More from Tully or Murray Upper.

We have been helping with drafting cattle today and have put off the move to Cairns until Monday morning as there is more work  to do tomorrow.

We have purchased a thing called Spot which is a jigger a little like a GPS except you add some email addresses and you can send messages to those email addresses via the satellite network and the Spot network. With this device there is also the functionality called Follow Me where you configure a web site and people can see where you are at any time. I have been trying to add a page to this blog to perform this function with no success so far but stay tuned. The most important functionality for us is SOS where, if we are in trouble we press this button and a message is sent to previously configured emails to say we are in trouble and points to our location.

We are also intending to add some more photos but will do so in the next day or so as Kath is really getting to grips with her new camera and taking some great piccies.

Tarah from Tully

We arrived at Tully, or more precisely, Murray Upper, on last Saturday and have settled in to some work around the farm.

On the trip here we found that the devastation from cyclone Yasi is still very evident, especially in the towns of Tully and Cardwell. There would certainly be more around in the likes of Mission Beach, Tully Heads, etc, but we haven’t been exploring there yet.

In both of these towns there are businesses which have been forced to close, for example the local Baker in Cardwell. there are still houses without rooves and there is tree debris still to be removed or burned and there is the constant sound of chainsaws, excavators and trucks carting the cut trees away.

The trees in the pine plantations have been stripped bare and are leaning over, although they are currently being harvested so not all is lost. There is another area where there was a hardwood plantation, apparently 10 to 20 metres high, which is completely bare, nothing remaining.

Yesterday we went to a glass business in Tully who lost not only their business premises in the town but had a tree through the roof and may still have to be demolished and they are trying to operate the business from home.

The recovery of the eucalypts is amazing, the trees have been broken to half their normal height, in most cases but the leaves are returning and the trees seem to be recovering. I was speaking to a local on Sunday and he pointed out that the leaves on many of the Eucalypts were a lighter shade of green and that these trees will die.  He pointed out that in a cyclone the trees twist, twisting the fibres of the trees and they eventually die, furthermore, the twisting of the fibres makes these trees useless for any logging. 

Updat from Yeppoon

We began our holiday/adventure on Thursday and had an uneventful trip to Rockhampton and on to the Big 4 Capricorn Palms Holiday Village at Mulambin, approx 8Kms south of Yeppoon.

The caravan park is quite good with very few campers at the moment, which suits us down to the ground.

The beaches here are muddy sand and the beaches are very flat and I would think you would have to walk about 300 metres out to get water knee deep. We went for a walk along the beach on Saturday afternoon but apart from that haven’t done much. 

Along the beach was quite interesting as you could see where the lava had flowed over the existing rocks which happened a few years ago, a few years in dinosaur years.

We went to the Capricorn Caves yesterday, Monday, which was very interesting. The caves have 1 hour guided tours which are well worth the $29 admittance. The caves are limestone caves and are dry caves which means the only water entering is during the rainy times and one of the results of this is that the stalactites and stalagmites grow much more slowly than in wet caves. In the caves there is a chapel where they hold weddings and opera as the acoustics are nearly perfect. 

There is a ramp access to the chapel these days and it was explained that in the past the brides had to wade through bat poo up their calves, bit smelly. 

We are planning to move on to Airlie Beach on Wednesday for a couple of days and then on to Tulley. 

The first photo is of the beach here at Mulumbin.

The second attached photo is called Camel rock and you can see the Camel’s rear end if you look closely.