on the mezzanine floor up top.
Lot of Heritage listed buildings there.

Didn't go in. Remember the old cash lines from growing up in country NSW. We were especially impressed with the Stock Exchange story & building at Charters Towers

 

[RB]

Charters Towers to Mt Surprise

This was our longest drive. Generally a good road surface, not a lot of traffic, and we managed to get through the rough roadwork sections without meeting a lot of oncoming traffic. The Fletcher Creek free camp grounds was an amazing sight - I later read there were 30 sites, numbers we saw far exceeded this. I am not sure of the attraction of being amongst 100’s while 40km out of town. The landscape was pretty untouched, things were dry, there were heaps of ant hills and the Brahmans dominated the cattle herds. The dry creek beds there were offset by the bore tanks. We seemed to rise in elevation in a steady manner, there were large stretches of no mobile signal and we had our first experience of driving in an area of formalised “Call Points”. There was also a long stretch where a dismantled railway line ran parallel to the road. Basalt boulders took over as we got closer to our target.

Bedrock Village Mt Surprise Bedrock Village - Home

The owners here were fantastic to deal with. No money needed to pre-book our stay in a Copperfield Cabin and 2 seats on a morning tour of the Undara lava tubes. These hard workers have established the complex from scratch. It is a vast caravan park (75 drive through powered sites, 30 tent sites, and 35 cabins plus unpowered sites) and there was quite a crowd there both nights we stayed. The second night there were people from the Savannahlander who overnighted in the park. First night was pizza night and the 2nd night we joined in the corned beef dinner offering (corned beef is not my preference after Uni days of flat red meat & white sauce being slopped up in the dining hall). Both meals were great & drew substantial numbers. We bought at the bar the first night but BYO on second night. The campfire was a good way to complete the night & share yarns of travel. Our cabin had its own facilities but what we saw around the dinner site showed extremely clean facilities. Apparently after 23yrs the owners are looking to wind down on Magnetic Island.

 

[RB]

Around Mt Surprise Mount Surprise, QLD - Aussie Towns
The town itself takes very little time to visit. One street (the main road through) with police station, pub, another couple of small camping grounds, servo and railway station. Very well kept though and a lot of town pride evident.
Mount Surprise developed as an important cattle trucking and telegraph centre for the western section of the Tablelands. The town's importance was reduced as railway traffic from the mining and cattle industries declined in the 1930s. Reconditioning of the railway in 1951 and construction of the Gulf Development Road in the 1960s revitalised Mount Surprise as a livestock trucking centre and, more recently, a tourist stop.

Radar Hill, Mount Surprise - Wikipedia









Main Street

 

[RB]

The main motivator for our stop at Mt Surprise was to visit the lava fields. The Undara Lava field which was caused by ancient volcanic eruptions in the McBride Plateau (approx 190,000 yrs ago). You cannot just wander the lava fields independently. We visited as part of a group of around 20 and the trip was organised via the Bedrock Village. Apparently the owners of Bedrock Village are long time acquaintances of the “original” owners of the land (Collins family) who donated the land to National Parks but retained the rights to access certain parts of the lava fields. We found our driver/guide to be knowledgeable and well suited to the role. During the drive to the fields we were shown the evidence of “grader grass” and the piles of volcanic rock that line the roadside in spots were explained as being waste from when communication lines were laid by communication companies. (apparently the cost of the project blew out dramatically).
First stop was to walk up and around Kalkani crater. This is a dormant volcano with a perfectly round top and there are great views over the whole of the McBride volcanic province. It is a bit of a climb and one fellow was up to his 3rd wind after 50 metres of climb-to his credit he made it all the way. We stopped for flora/fauna info at various spots and heard more facts about the volcanic history. We only saw around another dozen people in this area.









Cleared area was a former garden for the farm/station to feed the workers


Zoomed in view of crater floor-still denuded of vegetation






View from crater rim back towards carpark area

 

[drron]

Indeed when I passed the Fletcher Creek campground a couple of years ago I thought there were over 100 vans there.It looked ridiculous.

We visited Undarra many years ago and our accommodation was a converted rail carriage.It certainly wasn't crowded.

PS we were able to wander around independently.

 

[RB]

Indeed when I passed the Fletcher Creek campground a couple of years ago I thought there were over 100 vans there.It looked ridiculous.

We visited Undarra many years ago and our accommodation was a converted rail carriage.It certainly wasn't crowded.

PS we were able to wander around independently.

I probably worded it poorly-As I understand it the restriction on movement is in the lava tubes and you have to be on an accredited tour to enter the tubes

 

[jastel]

It sure has got dry in the few months since I was out there.
You could wade in the Lava Tubes back in May.

There was more freedom in the early days inside the tubes...I'm talking the 80's and 90's. Theses days a combination of National Parks, Workcover OHS and lawyers in general have put paid to that.

 

[RB]

The drive to the actual lava tubes took us past the former veggie garden of the homestead. Still not a lot of other vehicles around in the carpark & we didn’t encounter others during our time at the tubes. Saw a great brush turkey nest, some examples of indigenous tree carvings and some Qld bottle trees.Overall a great experience, the group worked well & shared the prime photo opportunities. The guide warned of torch light impacting photos but we managed as well as our photography skills allowed. Back at Mt Surprise the bus did a lap of the main street with commentary from a local perspective.

A bit of a more scientific approach re the tubes Atkinson.pdf

Probably photo overload but we were amazed by the natural interlocking and colours. Photos also help to show the clambering that is required

Some landscape near the tubes

 

[RB]

More lava tubes











Instruted to walk on the left-much smoother where all the human traffic has been

 

[RB]

An afternoon walk down to the river at the back of the camping complex certainly reinforced the sense of the hard work the owners had done in establishing the the caravan park on such a landscape.
On the few occasions we have stayed in caravan parks we haven’t been overly keen/active participants of the “sundowner” culture. We did enjoy the 2 nights here where sharing a meal led to interaction with others. Always happy to have a beer and a yarn around a fire but we don’t feel the need to seek out company every night.

Mrs RB runs a wary eye over a new arrival at the park. Starting price is apparently $435,000

 

[craven morehead]

That sure is one Flash RV

 

[drron]

We were allowed into the lava tube.Though probably much more limited than now.

 

[jastel]

Anne Atkinson was a family friend.
One of the lookouts near the resort is named after her.
She only died a couple of years ago.