It's Camping Time! - RexyEdventures

27th June 2012

It’s camping time indeed and I was tres tres tres excited. After a chilled night at Corona Backpackers, I met up with Smera and Elsie who were to be my camping buddies for the next week. Who are they may you ask?

I actually knew Smera before. A year actually. We met over on Facebook through a group called ‘2012 adventures’ (if you are thinking of travelling next year then there’s a group called ‘2013 adventures’ set up.) and since then we saw that we had pretty similar plans and tried to meet up during the travels but we weren’t in quite the same places only a few days difference.

However, when we realised that Smera would be arriving into Cairns a week after me and I was already planning to stay around the area for a while, we managed to meet up finally the day after she arrived for a quick coffee. Later on, while I was in the Atherton Tablelands doing some wildlife work, she texted me out of the blue asking if I wanted to come on a campervan trip with her and her friend who she met in Krabi Thailand and later on in Indonesia. Elsie decided to take 12 days in Australia and she wanted to see the Reef and the Rainforest.

So what did I reply to on the text? I jumped at the chance to undertake a campervan trip to Cape Tribulation and Cooktown. I thought I wouldn’t get chance and I really wanted especially to go to Cape Tribulation after my brief northern trip to Port Douglas the week before.

Do after picking up the Campervan, we all set off to Cairns Airport to drop off some European girls from the hostel who insisted on hugging me even though I hadn’t properly met them. They must have got swooned over the Rex Charm!

From there we headed up North, hugging the coastline to hit the Cairns Northern Beaches. The first was probably aptly named for me. Yorkey’s Knob. I’m from Yorkshire and I’m a….

Pretty interesting to check out the signs detailing recent crocodile sightings, no swimming due to stingers etc.

Then it was my turn at the wheel after Smera! With a shaky start, I managed to tame the campervan, nicknamed Henry, under my control and carried on up to Palm Cove, where apparently all the swankiest people of Cairns go for the weekend. It was very posh!

From then, I drove off to Ellis Beach up north where we stopped for a spot of lunch overlooking the sandy shores right from the Captain Cook Highway itself. Pretty beautiful I must say.

Then my highlight of the day came through, the lookout point over the Cairns Northern Beaches itself. And it was named after MOI! Da da daaaah, it was called the Rex Lookout! The best lookout in the whole wide world I have you know!

We couldn’t hang around too long as we had to get to Port Douglas before dark. We needed to do our food shopping and I wanted to show them Four Mile Beach where I was last time. They loved it.

We drive up to Flagstaff Hill Lookout overlooking Trinity Bay and it’s pretty gorgeous. We met a visiting Australian Victoria State family over in Queensland on holiday and got chatting to the grandmother. It seems like every elderly person in Australia wants to give you an In-depth blow by blow account of their life and their family. But I didn’t care, it brings the person to life!

Thinking we were going to camp just outside of Port Douglas, we found a beautiful rest stop overlooking the harbour right in Port Douglas itself. Cooked some food, and watch the epic sunset over reflected in the Pacific Ocean giving us all a red glow. It was going to be interesting tonight, how we were to cope with each other in such close quarters. We were going to find out next morning…