Tales From The Trax: Ellis Beach

A bit of time has passed since the last entry.

We headed from the last camp, to Charters Towers, hoping to stay at another “free camp”.

As I said previously, you have to get in damn early to get a spot. We stopped for lunch at what looked like a decent spot, by the time we had finished, there were already 6 vans in and setting up for the night.

Damned if we were ready to stop, so we went on to Charters Towers, which has the most beautiful old buildings in the main street. It is a town of very wide streets. I imagine in summer the heat would be fairly extreme here. We were able to get into a park in their “over-flow” area, which was o/k.

We then planned to drive 160 odd kilometres to Townsville, and spend a bit of time there, however again, we rang 5 parks and "sorry, no vacancies". (School hols and all that). So not to be put off we headed for Cairns, yep, all booked out. By this stage we were pretty stuffed, so rang a park that had been recommended. They were also full, but had a cabin, “yes, we will take it”

It was dark when we finally arrived and parked the van across the road nest to the manager’s cabin. Walked over and into the cabin, which turned out to be absolute beach frontage.

The place, Ellis Beach. About 20k north of Cairns. The manager said there are no powered sites, as people book them 12 months ahead, and have done so for years.

As a famous man once said “however”, and there is always a “however” they have un-powered sites, that cannot bebooked. First in best dressed. As we had a cabin, he told us to hitch the van up early and be ready to go.

We kept an eye on the un-powered area, and as soon as we saw a Camper packing up, we were there.

We have one of the best sites in Australia! Nice clean, white sand, palm trees, warm, and water that is croc free (well mostly), and no stingers this time of the year.

We had booked into stay here until Sunday, but as it is so nice, we decided to stay another week. We look out to 2 islands, and our van is backed onto the beach.

The place has a really nice feel to it. Everyone gathers at the camp-kitchen at night to eat and swap yarns about their travels, and best of all, we get our maps out and exchange the “must go’ places.

Yesterday we picked up Cazza’s brother Andrew and went to Kuranda, Up by Sky Rail and back by the train. This needs to be on the must do list.

I probably would not do it again, but really worthwhile once. The sky rail glides over the most magnificent (World Heritage) rain forest. At times you are a hundred metres above the canopy, and it is not hard to imagine the view birds get as they fly between tree tops.

Kuranda itself if a bit commercial, and trying to get every tourist dollar they can. Lots of market type shops, selling the usual market stuff. Still it was interesting and the train ride back pretty good.

Today is a slow day, I have been reminded is Saturday. The sun is out with a gentle tropical breeze.
Until later.