Cairns and back up the Mountain

Tin roof, wooden floor, luxury, more than I've had for awhile

We got to Cairns late in the day but decided to head up the mountain, past  Karanda to the closet river to stay with Vince in the 'tractor shed', another perfect spot right beside the river. It's just a tin roof and a wooden floor but that's more than what we normally have for a camp, plus not having any walls keeps it cool. We need to do a bit of work for Vince in exchange for rent, which is OK, because most of the work will be tidying up our shed, which we would do anyway.

Monday rolled around time to get stuff done in town. James to his appointments, and I dropped off the fridge, got a broccoli box instead for a fridge, hopefully  the fridge will only take a week. Finally  i will get it fixed after being mucked around by Townsville warranty agent.

We tidied up our new camp, took a load of Rubbish to the tip, Much better.
I built a shower just a sheet of tin wrapped around a couple trees, some flat river stones for a floor and my new 12v shower that I hooked up to my Milwaukee drill battery, pumps heaps of water at 18volts. Built a long drop dunny, strange experience digging a hole that deep no bigger than yourself.
 Found a kitchen bench & sink under the floor, so we attached that to the wall, the place is looking really good. Kitchen sink and all. The usual job of collecting water, when it's fresh and this close we need a bucket every day.
Even hada a Goanna stroll around the camp most days

Our pet Goanna 

Tried to catch Yabbies but they are only small here, I think the river is too cold for big cherubim. I had a big stack of coconuts from Balgal Beach which I shelled, diced & dried them in the sun, add a little salt and it will store for 6months,  mix them with sultanas and it makes a awesome trail mix scroggin.

Got my fridge back after only a week, woo hoo fridge, freezer, cold food, frozen meat, cold drinks, cold icy smoothies for breakfast, and nothing floating in smelly ice water. Ahhh.

We helped Vincents son Mark run a new water pipe up to his house at the top of the hill. And got the bad news that we need to find a new camp, but it's been a good few weeks with a roof and a floor, and all for free. 

Jame's tent few off the roof and swiftly pitched its self on the side of the Bruce highway. 

The creek at our new camp in the rain forest. 

Dunny! 

Found this old classic about 100m from the rd. 

Baron falls, only a trickle. 

Wright's lookout, Kuranda, Baron gorge with a view to Cairns in the distance. 

The rain forest 'Humpy' 

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The shower I built. 

Platypus painting, they are in the creek, but hard to find. 

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- Handyman then off to Cairns

Balgal Beach

Townsville- handyman for Aunty Charlene
After staying at the dusty campsite by the Bhole River and fixing the truck we had a break and went to Balgal Bay where there is a free camp site full of grey nomads. right on the beach next to jetty and boat ramp.Tried to fish and no luck, had to fix James rod with copper pipe as well. Climbed a coconut tree,getting good at this too, to get a couple of bunches of cocnmuts.yum
We went to pineapple festival at Rollongstone to check out the local food stores,not much there only pineapples LOL, We found Little Crystal Creek where there was a old hand built bridge and lots of nice swimming holes so had a good swim the rest of the afternoon and  back at Bagal Beach.
Back to Townsville-Handy man for Aunty Charlene and a free haircut too.Earn some Cash to get to Cairns as couldn't find much work in Townsville..
At Aunty Charlene's we built a deck extension for the BBQ, weather strip on door to stop rain  that never comes to Townsville, replaced garden edging with bricks which involved  lots of Bunnings trips.
Thanks Aunty Charlene for all your yummy food and nice shower
Had to fix my frypan handle, its rearly good now
 Our last Day in Townsville we found The Lagoon, a giant salt water pool which was great to cool off in, would have been nice to have found it earlier as you cant swim in the sea to many stinkers
Now off too Cairns to hopefully find some work there.

Copper pipe to fix rod

Hand made stone Bridge by Crystal Creek

swimming hole and jumping rock

Rocks at Crystal Creek

James trying to Fly at Crystal Creek

Deck to fix

Perfect fit

All fixed ready for BBQ

weather strip on door

fixed fry pan handle with block wattle wood

Garden edging

More garden edging

Salt water lagoon-Townsville

Fire line advancing over the hill- I never imagined I would see this

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Bush-Mechanic

Bhole River-Back to camp there again, in the dry dust bowl of Townsville.

Nearly as big as Bon Scott's mullet. 

I discovered the Fuel tank leaks on the way south at the Jardine River ferry, who knows how long it's been doing that, probably left a trail all over the cape. When you put more that 50ltrs in it a drip starts, It's a 135litre tank. so time to fix it, I got all the parts I thought I might need before I started, since it won't go without a tank in it. Now to jack it up, had to use the little bottle jack which is too short with the raised suspension & big tyre's. Dropped the exhaust and rear drive shaft off and the tank still wouldn't come out, I had to dig hole underneath,(this is my bush mechanics work  pit, LOL). I couldn't jack it any higher, used my steel Aldi jerry can as an axel stand and logs as wheel chocks. Finally got it out, rolled it over a couple times until I could see petrol in the dust, I think there"s only 2 litres left, hopefully enough to get to the servo wen I'm done. Cleaned up the cracks with Milwaukee cordless grinder and sealed with 2part epoxy steel stuff. Works great, let it dry overnight and put everything back together, with rubber mounts this time to help reduce some of the vibration and flexing off road. Off to the servo to fill the tank, & check for leaks  hope I make it.

Bush mechanics work pit

Managed to land another job, but oh no it's delivering flyer's, the pay is terrible, and I have to walk a bloody long way, rather be walking 20+km to a waterfall or fishing spot.You have to have app on phone so boss knows that you delivered them and didn't just put them in the rubbish. The only good thing apart from the small amount of money was raiding all the rosemary bushes I saw in peoples front gardens, makes pot roasts even more awesome, especially Lamb.

That looks safe, right? 

Next on the list is a service, dropped the oil out  & refilled with wonderful golden Penrite oil, changed oil filter, cleaned air filter, replaced the outer front sway bar bushes, re-attached my custom belly plate with stainless nylocks,  it had nearly rattled off, and greased all the nipples I could find. 

The jerry can holder held up pretty good, even off rd through the rough stuff, I was always worried it would drag and get wrecked but it's a permanent addition now, needed to straighten it up a bit with a hammer but that's it.  Put a nice new stainless lid on the water drum using left over kick panel from the kiosk job, and added a drop down table to the back, no more dodgy wobbly slat table that has to be set up every time we stop. 

Finally finished off the new roof rack, Bolted the basket down to the cross bars which are uni strut, the same stuff we use to mount air cons roof rack down, instead of u bolts that can only be hand tightened. Added some storage mounts underneath for shovel, kayak paddle and the essential fish cooker. 

Cleaned dust off the starter battery and topped up the water but this didn't improve it at all, so I ordered a new one, this ones getting pretty old and I need something more reliable. 

130ah

1000cca 

AGM ( absorbed glass Matt dry gel cell)

super start battery

Same as the one for the fridge, weighs over 30kgs. That should solve my power problems, hopefully. 

Just as well I am a bush mechanic, I wonder what all of this would have cost me if I paid a mechanic to do it? 

I will probably find more things to fix but I think I did alright over all those rough roads. 

No tank, so guess we camp here. 

Replaced original aluminium lid with nylon lid befor I left Brisbane because it was corroded. 

Replaced with a nice stainless one. 

Got some aluminium sheet off cuts from the engineers and made a table. 

The leak. 

30kg of lead power. 

Rosemary potroast 

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Alva Beach -great fishing

Shovel nose shark, I knew that selfie stick would be usefull. 

Townsville-After a relaxing week having almost everything done for us and an automatic machine that makes excellent coffee. It cleans it self at 7am and I thought it's already making noise it's OK to make a coffee even though everybody was still asleep.  Thanks again for all the washing mum. And thanks for the dinners, free Wi Fi, and all your hospitality Aunty Charleene. It was weird living indoors, with flat ground underfoot, everything is easy and automatic, the callus's even started wearing off my hands & feet.

James went off  Brisbane on the plane to visit his family and I went to work at Stocklands Mall, installing a Dodo Internet kiosk. Was a good easy job and made some cash but unfortunately just a one off.

Dodo kiosk I helped install at Stocklands, Townsville.

  Left Aunty's and made camp by Bohle River, close to town in the hopes of finding more work.  It was a nice camp, close to town, in the back of an industrial area, better than paying rent or camping fees. Had a go at fishing, lots of mullet, there is supposed to be Barra, Jack, and Crocs in here but it must be where they come for a dry season holiday cause they're not biting.

After a few days of checking gumtree for jobs and chilling by the river, in the dry dusty bush, I went to Alva Beach for my birthday, I think I'm about 31 this year, 2 hours south of Townsville out from the Town called Ayr. I thought it would be better than sitting at the river by myself, and it was.  Alva beach is virtually in passable in a 4wd, all the locals use quads to go up the tip, it's a thin drivable looking layer if sand on top of mud. Regularly swallows trucks and now one will come to help, for fear of sinking in themselves. I got just far enough to find the exit of a massive gutter that was about  1km long, and a Pippy bed, combined with the big tide should be a good fishing spot. 

I got two big snapper 45 & 55cm (banded javelin). Snapper on the fire for tea with a nice bottle of Baillie Nicole whiskey.

Two nights of lots & lots of Midgees, I finally  headed back to the Bohle River camp & picked up James from airport. James, he got his license back, woo hoo! It's been along time waiting for this, and he past all tests 100%, now he can drive me around. I been driving so long now I'm a nervous passenger, hate to think how my passengers felt with me flying along the dodgy roads up north, I couldn't be a passenger.

Big tides brought these two right to the back of my truck, I was camped about 2m above the high tide. 

Bohle River camp, Townsville. 

Waiting for the tide to come in at Alva beach. 

The view from my truck. Full moon, king tide, here fishy fishy. 

Low tide at Alva beach. 

Cheap little pumpkins at the farmers gate in Ayr Town.

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