In-laws

Andy’s parents have just left after visiting for a week. Whether we were the destination, or just a stop on their trip is debatable—they’re taking two months to drive up here and back, about 3,000 kilometres each way. We were off our feet for a few days showing them all the sights in the area.

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On the first day of touring, we went north. From Ingham, we went to the coast at Lucinda to see the longest jetty in the southern hemisphere (I didn’t take any photos because we’ve already been). You can’t go out on this jetty—it’s only for moving sugar cane out to giant ships. We stopped for a cuppa and some jack fruit from the Sunday market.

Then it was back inland, 50 kms west of Ingham and up a steep and windy road. The temperature dropped 5 degrees as we climbed. The destination? Wallaman Falls—the longest single-drop waterfall in Australia.

We got a bit rained on, but the rain plus the heat made for some cool fog.

From Wallaman Falls, we went back to Ingham and headed south to the turn-off for Jourama Falls. After a steep and long-ish hike (3 kms return, which left the oldies a bit puffed), we got to the lookout and saw the many little falls that make up Jourama.

We also detoured off the main path down to the rock pools to see some cool little rapids.

We came home exhausted, ate takeaways for dinner and went to bed early. The next morning we had a bit of a sleep in before heading south. We turned off the highway into Alligator Creek, unsure if there would be water or not in the dry season. We found it lower than when we’ve been before, but still flowing.

We enjoyed the view for a few minutes before heading back onto the highway and further south, to Ayr. We stopped at a bakery for some fresh bread, and then drove out to the coast at Alva to have a picnic lunch. Vegemite, tomato and lettuce, plus rockmelon (cantaloupe) and bananas were easy and satisfying. Then we ventured out onto the sand, which was super-exposed thanks to the lowest of tides.

Back to Ayr, we were advised to visit the Burdekin Bridge, which is a LONG silver structure which apparently has no foundations. The cement pylons go 30 metres into the sand where they “float”.

Then it was out to Home Hill (the town across the river from Ayr) and up Mt Inkerman for some hazy but interesting views.

Close to Inkerman is Charlie’s Hill, where we had a look at some “igloos” leftover from WWII (they were used as radar stations).

After Charlie’s Hill we headed back to Townsville, where Andy and I cooked his parents a feast of chickpea balls (to which his dad said “I didn’t know chickpeas had balls”), roasted veggies, and spinach salad (no photos).

Throughout the week we did some other fun things with them, ate at lots of asian restaurants, cooked them a few meals, went swimming and otherwise enjoyed their company.

It was nice to see them, but to be honest, I’m glad Andy’s parents have continued on their journey. With a real estate inspection this week, a paper to write in the near future, and tutoring to be done, I prefer to have the fewest distractions possible.