Thierings on Tour

We had a good start to the morning with Jazzy feeling much better and a general happy vibe at camp! The girls wanted to explore the beach to see if they could find any cassowaries this morning so off we went in our pyjamas (because why not?) to go for a walk along the beach. We didn’t see any, but it was still a gorgeous place to explore.

The girls were fascinated by this little green grasshopper who was perched up in the shower block watching everyone closely. I just love how his eyes look like he is legit spying on you, ha ha.

Back at camp Chris decided to treat us to bacon & eggs, but as he was cooking the BBQ the heavens opened and we had to scramble to put as much as we could away before we got soaked. The rain really does add so much complexity to the equation for adults, however the kids embraced it as a chance to throw on the gumboots, waterproof splash pants and their rain jackets 😂
At least that helped Chris and I to pack up more quickly and hit the road for the day.

Babinda Boulders was our first spot and it looked great. There are a number of swimming spots in the National Park here surrounded by giant boulders. Yes, my mum would be in heaven 🙂 
The water was cool, but so refreshing and the girls are finally getting used to swimming in water holes rather than just swimming pools! My favourite was the second section we went to, where you could swim across the river from one giant boulder to another. Whilst the girls were a bit apprehensive at first, they loved jumping in and swimming across by themselves by the end of our time there. What a fun experience for them!

To relish in their swimming achievements we stopped at Babinda Bakery for some sausage rolls and everyone got to pick a treat. $61 lighter everyone was stuffed full of sugar and we headed on to the falls. Feeding these kidlets out and about is quickly adding up to be one of our top expenses on the trip…

Josephine falls has a number of viewing platforms and we enjoyed exploring all of them. It’s amazing how powerful the sound of the water is, especially right at the bottom of the cascade before it trickles down to the lower levels. 
The girls were desperate to go for a swim here too, but the many warning signs about potential dangers and needing to be confident swimmers put an end to that request. Instead we admired the view from every platform and found a natural vine/tree swing which the girls loved testing out.

Heading onto Malanda in the Atherton Tablelands was a challenging road with the van. So many hills to ascend and descend and so many turns. It’s certainly a good test for some of the tricky roads ahead as we start making our way towards the tip of Australia soon.

We reached Malanda Falls Caravan Park and set up for the our first 3 night stay of the trip! Can’t wait to stay put in one place for so long and not have to pack up and set up the van for a few days… yay!

Chris let the girls stay up for State of Origin, which whilst fun at the time ended up being rather a handful when we had to put two overtired kids to bed at 10.30pm 😳never again!!!

Kms travelled – 177