Author Archives: ouraussiehome

The morning we went to Cape Hillsborough to watch the sunrise we also stopped at the Diversity Boardwalk.  I had read it was a short walk and worth doing, but we might not have stopped if it weren’t for the butterflies.  We were sleepily happily driving along, wondering about all the mangroves we were seeing,  and suddenly there were butterflies everywhere.  This was an easy walk, about 1.2km, a forty-minute loop through woodland, mangroves, and eucalypts.  The first section had … Read More

Just north of Mackay is Cape Hillsborough National Park where the wallabies come down to the beach at sunrise every morning, what a sight!  They don’t seem to mind people watching them eat their breakfast and it makes for such a memorable morning. We stepped onto the beach and saw wallabies off in the distance.  We made our way down there and got there just as a man walked out onto the beach dropping food for them as he went.  … Read More

On the way back from our lovely tour of the Sarina Sugar Shed we made a quick stop at Hay Point.  There’s a lookout with a great view of one of the largest coal export ports in the world. Look at all that coal!  I can’t begin to describe how much coal we could see.  They export something like nine million tonnes from this port every month. The coal is transported to the port through a rail system.  When we … Read More

Seeing all this sugarcane in Queensland really made us want to find a factory tour to do.  That proved hard with the various ages of our kids, many of the factories have age or size requirements which our younger kids don’t meet.  So when I found out about the Sarina Sugar Shed I knew I’d found the right one for us.  It’s a hands-on mini-sugarcane mill, perfect for families.  We got there just as a tour was starting.  The tour … Read More

Finally it was the right time of day for platypus viewing!  They are active at dawn and dusk.  We headed to the township of Eungella where the Broken River has three viewing areas.  It was a popular spot. The first creatures we saw were turtles.  We even saw a tiny baby turtle but he didn’t show up in my pictures.  The kids were excited to see turtles after our recent turtle feeding experience. Later in our walk I found this … Read More

As we made our way from Finch Hatton Gorge to Eungella we stopped at the Sky Window Lookout, we’d heard that on a clear day you can see all the way back to Mackay.  Given that we were an hour from the coast it sounded like the view would be stunning.  It’s also popular for bird viewing, though we were too noisy that afternoon to have much hope of seeing many. The lookout is a short loop with a couple … Read More