24/8/17 Mossy Gorge

 After being awake early courtesy of the light , we were all sorted early , so headed out to Mossman Gorge . It has all changed since our last visit some 25 years ago , now you go to the gorge information centre & bus transfer . It costs $9.50 each for a return trip into the gorge , you can also do an organised tour or 2 , but we chose to walk at our pace rather than someone else's .
  Arriving at the gorge , we took the track with lookout's over the river  and weren't disappointed at all. It was as I remembered , large boulders strewn around the river bed , crystal clear cool water and fish swimming around .

Here I am checking the results .

 This is the main pool people usually swim in , today there was no swimming - didn't stop a Japanese family or a group of backpackers though !!

 From here we went across the suspension bridge and did a 2.4klm walk through the rainforest . It was a good walk taking us through a lot of different area's in the forest , drier sections, wetter sections and all with different plants & trees & ferns & moss . Here's some photo's of all that .

 After wandering around for a bit over 3.5 hrs , we headed back to the visitors centre where one of the staff pointed out a couple of Golden Orb Spiders on the outside of the building . Now we'e seen some big spiders before , but these took the cake , they were huge !!! we are talking 5" or 125mm across , and the yellow colour on all the joints of the legs , stunning !!!

 These of course are the female of the species , the male being much smaller . What a way to finish our visit .
  Off to Port Douglas for lunch , before going back to Cairns , Smithfield to be precise to do some shopping , then head for home .
 Here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1CQFnl6yqEFVs8SQNrKpixbtb6x8&usp=sharing


 25/8/17    Clean up day


 It took us most of the day to catch up on washing and cleaning everything , red & brown dust coming out of everywhere , time for a beer or 2 and relax .
 Just for the numbers people , we did 2,886 kilometres in the last 2 weeks , with fuel consumption of 13.6 litres per 100 klms - pretty good considering the roads and using 4wd for quite a bit of that !!!
 The ute never missed a beat , can't complain about that !!
 Cheers everyone