Day 25 Monday June 30th 2014 Rollingstone to Murray Falls

It is a warm clear morning. Ingham the” Italian town” is welcoming and friendly. The information centre is at the TYTO Wetlands and there is a new 48 hour free camp beside the lake. We buy fresh prawns, meat and deli goods. This is a food town. The Lees Hotel, “The Pub With No Beer” is sadly not as inviting as we had expected.

We drive through cane fields past roads and businesses with Italian names to a charming town called Halifax and on to Lucinda at the coast. Here there is a very long sugar wharf. The beach is inviting (even though there are crocodile warning signs) and Hinchinbrook Island dominates the view.

Cardwell is not as pretty as we had expected but it was almost destroyed by Cyclone Yasi in 2012. There’s still a lot of re growing to be done here. The information centre ladies take our National Park fee and assure us that the road into Murray Falls is tarred and “really good”.

We turn off the highway and pass sugar and paw paw farms. After about 16kms the road turns to very bumpy dirt with a couple of narrow bridges, even the scenery deteriorates. We’re becoming anxious, will we be able to turn around if we’re on the wrong road? Then the National Parks sign appears and we enter a large camp ground encircled by hills, mowed as neatly as a resort and scattered with tall gums. The noise of the falls is unmistakable and when we look up it is as though it is above us. A tremendous waterfall, of the sort that you would drive a long way to see. Downstream there is a quiet swimming hole (no rope) and the only crocs are being worn by the campers. There are about 30 camps but room for a hundred or more.    

Travelling Kms: 152Kms