River | a girl, a 4wd & a trailer

The next morning I went for a run, Hubby decided to stay in the nice warm bed while I headed out. Previously I’d mentioned that climbing The Nut really took it out of me so I’ve vowed to TRY and run every morning if possible. The caravan park we stayed in overnight backed onto a semi circular beach with a boardwalk, I started a light jog one way, not much there so I jogged back and headed the other way. This took me to the old wharf at the base of The Nut and to some historic buildings we hadn’t visited yesterday so I stopped jogging and went for a look around.

It was really interesting, a few more historic buildings with information points, a strange random rock carving and of course the wharf. All up I took about an hour and really enjoyed my jog / sightseeing trip. If jogging is like this everyday I might actually start to enjoy it!

Come Holy Spirit Carving

I came back to the car, gathered hubby for breakfast, packed up the car, grrrrrr I really hate packing the car when we have so many plans for the day!!!! And we took off.

We drove through Smithton, really not much there, and headed west to another potential campground and according to the map the furthest northwestern campground there is before heading down west. When we arrived we were surprised, or shocked, whatever. People seemed to be living there, which really isn’t that odd usually; however, people had set up fences, boundaries, around huge patches of land with mesh and made semi permanent structures in these patches. It reminded me of trailer trash meets US cult camp crossed with boat people refugee camps. We politely advised the caretaker, who had come out to greet us, that we weren’t sure of what we were doing and would come back to him. We very quickly drove out.

The drive to the next campground was stunning with more rolling green hills spotted with cows and as we were coastal we kept getting quick peeks of stunning isolated and empty beaches. The free camp we were heading to was in Marrawah and was gorgeous, it was on the beach nice camp area, toilets (bonus!) and showers albeit cold ones. Hubby for some reason didn’t like it so we kept going until we reached Dismal Swamp.

View near Marrawah, stunning right?

I’m really not sure why its called Dismal Swamp, but basically it’s the only blackwood sinkhole in the world, quite a pretty sinkhole I might add, in the middle of a rainforest. All the land around the swamp has been cleared for farming but they managed to preserve this little area and they’ve built an information and education centre in it. $20 per person to get in, steep I know but I really wanted to check this out, and $2 each for a slide ride down into the sinkhole. We could have walked down for free, but $2 for a slide was ok.

Random Door

We slid to the bottom and had a look around. They have built raised platform paths, you are given a map, and along the path are information points and random items that have been placed in growth. For example, apparently there are crayfish in the swamp so they made giant crayfish mounds, complete with giant crayfish statues and stuck them into the growth. There was also a giant wooden door, a couple of random chairs; bones of an extinct creature and a fake cow just to name a few.

So we walked around, got lost a couple of times and headed back up to the information centre for a massive slice of chocolate cake.

Hopping back into the car we drove some more to Arthur River. This is the point leading into the Arthur Piemen Reserve where we plan on four-wheel driving. We purchased our 4wd pass and picked a campground where we can set up for a couple of days.

On the way to the campground we had a quick stop at the Edge of The Work Lookout, the west coast of Tasmania is apparently the longest uninterrupted expanse of ocean on the globe. I tell ya what, it’s bloody scary! I would not be hopping into that surf anytime soon! Anyway after absorbing the beauty, taking some pics, we headed off to the campground for a couple of days of R&R

The Edge of The World Arthur River

What was meant to be a relaxing weekend for two turned into mud. We decided to take a nice romantic weekend for two up to Harry’s Hut just north of Noosa.

The traffic was terrible as we attempted to leave the city. The intention was to leave early to miss the mass exodus of citysiders leaving Brisbane for the weekend. Unfortunately our planning was for nothing as we were caught in the mass crush of vehicles for over an hour. On top of this a constant rain was coming down heavily, which probably should have been a sign.

Eventually we got free of the jams and entered into more country areas. We drove through tiny pockets of settlements, a number of isolated properties and rolling green hills. I wonder, while we drive, what it would be like to live in these tiny pocket towns so far away from the city and isolated in nature? How do these tiny little towns survive? Where do people work?

Rolling green hills

As the case seems to be with all of our trips, the GPS got us lost. It took us down a road which turned out to be a dead end. There were no sign posts, nothing. I programmed the GPS to find an alternate route which we followed. The total lack of signage ensured that we didn’t know if we were even on the right road or heading in the right direction.

We slid around on a clay packed road (Johny was in 4WD heaven) and then turned onto a forest track. By this time is was getting dark. On either side of the wet pot holed road were tall trees, the scene looked like something out of a horror story. We drove through long vine tentrils hanging thickly down the middle of the road hitting the windscreen as we drove through. Our progression was long and slow going through puddles of unknown depth splashing the windows as we drove through. Always in the back of my mind was the fact that we mightn’t have even been on the right road and there was no option to turn around, we just couldn’t fit!

Eventually in the pitch black we came across a campground. We drove through slowly, no street lights here to guide us, and allocated ourselves a site. Completely stressed out by this stage we managed to set the tent up; dinner was and informal fare of cheese, wine and a few games of Blitz followed promptly by sleep.

It rained on and off during the night. Camping in the rain is an interesting experience. The sound of drops hitting the canvas on and off, hard and soft, in patches or constant; and it is loud, so loud. Thankfully there was no storm, no wind, just heavy rain.

We awoke early, as you do when camping, to the sounds of the bush. Native birds, insects and frogs. People moving about, the camp was stirring. We set up the annex area of the camper; cooked some breaky on our new Weber and took the kayaks down to the river.

Even though we had never been to Harrys hut; we could see that the river had risen significantly as the jetty was completely under water. This didn’t deter us and we took the kayaks onto the river. As we are novices we never take the kayaks far; but, we didn’t have to, we were completely alone. The river looked like a large container full to the brim of water. There were no dry, parched banks; everything was full to the top.

On our return the Park Rangers had arrived. Tewantin, further up the river, had a lot of rain overnight and the water was coming our way. They had been instructed to ask all of the campers to move out. So with a soggy heart we packed up our little campsite which we had just set up and drove ourselves out and back home.

Tree corridor on the way out

Flooded road on the way out

a girl, a 4wd & a trailer

One girl's adventure around Australia

Tag Archives: River

From Stanley to Arthur River

Washed out of Harry’s Hut

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