May 28 - Lucinda to El Arish - 140 km

Headed off from Lucinda.  I didn't lock down the flap on one of the panniers and lost a good pair of sandals somewhere between Lucinda and Halifax. So if you see them, send them to me.   It wasn't worth the 10 or so km to go back, so I wrote them off.  The turn off to the Bruce Highway wasn't sign posted, so we missed the turn off and did about 6 km before we realised our mistake.  Checked the map and then headed back the way we had come and took the correct turn off.


As we were heading back we saw this cane train that had come across the river.  It was moving fast so I put up my hand for them to stop so I could get a picture.  Good guys that they are, did stop.

Eventually hit the Bruce Highway and headed for Cardwell.

Soon after the turn off we had to go over the Cardwell Ranges.  The hills were not too bad except for this one.  Not a problem normally, but they were doing roadworks and the road was very skinny with almost no shoulder.  A B double crowded Tony off the road and into a concrete wall.  No injury, but his heart was pumping faster.

 Got to Cardwell and one of the first things I saw was this sign outside the hardware store.  


Had morning tea at Cardwell and visited the rain forest centre run by National Parks.  I got a T-shirt saying I had walked the Thorsborne Track.  I only mention this because when Peter Howard and I did the walk 5 years ago, they were not available then. Peter will be livid he doesn't have one;-))

 After a good break we headed off to Tully for lunch.  








We had talked about going whitewater rafting at Tully, but decided to push on so we could beat the bad weather that was meant to be coming.  Pity because Tully is the best whitewater rafting in Australia.  


Tully has the big Gumboot as it's totem because of the areas high rainfall. The Gumboot is 29 meters tall which is the amount of rainfall that fell on Tully in their record year 1950 .

At one stage we were going to go to Mission Beach for the night, but decided against it because it would have been about a 150 km day.  Also Joe did not want to get WET ( he was pretty happy about getting high and laid though).

Another cane train in Tully.










We got food for dinner at Tully and then headed off for a rest area at El Arish for the night.  Saw this Tip Top bread truck that had gone head first into a gully as we headed for El Arish.

 We had intended to spend a lot more time camping in the bush when we first started the trip, but the rest stops are just too good to pass up.

This one was a bit close to the road, but was still OK.  Joe had bought some prawns and Spanish mackerel for tea, so we had a great feed with some beer that Joe bought at the El Arish tavern.