Coral Sea north of Cairns along the Captain Cook Highway
This morning we left Port Douglas and started on our trip back towards New South Wales. We aren’t sure yet how circuitous the route will be. We only know for sure we plan to be in Araluen the week before Christmas.
It was another very nice day. We stopped along the Coral Sea north of Cairns to take some pictures of the ocean, then stopped in Cairns to stock up on supplies for the next few days. We bought a small (30 cm) table fan that we can run off the inverter, since it only takes 40W. The ceiling fan and air conditioner work great, but they require 240 volts, and we have been free camping along the ocean.
We decided to stop again at Balgal Beach since it is such a nice free campsite. When we got here there were no other campers on site, though one more campervan showed up just before supper. There are even more birds here now than when we were last here a week ago. The red-tailed black-cockatoos have pretty much stripped all the figs from the tree, and most of them are on the ground. Now they are taking the nuts from the beech trees, and since we are parked under one of them, mostly they are dropping them onto our awning. It is a good thing the awning is up, as the nuts hurt when they land on you. The lorrikeets are having a feast of the nuts from the ground where they have landed. There were about 50 or more of them here eating when we arrived this afternoon.
Lorrikeets at Balgal Beach
It was very warm so we decided to go for a swim in the ocean. That didn’t really cool us off much, as the water is probably the warmest we’ve ever swum in. It was almost like swimming in a very salty bathtub. We barbecued some chicken for supper, and then I walked over to the store to buy a pineapple for $2. It was spoiled when Enid cut into it, so she took it back and got another. It was better, and very sweet and joicy.
We could see a very large thunderstorm building over the hills (the Australian’s call them mountains, but really they are only about 1000 m high) to the west. Now it has reached us, and it is starting to rain heavily, and there some lightning. We are indoors, and very glad we have the fan, or it would be rather warm in here.