Moving on

After our day out at Cairns we decided it was time for some business, so spent a couple of days organising two new tyres for the car, after a bit of asking here, ringing there we organised them at Tyre Power, Mareeba and had to wait till Friday as they had come from Townsville. We moved back to our free spot out of Atherton for three nights and took advantage of our wait to take Bentley to the Vet. His feeling is that it's his Crucible Ligament and needs an X-ray and operation, we had a detailed discussion about having the op while travelling and the rehab period, it would take 6 weeks for him to recover but we wouldn't need to be in one place that long, but would need to stay for a week or know that the next town had a vet if there was an infection and taking the stitches out........ So we will see when we next settle. We have some anti inflammatory meds for him if needed, but he doesn't seem to be bothered that one leg doesn't work......

The weather changed while we were waiting and it became a bit wet and cool.

The tyres came and were fitted Friday and we moved Saturday and headed off the Tablelands via Ravenshoe and a winding drive to another free camp at Archer Creek, great little stop as they were having markets on the Sunday and we awoke at 7.00am Sunday morning to the sound of the markets setting up. Good markets, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, so we stocked up as we are heading west towards Normanton. Have enjoyed the Tablelands and the abundance of fresh food, the soils here a quite rich I think, volcanic based. 

Today Monday we travelled to Mount Surprise and are camped at Planet Earth a nice cheap camping area with all the facilities for $17 @ night, also throws in a snake show each night. Mount Surprise is a railway town and centre for gem fossicking, we did quite a bit of that last year so giving it a miss.

Morning tea at Skybury Coffee Plantation

As the weather cooled we did more cooking

Chicken casserole

Chicken legs, sweet potato and brocollini

Markets at Archer Creek, our van is on the right 

Black Headed Python at our Mt Surprise Camp, his name is Clancy 

A map to give an idea of where we are....

If you find Cairns on the right side of the map, you then find Atherton, follow the road down to Ravenshoe and then down and to the left to Mt Surprise, from here we will continue to the left or west to Normanton and Karumba before heading down the red road which will take us on to the Flinders hwy, and we will then be heading into the Northern Territory