Mt Carbine to Cairns

29th June 2009 Mt Carbine to Cairns
Before we left we exchanged email addresses with David who we had been chatting to us over the last few days. He and his wife were on their way up to the Tip and were leaving their caravan at the park and will be tenting it for about three weeks before they return and continue their journeys. They have rented out their house in Victoria for an indefinite period and intend to just keep travelling. Both still of a working age they pick up work when they need to or else they just take it easy. They do have a very grand caravan though, complete with shower and toilet. So they aren’t really roughing it normally. We hope to catch up with them again out west.
Just 10 kms travelling south from Mt Carbine the country changes from being very dry and cooler nights, to being almost lush. As we came down over the range, a very steep twisting single lane, the views were fantastic out and across the vast grazing lands to the ocean. Travelling to Cairns via Mossman we saw they had started cutting the cane everywhere, with the cane trains pulling numerous cages full of cane to the sugar mills.
We stopped off when we heard the phone come into range, had a coffee and made a few phone calls to find somewhere to stay for the next week. As school holidays have started in Queensland we knew we might have a problem. After a few knock backs we called the park we stayed at before and found we could return and even be in the same spot we had before, which we rather liked.
Called the police and reported our lost plate and arranged for the instant glass people to come out tomorrow morning and replace our rear window. With none in stock we settled on a second hand one, which we were assured was OK, otherwise we would have had to wait for one to come up from Melbourne which would have taken at least another week.
Purchased a post office bag to send the number plate to Sydney along with the forms and will wait for a new set to be returned to us. (Thank you Bob for helping out with this, much appreciated)
Stocked up on our groceries and settled down for a relaxing evening, it being a very pleasant 22deg.
Tomorrow we are into Cairns to the Police station and PO to send the plate off.