Out with the New, In with the Old...

No surprise really...

I already knew from the moment that Steve bought the Navara, that it wouldn't last long. You just can't have 5 Landcruisers in a row then be happy with a 3 litre 4 cylinder. It's only half a car!

Steve had decided that as soon as we returned home from our trip up north, that he'd advertise the Navara for sale. After a bit of discussion amongst the family and seeking advice from several car yards, we decided to remove the alloy tray and canopy and refit the original style-side tub. We were assured that we'd still get the money we were hoping to get with the style-side back on and we knew we'd have no problem selling the tray and canopy.

The tray and canopy sold within a few days of the ad being listed, as we thought it would. The particular canopy we had is hard to find second-hand, and much sought after.

Then we sent the Navara off to a spray painter mate to have a dent fixed and a few scratches touched up. We had originally told the guy we bought the Navara from that we'd get the dent fixed ourselves so he didn't need to, and he'd knocked a bit off the price to compensate us. So what if we only actually got it fixed so that we could sell it, lol.

Then it was off to the DOT to take our personalised plates off and replace them with a standard set, off to get the road worthy and safety certificate done (no prizes for guessing who ran these errands) then we took some photos and I uploaded the ad to the Trading Post.

After a slight drama with the Trading Post having two categories for Navaras - "Nissan Navara" and "Nissan Navara Ute" (despite the fact that they only ever came out as utes) - and our ad being in the Navara Ute category which didn't show up with a keyword search for "Nissan Navara", two phone calls and a whole lot of waiting on hold later, we had this changed and the phone calls from potential buyers started.

A man came round during the week and took it for a test drive. He loved it, and came back on Saturday with a bank cheque. He paid us $20500 for it. Not bad at all, considering we only paid $18500 when we bought it!

Naturally, Steve had already been scouring various car sales websites looking for potential replacements, and he'd picked out a nice dark green standard diesel GXL 100 Series Cruiser at Toowoomba. He'd phoned the seller a few times before we'd sold our Navara, and chatted about the vehicle. It was exactly what he wanted. The plan is to buy a standard diesel and save up the $5000 to get a turbo fitted to it. Two reasons for this - 1. factory turbo diesels in the 1998-2003 models are still selling for upwards of $35 thousand, which is well out of our price range, and 2. factory turbos come standard with independent front end suspension, and Steve would prefer a diff front end.

Sunday morning, we rolled out of bed (rolled being the appropriate word, after a night of eating huge steaks at Outback Jack's Restaurant... for those of you interested -no, Steve did NOT complete the challenge [see below pic], although he made a very good attempt, and my eye fillet was more than enough for me) and Steve phoned the guy selling the Cruiser in Toowoomba. He still had it, so we arranged to drive up and inspect it.

1 KG of rump, plus wedges and steamed veg! (If you eat it in half an hour, you get it for half price and get a t-shirt and your photo on their wall.)

After a bit of looking over the vehicle, taking it for a test drive and a whole lot more chin-wagging, we decided to buy it for the $22000 asking price. It's a little more than we wanted to spend, and for the first time ever Steve wasn't able to haggle for a cheaper price, but it is well worth the money.

They still need to get the road worthy, and we're still waiting on the bank cheque to clear from the people who bought our Navara, so it probably won't officially be "ours" until the end of the week, when we sign the transfer papers.

We're more than happy to be trading our 2005 model Navara for a 1998 Cruiser.

I promise to post pics once we get it.

Another year older...

It's nearly the end of October.

Both Steve and I have had our birthdays without much fanfare.

I turned 36 a week and a half ago, and Steve turned 38 five days later. We bought ourselves a GPS unit for the car for our trip to Cardwell, and decided that it would be our birthday present to each other.

Steve then got me a couple of scratchies (one from Cheyenne and one from him) to go in the cards, and I did the same for him. I won $15 on one of mine. Steve hasn't scratched either of his yet. Maybe he thinks if he keeps them long enough they might change into big winners, lol.

I also received a decorative handbag dangle thingy from Kaylene, $50 from my brother to go towards buying some new summer clothes, and my mum gave me some money to start me off with fixing up my teeth at the dentist. I'm not altogether sure just how far the money will get me, as I'm positive I'm going to need a mouthful of fillings at the very least, but I have an appointment at the end of the week, so I'll find out soon enough :(

White Water Rafting

Friday was an early start for Steve, but thankfully Cheyenne and I got to sleep in for a change! Steve, Helena, Jason, Robert and Brooks headed off to Tully to go white water rafting in Tully Gorge. It was another hazy day, but the sun was shining and there was a slight breeze.

Steve phoned later to let me know that the tour guide said they’d be having lunch at a particular vantage point, then after that, there’d be another good photo opportunity further down river.

Due to several back packers in hired camper vans, doing 80 km/h flat out on the single lane highway (God Bless the QLD Govt. – they’ve increased all our regos, why can’t they spend the money widening our main highway north?), Cheyenne and I arrived at the lunch area a little too late to see all but the last two groups of rafters. We did find the second vantage point further down river however, and waited for them all to flash past.

It was a really picturesque place to wait, and would have made a nice shady picnic spot, had we not been rushing out of the car to scramble down the track in case we missed the rafts again!

I did manage to get a couple of photos of them as they went past, and several scenic shots of the Tully Gorge as well. Just as well, since it would have really made my day (NOT) if I’d driven an hour each way along a narrow winding road and completely missed them…

Here they come!

There they go!

Steve bought himself a souvenir photo as well, so despite the difficulty of being at the right place at the right time, we did still end up with a few shots of the day's fun.

Hazy Days, Waterfalls and 20 Litres of Vodka

When the sun came up on Thursday, it revealed a smoky haze. Not the red dust storm that had hit Sydney and Brisbane, but it turned the sky grey nonetheless.

We had no particular plans, so decided to drive up towards Mission Beach, stopping along the way at Murray Falls. This is a very pretty waterfall, with a picnic area and swimming hole.

We decided to have a sausage sizzle for lunch, then headed to the water to cool off. There were a couple of nice deep pools, surrounded by smooth, water-rounded rocks, which some kids were sliding down.

These kids kindly let us take turns using their rock sliding boards – cut from plastic 20 litre Vodka drums. Such a brilliant idea! They’d climb to the top of the rock, pour a bucket of water down the side to make the sliding path slippery, then sit on the board and slide down the rock, into the icy cold running water at the bottom. It was heaps of fun, although I did manage to have a stack whilst trying to race Steve. Got a bit of air, banged my elbow and came down hard on the raised edge of the plastic (and boy, did I get a whopper of a bruise on my right butt cheek!)

(Hopefully, if Blogger does what it's supposed to do, this will be a short video of me sliding down the rocks on a "Vodka board")

After we finished swimming, we drove to Mission Beach, however the lousy visibility prevented us from having a decent view of the islands. Even Dunk Island was lost in the haze, so it isn't worth uploading any photos of that.

Still, for a completely unplanned, lazy day, we had the best fun.

Wedding Anniversary and day trip to Cairns

Wednesday 23rd September - our 9th Wedding Anniversary.

As we didn’t budget for a lot of extras on our holiday, we decided that we wouldn’t do all activities together. I’d go to Cairns with Bec, Daniel and Daniel’s parents Rob and Cathy, to go on the Kuranda Scenic Railway and Skyrail today, and Steve would do the white water rafting in Tully Gorge (that he really wanted to do) on Friday.

Another early start of course, as we had to be at Freshwater Station in Cairns by 9.30am, and it’s about a 3 hour drive from Cardwell. A lovely day dawned though, and it had really started to warm up by the time we arrived in Cairns. First stop was a detour to the gift shop to buy Scenic Railway fridge magnets. (I have to get one from each place I visit, mostly to annoy Steve, lol)

Here's some of the pertinent info from the tourist guide - "Completed in 1891, the 37 km of track from Cairns to Kuranda ascends 328 metres and includes 15 tunnels, 37 bridges and 98 curves"

The Kuranda Scenic Railway really lived up to its name, but, as everyone is environmentally conscious these days, it was rather hard to get decent photos through the trees.

Although it is dry season, Stony Creek Falls are running, so I did almost manage to get the “postcard” photo, albeit with a narrower stream of water tumbling over the falls than you would usually see in postcards.

Barron Falls were also running nicely, and I got some lovely shots from the viewing platform at Barron Falls Station. (see photo below)



We had a few hours in Kuranda before our scheduled trip back on the Skyrail, so we wandered around the shops and markets then had an overpriced lunch in one of the pubs. After lunch, there was more browsing around the shops, where I taste-tested and bought a bottle of Mango Port, before heading to the Skyrail gift shop for (you guessed it) another fridge magnet!

The Skyrail gondolas seat 6, so we were able to travel together. It is almost like flying, being that high above the rainforest canopy. There was another fantastic view of Barron Falls and further downstream to the Hydro-Electric Plant. There are two stations along the route back down from Kuranda. We got off at Red Peak to walk along the rainforest boardwalk, then boarded another gondola for the rest of the trip down from the mountains.

Kuranda Skyrail Station - looking out over Daniel and Bec's shoulders to the next gondola

View out over the rainforest canopy from the Skyrail gondola

Self in the gondola on the downhill stretch

A quick stop off in Cairns to go to JB Hi-Fi, so that Bec could buy a charger for her dead camera battery, then we headed back home to Cardwell.

When I arrived home I had to hurry and get dressed because Steve had arranged for us to have dinner at the restaurant at Cardwell Marina for our 9th wedding anniversary. Helena, Jason and their family kindly offered to look after Cheyenne so that we could eat dinner in peace for a change.

All in all, it was a very nice day, and I’m glad I decided to go to Kuranda.

And We're Off...

(Well, actually we're home, but the internet access while we were away was expensive and a bit slow, so now that we're back I can finally upload my holiday blog)

We were on the road at 3am, as planned, with only a small amount of resistance from Cheyenne. “It’s still night time!” She was a little happier when she realized that even though the sun wasn’t up yet, it was her birthday already. The song playing on the radio as we drove off down our street was “Road To Nowhere”, which we thought was quite appropriate.

Happy 6th birthday, Cheyenne!

Our first stop was the BP Travel Centre Caboolture, to meet up with our travelling companions. Going on the holiday with us were friends Helena and Jason, their two kids Chante and Robert, Robert's mate Brookes, Jason's brother Daniel and his girlfriend Bec. Steve had offered our spare seat to Chante, so that she didn’t have to squeeze into the back seat of the Mazda BT50 with the two boys. It also meant that Cheyenne had someone to talk to on the way up. The girls kept each other amused for 14 hours, luckily for us!

The trip was reasonably uneventful, other than Steve losing a bearing cap off the boat trailer and having to stop at Supercheap in Rockhampton to buy a pair of bearing buddies, and re-grease the wheel bearing. A late afternoon stop at KFC in Mackay, and we were on the road again, arriving in Cannonvale around 6.30pm. This gave us just enough time to check into the cabins at the Seabreeze caravan park, have a shower, walk up the road to Hungry Jacks to have dinner, and get back in time to watch the Broncos game.

Sunday morning, after feeding some lorikeets that landed on the railing of our cabin, we drove out to the lookout at Shute Harbour, took a few photos in Airlie Beach, and hit the road again, arriving in Cardwell by mid-afternoon.

Hand feeding lorikeets at the caravan park at Cannonvale.

Home sweet home for the week

The cabins are very basic, but are located together, close to the amenities block. The three cabins have their own covered bbq area with outdoor setting, which is just as well, seeing as the only cooking facilities the cabins have is a microwave (with only a small microwave jug to cook in!) and an electric frypan. Steve did bring up his single burner gas cooker, but there is, of course, no saucepan, so cooking the cheerios and hotdogs could present a challenge!

View from Cardwell Beach near the jetty, showing part of Hinchinbrook Island in the background

An evening visitor on the railing of the cabin.

On Monday morning the boys took their boats out and went fishing, while the girls drove back into Ingham to do a bit of grocery shopping and have lunch.

We have a few ideas of things we’d like to see and do while we are in the area, including a day trip to Cairns, but I guess we’ll have to see how things pan out.