Easter Camping

Now I said that I would share some more photos from Easter and my mini camping break so here they are. Be prepared to be over photoed.

So a I might have overly mentioned in my last post, Easter was pretty busy. On Good Friday I sent Mr Sparky off camping with a family who are friends of his. On Easter Sunday, I got to join him and them at Lake Tinaroo or Tinaroo Dam. 

The place they were camping was on private property so after following some interesting directions like you'll come to 3 gates take the first gate, follow the slashed track along the fence, the fence will be on your left (ummm yeah that is my right, oh so now it is on my left), go past the boggy puddle, you'll see us. Well I am glad he had confidence that I would see them cause I wasn't so sure but I did find it and he was right, at the top of the hill I could see the camp. I then had to follow the bumpy slashed track down the hill, easy peasy and I had arrived. It was a beautiful spot. 

We has some visitors during the middle of the day who were coming down to their drinking spot. They weren't too impressed to find the invading campers still in the way but they hung around anyway.

Some even got brave enough to try drinking.

Now I could just cow photo you out right now but I'll be good and stop here ... okay so one more. They were good looking fat steers after all.

After relaxing and playing board games and some more came to join the party for the afternoon, the kiddie campers headed out on the water to check their red claw trap. It was entertaining for the adults that is for sure to watch the kids trying to paddle across the fairly choppy water.

What an adventure and their perseverance paid off when they made it to the little island. Unfortunately there was no catch (Yay! Sorry I don't like them).

I just had to share this photo, isn't it what childhood should be about, adventuring, exploring, having fun and no shoes.

The afternoon was filled with more water sports that didn't involve paddling. The ski biscuits where hooked up to the boat and the lovely skipper then spent a lot of time trying to get everyone off them. I did have a go, my first time, it was tricky staying on and holding myself up on it with my arms. Guess I need to get some upper body strength happening for next time. It was so much fun but after oooh did I hurt.

There was also a bit of knee boarding and plenty of kids wanting to go next.

After a bit of a break ...

The boat headed out again and more fun followed.

The kids also went off collecting wood for the fire, which we needed at night, it got a bit chilly with the breeze off the water. That fire served us well as we sat around and chatted and drank in the quiet and stillness of the evening, okay not so quiet, there did end up being 7 giggling children of varying ages squished on top of each other in the caper trailer. It was nice still.

Then I went for a short wander to take way too many photos of the sun setting and changing colours. It was relaxing and so nice to see a sunset, the mountains make Cairns ones pretty fast and lacking in something.

So that is it. As darkness settled we ate dinner around the fire, relaxed and then headed for our swags to watch the stars. The next morning brought with is more water fun and packing up before we headed back down the mountains to Cairns. I was glad I got to go for a little while, it was a new experience Easter camping and I can see why so many are drawn to it every year.

 I hope everyone is enjoying this weekend, another long one for the Aussies with ANZAC Day, a time to remember those who have fought for this country and be thankful for their sacrifices. We are having a quiet one as Mr Sparky is on call for work.

Now all I need to do is come back with the promised waterfall pics. Always catching up, always :)

Happy Easter!

My Easter was very different this year, I think I might have said that about last year too, buuttt this one was a corker. Due to Cyclone Ita roads and rail to the south were closed meaning on the other side of that water was the stock for the grocery store I work in packing shelves at night (second job and completely thrilling I tell you). Anyway when the rail opened in came the pallets and pallets and pallets of stock. This meant some major catch up needed to be done so instead of night workers we all became work whenever you can start workers. I worked every day, thank goodness I had no Nova. Now Good Friday is the day the shops close (confuses me but anyway) but I started work at 9am and finished at 4:30pm and we finally caught up, yay! I also worked Sat and Mon for my normal shifts. Goodbye long weekend. I sent Mr Sparky off camping with friends because he would be bored as hanging out for the weekend. Goodbye company. I should have been rejoicing really I had work and I had some peace and quiet to watch a movie and read some book but it just isn't the same as an Easter with family, not a bit the same as the chaos and noisiness and fun and mess of family.

Sunday I woke fairly early, hello body please sleep, and feeling pretty alone and low. Out of our bedroom door I spotted some little fellows enjoying the early morning. They lightened my mood, taking photos and seeing beautiful things in nature does that. 

I then decided to head for a walk and see what I could see to relax and to stop me moping.

I then packed, did an Easter delivery for Mr Sparky to discover when he came back home and headed up to the Tablelands for a day/ night camping trip. It salvaged my Easter weekend and it was good to be around people. I'll post more on that later.

So no matter how you spent your Easter and who it was with or where it was I hope you had a great Easter Sunday, a great Easter holiday and great long weekend. Whether your celebration was religious or through being with family of friends, through just relaxing or through heading out into nature I hope it was filled with love, joy, hope, fun and bit of magic.

Ita Follow Up

As Cyclone Ita worked her way to the coast and then followed it south she whipped up the place with some cyclonic winds and dumped a load of rain on the area. She hit the coast as a category 4 (the highest is a 5) and then decreased down to a category 3 but not before ravaging Hopevale and Cooktown. From all reports everyone up there thought they got of very lightly and the damage doesn't look too widespread. By the time she made it down to the Cairns area she was down to a category 1. Now the joke that goes around is that unless it is above a category 1 or 2 cyclone the locals don't bother about it. I can tell you why. A category 1 cyclone is like a windy, rainy day. I have see worse storms in other areas. A category 5 cyclone (which was what was predicted and coming until Ita lost strength is another matter).

Now the deluge of rain she dumped in places did cause some flooding that ultimately cut the main highway to North QLD. It reopened today, the rail yesterday. This meant that until last night/ today there was no new produce, groceries or anything else that gets shipped up here. The shops did well though. Yes, there was a shortage of milk, water, tinned goods, noodles and anything else people rushed out to buy 'just in case' Ita turned up to do her worst. But the thing is everyone should have had them in their house, that is why there was none left in the shops. 

Now a couple of days didn't hurt anyone but sometimes is can be a lot longer. Our very smart premier decided to tell everyone of the north what they already knew, have know for years, that when there is flooding nothing comes into the North (really, he is smart). He also decided a new route needs to be built to get here. Well I have some solutions for him ...

1. Don't send everything grown/made up in the North down South and then proceed to bring it back to put in the shops.

2. Bitumen the road between Charters Towers and the Atherton Tablelands tada! new route made.

3. Don't build roads and railway lines on flood prone areas and if you are going to, build them higher then the highest known flood.

4. Send it by boat, that is how everything gets to the Islands of North QLD

5. Who cares, people have lived with it for years.

Okay so I think that is enough blahing and time for me to throw up some pictures.

Walsh's Pyramid South of Cairns now has very visible waterfalls flowing down it (not so visible in this picture) and some paddocks of sugar cane are now looking a bit tousled or a bit flatter. Mr Sparky said most of it should be okay because it is older and tougher then if it got hit earlier.

The Gillies Highway/ range, the Kuranda Range, the highway North and the highway heading South were all closed but not for too long.

The Mulgrave River swelled almost making it over the Gillies Highway.

By Sunday morning it had already started going down.

But like all rivers and creeks in the areas had a new, rushing lease on life.

The Gillies Range was shedding water with waterfalls found all along the road. There are a few hundred drains that go under the road from these waterfalls to stop them going over the road.

There were also some mini rock slides but nothing too major.

It was amazing to see the Gillies Range with a slightly different look on. So much water and so many waterfalls.

Other then the water in rivers, creeks and the new waterfalls even on the Tablelands it was hard to tell there had been that much rain, let alone a cyclone. We went back down the Kuranda Range and the North certainly copped it a bit more then the South but even then it wasn't too bad.

More waterfall photos to come but of a different waterfall.