Time to wrap it up.

I ring Robyn back in Perth ‘hello sweetie, I have finished and am ready to come home’.

Robyn to Stuart ‘no way, I am not ready, go somewhere else!’

Hmmmm. Not what I was expecting.

OK, Cairns is less than a week away. I’ll go there and ring home again hoping for a better response.

The Bruce Highway from Townsville goes straight up the coast for 350 km. It is direct, multi-lane, busy, noisy, boring, possibly dangerous.

The alternative is to go 67 km up the Bruce Highway to Crystal Creek and then turn inland to climb the old road to cross the range at Paluma. After that is is dirt down to the Kennedy Development Road at Valley of Lagoons and more dirt on the development road to Mount Garnet.  From there it is bitumen through Ravenshoe, MillaMilla, Milanda and down the twisting Gillies Range to Gordon Vale and Cairns.

The choice is clear – up the hill.

Paluma is famous for being cool and moist (it is a thousand feet up) in a tropical area. The road up also crosses a lovely stone bridge.

But Paluma itself has fallen on hard times since the mining boom ended. Most of the guest houses have closed and only the school seems to be operating.

Finally camped about 10 km west of Paluma in the state forest. Too dark to go on but too many widow makers to have a pleasant nights sleep.

Camp on the westward slope past Paluma,lots of widow makers above the tent