Caves, toxic slag, excellent hosts and girls in bikinis

After my pleasant interlude at Cobbold Gorge I hit the road again ever eastwards towards Cairns. I back-tracked to the (very) small railway town of Forsayth, on to Einasleigh, then to Mount Surprise for a very welcome fill of fuel (I was starting to get worried) and, finding internet access, I posted my Cobbold Gorge blog. Having made good time I decided not to go straight to Cairns but detoured 150 or so kilometres over a pretty rough little road to the small town of Chillagoe where I camped at the Eco Park for one night.

The next day I hit the tourist trail visiting the excellent tourist centre then on to one of the things the area is famous for – the caves. Not wanting to pay for a full tour, I opted for the free do-it-yourself job. I realised very quickly the reason there were no tours of these particular caves was they were too bloody dangerous and the National Park people were not keen on losing Grey Nomads down bottomless pits. The entrance to the first cave – I was the only foolhardy visitor – was an almost sheer clamber down a rock face into a dark forbidding hole. Losing my foothold and falling a few feet, cutting my hand in the process, I rather shamefacedly decided to give the cave a miss – potholing never was my forte! I moved on to the less daunting “Balancing Rock” - a tall rock pinnacle balanced precariously on top on another rock pinnacle – quite impressive and a lot less scary than going underground by yourself.

Wouldn't catch me going down that hole all by myself

Balancing Rock

Chillagoe appears to be a normal, small country town – but hides a dark secret. Just a kilometre or so outwith town is a slag heap consisting of over 1,000,000 tons of industrial spoil including various heavy metals, asbestos and a range of industrial toxins. This is the site of the Chillagoe Smelter, a vast industrial complex which smelted a range of ores, including copper and gold, which were brought in for processing by a network of railway lines. Over a hundred years ago Chillagoe was the industrial powerhouse of north Queensland providing both direct and indirect employment. Surprisingly in all its years of operation it never returned a profit but never-the-less was of enormous importance in the development of this part of Australia.

The vast smelter site

A million tons of heavy metals and toxic waste

 

Chillagoe's claim to fame nowdays seems to be mainly tourism however mining, of a completely different type, is now having an impact. Driving into town I noticed hundreds of strange, large, square blocks of whitish stone littering the countryside – this was marble. Marble quarrying started in 1982 and, at that time, was transported to Italy for processing. I'm assuming that processing is now done somewhere in Australia.

The new industry - marble quarrying

The impressive pub in Chillagoe

I was planning to arrive in Cairns on Saturday and decided to re-visit the trendy little township of Kuranda which Sandra and I stayed at some 15-20 years ago. Passing through the large town of Mareeba I arrived at Karunda and parked up in the centre of town and went for a walk. Within minutes of arrival, fighting through hoards of Japanese tourists on bus tours, I knew I did not want to spend the night there. A quick trip round the market stalls – the whole town is full of markets – and I set off for Cairns a day early.

Kuranda - all market stalls and Japanese bus tours. No thanks

Unbeknown to Sandra, who thought she was flying up to Cairns from Sydney and would be staying in a tent, I had arranged alternative accommodation. I had been in touch with Gary and Kim, a couple we had met in the East McDonnell Ranges near Alice Springs and who lived in Cairns, and they had offered us accommodation in what turned out to be their very swish home with swimming pool and spectacular mountain views. Arriving a day early I decided to check into a commercial campsite and went up the coast to Palm Cove. Being right on the seafront the campsite was both very windy and very full and I moved onto site number two – Cool Waters, which being inland I thought would be less congested – Wrong!

Cool Waters campsite - packed in like sardines. No thanks

I was offered three sites – a concrete slab next to a caravan, underneath the washing lines and a sliver of grass hardly big enough for my tent – I took the latter, even though it was only feet from a major, and very noisy, road. The site, which was pretty small, was jammed with caravans – over 170 I was told. I can see no pleasure what-so-ever being cheek by jowl with other caravaners, sometimes for weeks on end – when camping I prefer to get away from the masses rather than to huddle together in a group – still, each to their own.

The following day, Saturday, I checked in with Gary and Kim then picked up Sandra at the airport. Telling her, as darkness fell, that we now had to start looking for a campsite she was not overly happy but cheered up when she discovered that she had a proper bed under a proper roof for the night instead of our tent. Our hosts were very accommodating and made us feel very welcome and a few bottles of red wine, not to mention Gary's excellent home brewed beer, were consumed.

Kim and Gary - our excellent hosts in Cairns. Thanks guys

 

On Sunday Sandra and I visited the Botanic Gardens then went for a stroll along the busy promenade where there was some good opportunities to photo a helicopter which provided trips across the bay for tourists. My hand must have been a bit unsteady as in one of the photos I missed the helicopter altogether!

Cairns - a good place to photograph helicopters!

The camera slipped and the helicopter is just out of shot!

Cairns seemed to have grown and developed a lot since we first visited almost 20 years ago and in that respect it is very like Darwin.

After two days it was time to give up the luxury of a comfortable bed and crisp white sheets and get back on the road again – this time travelling north towards Cape York. After re-provisioning our first stop was in Mareeba where we visited the local parks department who have introduced a new on-line booking system for camping in the National Parks. Before setting out you have to go on-line and state where and when you intend to camp, and then pay up-front for your camping. A high tech solution which has a number of massive flaws. We, and I suspect a lot of other people, tend to be very flexible travellers – often setting out in the morning aiming for one place and ending up somewhere completely different, making this sort of system useless. Secondly, road conditions and attractions along the way often mean that you don't manage to do the distance you originally planned and never get to the site you have paid for in advance. Thirdly, and most tellingly, an on-line booking system in an area where there is very limited internet access is not very helpful, particularly when we were told in the Tourist Office that the system is incompatible with i-Pads and i-Phones.

There are alternatives – you can phone ahead to book – a fat lot of good when there is hardly any phone access, particularly for the like of us using cut-price AldiMobile which was OK in Sydney but has been almost non-existent throughout rural Australia.

Moaning rant over!

Aboriginal Art has by-and-large left me underwhelmed, however the site at Split Rock was a cut above what I had seen before and was very interesting – as was the Cultural Centre at the small town of Laura which had a lot of well presented information on both Aboriginal and White history of life in the area.

Interesting Aboriginal Art at Split Rock, far north Queensland

As I type this we are camping at the Musgrave Roadhouse before travelling north. We are now on to dirt roads again which so far have been absolutely no problem although, with the Honda being a bit lightweight in the 4WD and suspension departments, we are planning to give the Old Telegraph Road a miss this time. It is an unmaintained track and we have heard it is even hairier than it was when we were last on it about 15 years ago – at least that is the plan at the moment – but who knows?!