Kuttabul

From Clairview we headed towards Mackay. On the way Liz rang around and found a campsites at the Kuttabul Hotel for just $15 a night – so we headed out there. Kuttabul turned outt o be a little town surrounded by cane fields (no real surprise about the cane fields really!). The hotel itself however was located about 3 km’s outside the town (also surrounded by cane fields however).

At first glance it appeared a little bleak and Liz said that she felt a little like she was in Crocodile Dundee when she walked into the hotel itself. Once we settled in however it turned out to be very comfortable and friendly. To make things even better we found that $15 was only for the first night – all nights following were then just $10 – which made it close to the cheapest caravan park we have found. Unlike most parks it also had very roomy individual toilet and shower rooms, so all in all it was a win all around.

On the first afternoon the kids and I headed into Mackay for a look around and to do some shopping. This was again not significantly different to many of the other coastal cities we had visited, with a busy port, marina facilities and shopping to support both the town and the surrounding hinterland.

Next day we headed up to Eungulla in search of platypus. On the way we came across a trail to a lookout called the Sky Window. This looked out over the valley where all the cane fields were, with the forested mountain sides on either side – quite a magnificent view.

A bit further on was an area of rain forest that had a stream meandering through it. In the stream we were told were abundant platypus that would just go about there business oblivious to any nosy humans. Before we headed to the stream however we decided to take one of the rainforest walks and have a look around, which met the expectations of rain forest trails.

Back to the stream and a viewing platform had been set up to ensure us blundering mammals didn’t make too much of a mess of the environment. As promised there were platypus going about their daily business – mainly consisting of swimming about looking for food. In addition there were several turtles nosing about as well as a range of waterbirds and some very busy water beetles. This ended up being one of those times when just standing looking was enough to remove several hours of the day.

Following this it was back to the campsite in preparation for the drive to Cairns.