Well today Donald Trump won the presidential election and we drove from Mission Beach to Alva Beach via Townsville.

A grand total of about 360kms.

We woke to sunshine and 33 degree temperatures.

The boat company rang me back at 7.30 this morning so decided not to jump and go diving this morning but to wait and do it another day.

Instead we decided to go to Townsville and dive from there.

They have these across the road for the wee creators to get from one side of the road to the other safely. We didn’t see any Crocodiles or Kangaroos on them but maybe useful for the odd Possum.

This is small rig. In the Northern territories they put another trailer behind this one.

 

The journey was dogged by road works.

Here they have no lights but a guy waving you down telling you to go slow or stop to let the other lane go.

They are standing in the mid 30 degree heat all fay long waving traffic.

 

Maggie reached into the fridge and handled him a cold bottle of juice on the way past.

He looked questionably.

Then clicked.

 

‘No way – You got to be kiddin. Gees thanks.’

 

We felt so good.

Nearly matched by the workers about 20 meters down the road who looked at us, at him, and back at us.

It was ‘did we just see that’, closely followed by, ‘what about us’.

It was comedy.

 

On the way we stop at Hinchinbrook National Park.

The viewpoint here looks out over Diamontina Mountain.

This was the traditional dreaming place and source of thunder for Gungunu the local rainmaker. The channel devides the coast from the mainland and is a major wetland area.

If you visit walk the extra steps up to the top viewpoint as it not only offers views that are much superior but you also won’t have electricity pillons in the middle of your shot.

We travel on and looking for a place for brunch we head towards Jourama Falls in the Paluma National Park. You access this up a 2k dirt road but it is relatively flat suitable for all vehicles. You enter the Falls area through a forde but it clearly marks the depth so no problem. The Falls are today a swimming hole as they obviously aren’t all year round but I have a good swim and neither the snakes or turtles, that are reputedly here, do not show thwmselves. The only annoying thing are the flies that bite and leave unpleasant lumps. Still all the more reason to go in the water.

From there we travel to Townsville to see about diving from there. This is a city and offers very little to the tourist and can be well missed. Even the tourist information office recommended we move on, so we dis.

We chose Alva Beach as a stop of point.

They have a camp site so we took a ‘berth’ for the night and parked up, went for a swim in their pool. The owner was very keen we enjoyed their lovely pool. We were the only people at it and I think they probably maintain it in the hope it is used more. Anyway it was clean, a bit more chlorinated than needed but it was refreshing afrer the drive.

Next I suggested a walk to the beach as we were close to it.

I took off through the sand dunes expecting a path. There was a path which became three paths and then three more through the bushes.

Eventually Maggie was getting fed up and was ready to go back but I persuaded her to go to the beach as climbing a sanddune I realized we were no more than 50 meters from the water.

When we arrived there really easn’t a beach. The sandunes just ended and then the sea started. The soft sand ended at the water.

I wanted to go along the ‘beach’ to the road but Maggie thought that we should retrace our steps.

Now in sand with Mango Swamp in places its hard to see where you are and aftewr climbing umpteen dunes and not seeing anything apart from the sea we were slightly lost.

Eventually we found a hard track which we gladly followed especially as it led towards a comms mast in the distance.

After perhaps half a km we reached a dip through water.

Maggie said ‘I’m not going that way I’ll get filthy. She also though there will be Mozzies.

I thought, ‘If I was a Croc wouldn’t this be a fine place to live’.

Especially as on further investigation the water was the extension of a pool running over all the ways forward.

I didn’t bother mentioning this.

So we traced our steps back towards the beach.

Only problem was it was now almost completely dark.

Everything looks different in the dark.

You don’t want to be in a Mango swamp in the dark.

When Maggie heard a vehicle approaching she stood deirectly in it’s path.

Afterwards she said I wasn’t for letting it past.

I agreed.

So we got a lift with a young local guy in his 4×4 who brought us right back to the campsite.

He is probable feeling good he rescued some mad Irish from the swamp and we did appreciate it.

Another adventure.

Until tomorrow then.