Easter Camping

So the great thing about Easter in Australia is that they consider Good Friday and Easter Monday as holidays....which meant a 4 day weekend for Jamie!  hoorah!

I jumped on the opportunity to go camping with some of the tubing crew...even though the weather predictions were less than ideal.  The wet season just will not leave!

We packed up and headed out Friday morning.  We stopped at a beautiful swimming hole in Cardwell and then continued on our way to Murray Falls, where we stayed for the night.  It was a pretty hopping campsite actually.  Easter weekend is a huge camping weekend so it was filled with families and extravagant camp sites.  We had the basic "tarp over a picnic table" set up, which suited us just fine!   We got there pretty late so we just set up camp, cooked some dinner, and played a few games. 

The next day we walked around the area (for the few minutes of sunshine we had!) and saw the beautiful falls and forests surrounding our site.

In the mid afternoon we packed up and headed north again.  We weren't sure exactly where we were going to stop and camp, but since we were going into the Atherton Tablelands we figured we'd find something. The drive was absolutely beautiful...despite the rain.  It was bright green with rolling hills.  It reminded me a lot of New Zealand, actually.   We kept winding up the Palmerston Highway into the heritage listed, wet tropics rain forest!  Amazing.  We had planned to drive a bit more but everyone was getting tired so we settled in at the Henrietta Creek campsite.  This site had very little people so we decided to commandeer the covered area and make it our own living area. :)  We set up camp, cooked dinner, and played some more games.  The next morning we woke up, had some chocolate for brekky (it was Easter after all!) and wen't off on a rain forest hike. It was, of course, still raining...surprise surprise.  At this point we were so used to all of our belongings being wet we just decided to stuff it and enjoy it.  It was THE coolest hike I have been on.  It wasnt hard by anymeans but it would between forests and waterfalls.  Absolutely amazing.  It was almost nice to have it raining because it added some mist in the distance...and made you feel legit.  What would a rain forest be without rain?  The only bugger was the mother effing leeches!  I picked 6 of them off me!  Two of which sucked a significant amount of blood before I noticed.  But, like I said, it was SO worth it!  Here are some pictures from Emily's camera.

After the hike we stopped by the watering hole for a little "bath", since this campsite didn't have showers.  That night we had a massive vegetarian BBQ with some wine and a game of fishbowl.  Considering I couldn't be home with my family this was the next best Easter Sunday I could have asked for.

We packed up the next morning and started our journey home.  Not without a stop at the Murdering Point Winery for a taste of some tropical fruit wines!  mmm mmm mmm! 

We arrived home a few hours later, where I had a fabulous warm shower, scrubbed my feet for what felt like an eternity (after 4 days of flip flops and mud my feet were NASTY!), and put everything I owned into the dryer.  It was a nice feeling!

Overall, another fantastic weekend!