John managed to talk to someone in Townsville who might be able to fix our wheel so we decided on a very slow trip down there with plenty stops. John was quite stressed driving and stopping often to tighten the nuts on the caravan wheel. I thought he needed somewhere peaceful to camp so I checked my trusty old Wiki Camps app and saw one that sounded nice in a place called Babinda not too far south of us.

The drive was very pretty with mountains in the distance and both sugar cane and banana plantations on either side of the road.

As we neared the farm, we came to an interesting, single lane bridge across the Russell River which is shared by both cars and cane sugar locomotives during the sugarcane season (June to November). Apparently there is a resident crocodile called Clyde in the river that suns itself on the sandy bank. We didn’t see him. There is also a deer farm here.

The Babinda Rainforest Farm is a private property about 12kms out of the township, with the rainforest as a stunning backdrop. The owners charge $18 per night for self contained vans only. We stayed for two nights and were the only ones there – unless you count the alpacas, chooks, dogs and geese! We had access to lovely, fresh, mountain spring water to drink and to swim in as the creek, which passed by our camp, had a swimming hole. Unfortunately the water was icy! I could have jumped in after I walked their very steep climb to a lookout through the rainforest. I was exhausted and eaten alive by mozzies. Otherwise we had a wonderful, peaceful stay there; it was just beautiful. It was also a great base to explore the area.

Someone had recommended we visit the Babinda Boulders so we thought we’d do a quick visit then wander through the town. It turned out not to be such a quick visit as it was unexpectedly lovely with walks by the river and waterfalls. A few people swam but we didn’t. However I saw my first platypus in the wild! It was ducking and diving in the water, having a lovely time and we had a lovely time watching it.

There was also some interesting information about an air crash during the war on Mount Bartle Frere behind us.

The township of Babinda is lovely, somewhere else I could live! We love these old buildings in the main street and the Queenslanders in the back streets set up high in front of the rainforest.

We were a bit sad to leave our beautiful camp in Babinda but we headed off to Etty Bay for a couple of nights that I hoped would also be relaxing.

It was! The caravan park was right on the beach and we had a lovely campsite with very nice neighbours again. And we had a regular visitor. A cassowary must have liked the smell of John’s cooking because he kept coming back! And he took off with our avocado which John took off him.

As well as cassowaries wandering through the caravan park, there was also a big monitor lizard that looked very much at home.

We used to love the sunsets from our verandah in Dongara and I wanted to get up early to see the sunrise on the other side of the country. It didn’t disappoint.

Once again it was hard to drag ourselves away from this beautiful spot. We were turning around and going north again. We needed to stay in the area to have our wheel and windscreen wipers fixed. I’d put an advertisement into the Grey Nomads Times to see if anyone needed housesitters but, with such short notice, I didn’t really expect a response. However Annette contacted me. She and her husband had to go away for a week or two for work but had no-one to feed their cat, Marley, and Great Dane, Storm. So we headed off to their place near Mareeba.

*My photo of this lizard wasn’t very clear so I exchanged it for this one from the internet