Carraghmore Station camping

Friday 26th May. Our last day in Cairns.
We are moving on today, but before leaving Cairns, we had booked the car in for two new front tyres and a wheel alignment in the morning. While packing up the van, Theo washed down the solar panels on the roof, and we discovered that the overhanging tree we were parked under for the past 8 days had allowed green ants to drop onto or climb onto the roof of our van. There where hundreds of ants on the pop-top section. Luckily, they had no access to the inside of the van, but it still took a bit of spraying, brushing, cleaning to get rid of them. We then parked up the van as we had arranged to leave the caravan at the Caravan Park while in town, getting the tyres.
Kim and Josh and the kids were flying back to Melbourne at 3.30pm. After dropping off our car at Tyrepower, we met up with them at the Ferris Wheel on the Esplanade. The day was sunny and perfect. The kids enjoyed swimming in the Lagoon before we said our goodbyes as we had to pick up the car and then return to the Caravan Park to hitch up the caravan and head once again over the Kuranda Range. The car towed the caravan up the Range with relative ease and the road was getting more familiar as we had now done this trip several times.

We arrived at Curraghmore Station about 5pm, set up the van on the McLeod River on camp site No. 6, which is about 3kms from the homestead. We then joined Emma and Jason for a drink around the fire before going back to the van.
Saturday 27th May, we sat in the shallow river enjoying a drink and the peace and solitude for a couple of hours. Emma and Jason were joining us for dinner, so we lit the fire so we could cook in the camp oven. Cooked a yummy beef stew in the camp oven for dinner and a nice night chatting and drinking by the fire under the stars.
Sunday 28th May. There are about 30 campsites on the property all on river frontages. Emma took us to some other campsites so we could see if we preferred another site, but we decided that the site we are on was most suited for us. It was reasonably flat, and not too steep access for the caravan. It was also clear enough to turn around. Had enough sunlight so we could boost up our solar, it had river access, and it was close to the homestead.
The track between the homestead had some narrow, dusty, bull-dust sections, a creek crossing, some corrugations and 3 gates to open and close. We laughingly named the person opening and closing the gates, the ‘gate bitch’, and that person ended up with very dusty and dirty feet! Luckily for Theo, I volunteered to drive, which meant he was ‘gate bitch’!Read more