Garradunga Pub

After spending a week up on the Atherton Tablelands we stopped at Atherton for a night to catch up with Kay & Les, who we had house sat for last year. We had a great catch up and headed off in the morning to Garradunga Pub to catch up with Cathy and Neville as they were heading to the table lands from Forrest Beach and we could spend a night together at the Pub, good idea !! Especially when the camping fee is ...... you need to buy a beer, sounded very attractive to me.

The Garradunga Pub is about 20km North of Innisfail amongst the Cain fields, between the Bruce Hwy and the coast. There is plenty of room behind the Hotel for camping for groups and large rigs.

We are camped to the left of the pub

On the 3rd Sunday of the month they have a market and the pub puts on a roast pork roll. We arrive on the Thursday and arrange to stay there for one night with Neville and Cathy, have a pub meal and be on our way the next day.

Paying our camping fees

Sunday market out the front of the pub.

After a great meal in the pub on Thursday night and a little persuasion from the publican (not much was needed) we decided to stay another day.  This then lead on to stay until Sunday for the roast pork roll and Cathy had some dresses left in stock that would be good to sell at the market so what was going to be one night turned out to be 3 nights.

Cathy used a cloth line to set up her stall, and made a few sales.

On Sunday after lunch we parted ways, we headed south while Cathy and Neville headed north. Helen was not feeling the best and as it turned out contacted Laryngitis.  We stayed one night at Vincent Parker free camp (Rollingstone) before heading into Townsville Coral Coast CP for a few nights where Helen went to the docs and was told to rest her voice :) - I wasn't going to get anymore cheek from her for a couple of weeks.

Ellis Beach, Far North Qld

Stopped off at Smithfield Shopping Centre (Cairns) for the usual stock up of food before driving to the Northern Beaches, in particular Ellis Beach, where we stayed for 3 days.  The weather was great and we spent quite a bit of time on the beach soaking up the Vitamin D and enjoying the scenery.

The Ellis Beach Caravan Park is in a prime location with great access to the beach although unfortunately our site backed onto the main road (Captain Cook Highway) which at times was very very noisy - some times we thought we had actually camped in the middle of the road!!  Next time I think we will book a beach side site which would be ideal with ocean views to die for and much less road noise.  Of course you pay premium rates for these sites!!

Sunrise view from Ellis Beach looking out to Double Point Island - typical tropical clouds

Looking north from the Caravan Park along Ellis Beach

Looking south along Ellis Beach Caravan Park beach front towards Palm Cove

We left the beach views and drove up to the Tablelands where we will stay for a week or so and re-visit some of the natural beauty the area offers.

Forrest Beach, Qld

Forrest Beach is a fishing and holiday community, larger than we had thought with a pub, small supermarket, takeaway and even a realestate agent in town.  It seemed to have a nice community feel about the town, maybe that's because we stayed at the Pub!! The caravan park is part of the Forrest Beach Hotel and check-in is actually in the bottle department ....... how good is that! Needless to say we booked in for a week as we had to stay for the $10 dinner meal night and the 2 for 1 night at the pub as well.  Hels thought we could stay for a few months next time! Maybe ...

We meet up with friends Neville and Kathy who had been staying here for a month and being keen fishermen were eager to take us to their favourite fishing spot.  Naturally, we couldn't refuse so out with the fishing line and had a few hours fishing each day. I managed to catch a Dart and jagged a flathead so I was happy.  We had enough fish for dinner one night which Kathy cooked up for us.

Forrest Beach is also in a Cane growing area and has other fishing towns close by which we visited -Taylors Beach, Lucinda and also had a look around Halifax which is a small community in between these two beaches.  Lucinda is situated near the southern end of Hinchinbrook Island and is home of the Lucinda Bulk Sugar Terminal.  The terminal was constructed in 1979 and is the longest service jetty in the Southern Hemisphere.  At 5.76 km long and supported by 600 concrete and steel pylons, the jetty actually follows the curvature of the earth.  In 2011 during cyclone Yasi waves surged over the deck and destroyed the ship loader, it took 18 months to rebuild at a cost of $50 million.

Forrest Beach - another magnificent sunrise - what chair will I sit in today?

Camping right on the beach

Lucinda Jetty, 5.76 km long

The ship loader at the end of the jetty

You could nearly hear this Holden rusting!! Amazing what people have in their front garden

Cane harvest time

Cane train

Forrest Beach with a few keen fishermen

After a great week at Forrest Beach it was hard to get moving - headed to Bramston Beach where we stayed 2 nights (had stayed there last year as well).  Enjoyed staying there again and particularly enjoyed an ice cream treat for Fathers Day!!  Next stop - Ellis Beach (Cairns northern beaches).