11. The one when we showered with tree pythons

Current weather: 32/14°C, sunny
Total distance travelled: 5352km (+1057km)

Our journey west started with a climb out of Port Douglas over the Great Dividing Range - a diesel-guzzling, winding, but scenic road up to the Atherton Tablelands. In an instant, the rainforests and sugarcane were gone, replaced by a range of tropical fruit orchards, and eucalypt forests. Perhaps fooled by the name, I'd (Matt) expected the Tablelands to be flat. Instead, they're full of rolling green hills and the occasional wind farm, which at one point reminded me of the Loch Valley in Gippsland, with steep green ravines either side of the ridgeline.

Our first stop was in Moree, a town which claims to enjoy an unbelievable 300 days each year of sunshine. Today was certainly one of them! We were visiting Skybury - a coffee and red papaya plantation with a roastery and cafe on site, where we enjoyed a delicious meal with a beautiful view.

We continued on towards Ravenshoe (the highest town in Queensland), where we stopped to stretch our legs with a short walk at Millstream Falls. To our amazement, the Falls were still flowing, despite the landscape now becoming increasingly arid. We were now entering the Gulf Savannah, which apparently only has two temperatures: hot and hotter.

Undara National Park, famous for it lava tubes, was our destination for the day, but the kids only had eyes for the pool. It didn't last too long though, with Josh emerging from the pool with blue lips.

Our 'wind tunnel' tour started at 8am the next morning. Thankfully Murray, our tour guide, quickly dispelled our sleepy stupor with his enthusiasm and knowledge about the formation of this incredible landscape and the fauna and flora that inhabit it. There's a huge amount of scientific interest in this area, with NASA even using the tubes to perfect its control of the Mars Rover! Inside, the caves are both eerie and awe-inspiring with bones and bat poo on the ground but a fused basalt archways above our heads.

Shortly after our tour, we were back on the road, continuing west and

soon discovering that while the Gulf Developmental Road is considered 'sealed', that doesn't necessarily mean there's a lane of bitumen for each direction of traffic! Out in these parts, there's often only one lane. If you meet equally-sized oncoming traffic, there's enough room to pass with each having a wheelson the bitumen. But if a road train is coming the other way, you're eating red dust while skating along the gravel edge!

We stopped briefly in Georgetown to restock supplies before leaving the main road for the town of Forsayth. While we knew the road in was unsealed, we weren't prepared for just how corrugated it was - obviously the grader hasn't visited for a while now. Eventually we rattled our way into town, and were thankful for a shady spot to escape the heat of the day.

Saturday morning commenced with a 45km drive on brutally corrugated road from Forsayth to Cobbold Gorge. We were thankful NOT to be towing the van for this stretch!

Here, we were taken on an adventure with Jono, our tour guide and about a dozen other tourists, all of whom were grey nomads, making our kids quite the novelty. They even sang 'Happy Birthday' to Josh, who was quick to inform his attentive audience that his birthday was ‘only 13 days away!’ We were trucked out to the gorge where we were greeted by a crocodile on the other side of the riverbank before boarding a small boat that ferried us through the pristine gorge. It was

incredibly tranquil enjoying the stunning views and sighting the fascinating archer fish and even a baby crocodile camouflaged on a tree branch. Apparently they can not exist with the larger crocodiles and have to fend for themselves from birth, otherwise the older crocs will eat them!

The gentle cruise through the gorge was followed by a bush walk where we were awed by Jono’s stories of how indigenous people extracted food, medicine and hunting aids (such as the ‘gidgee gidgee vine’ that they crushed and threw into the water to stun fish). To our eyes, it simply looked like a harsh and barren landscape. We were able to pick and crush the leaves of the plant used to make dettol as well as a licorice plant, which made me wonder how much indigenous knowledge has informed our use of medicinal plant products. (I’m sure there is much more we could learn!)

Another highlight of the bush walk was the crossing of the glass bridge where we donned our booties and traversed over the top of the gorge, gaining a birds eye view and sighted a fairly large croc too!

Being the only 2 kids on tour, Jono invited Acacia and Josh to sit with him at the front of the truck for the trip back, which they were pretty stoked with. We went on to enjoy a refreshing swim in the beautiful infinity pool overlooking the lake, trying not to disturb the grey nomads enjoying a ‘peaceful’ afternoon dip.

Much to the family’s amazement, I (Carolyn) fell asleep on the drive back to Forsayth, despite the car almost rattling itself apart (well, so they tell me)! Acacia incredulously pointed out that I wake when someone moves in the van at night, but managed to sleep through that crazy drive… there’s just something about the hum of the engine that I cannot help but succumb to!

The perfect day was topped off with a shower with a tree python! It would have been easily missed by unsuspecting patrons, but our neighbours had informed us of its presence that morning. Apparently they live in the walls of the amenities blocks at the Forsayth Caravan Park. We were told they are harmless and blindly believed. Thankfully it didn’t move for the duration of our showers, although my imagination started getting the better of me when the timer on the light switch elapsed and the amenities went dark!

The next day's objective was simple - get across the remainder of the Gulf Savannah to Karumba, on the edge of the Gulf of Carpenteria. We packed and left early, with the first challenge of getting back onto the main road first on the agenda. We made it, refuelled, but then realised the price we'd paid for our off road excursion...

Somewhere along the way, the water tank's screwed base plug had rattled out, dropping 150L of precious drinking water somewhere in the dust! Added to that, the inner glass panel on the oven had shattered thanks to a stray oven tray, scattering glass all over the caravan! And then to top it off, a bottle of kecap manis had its lid knocked off, with the sweet and sticky sauce now oozing out across the glass-covered floor... yep, deep breaths... many paper towels, and broom-sweeps later, we moved on.

The rest of the drive was relatively uneventful, with a brief stop in Croydon (much smaller, drier and dustier than its Victorian namesake) for lunch & fuel, before continuing on through Normanton to finally get to Karumba - appropriately tagged 'where outback meets the sea'. The hours of glaring sun, red dust, dry grass, termite hills, grazing cattle, and scattered eucalypt finally breaking out onto flat waters teeming with life. If it's not the fishing, then it's the sunset that brings people here - a beautiful, peaceful view across the Gulf.