Slightly disheartened as there was no surf, we continued north and found ourselves at the great entrance of The Capricorn Caves.  Just above Rockhampton, these dry caves were renown for their beauty and hospitality to a variety of bat species.  From back in the 1980’s to the present day, they are also host weddings in a magnificant cathedral ‘room’ in the heart of the cave system.  With a creative light show, it was easy to feel how special and unique it would be to wed here.  Whilst in this room our tour guide turned off all of the lights so we could experience true pitch black!  The song “Music of the Night” was played and it was easy to slip away into another world as the acoustics of the cave engulfed us.

Other points of interest along the way were creative shapes in the rock formation that were lit up.  Some of these were obviously seen (the rhino rock) and others you really had to stretch your imagination!  Trees above the Capricorn Caves had also sent root systems down to find water and over the years some had grown to a solid 2 inches thick and over 20m long!  In fact, they tracked down one of the longer sets of roots to a tree above that ended up only being a couple of meters high.  On a bouncy escape over a series of suspension bridges, Nay whispered to Mark that she had heard the old bloke in front of her step on some “frogs” as we squeezed through the zig zag tunnel (a tight ‘zig zag’ passage used as the exit).

The next day lead to an early rise as we had learnt about the opportunity to take an iconic Australian photo.  Upon sunrise, at a tucked away spot in Cape Hillborough, Kangaroos congregate on the beach for a morning feed.  The sight was picturesque but had a toll as the early morning rise lead us to sleeping on the beach until lunch.  As the afternoon arrived, we went for a 2.4km journey through the rainforest which was home to a bright blue winged butterfly (it felt like we were in the butterfly enclosure at the zoo!).  We even stumbled across a harmless tree snake slithering along the path! The return track of this journey was the way we came or a swim around the rocks as high tide had absorbed our sandy track that completed the loop.  With shoes off and valuables safe, we jumped in waste deep water and took the short cut!

As the high tide dropped later in the arvo, a causeway had opened up and we took the opportunity for a walk out to Wedge Island.  Said to have good snorkling we tried our luck but it clearly wasn’t our day as we just ended up cutting our feet open on the rocks!  By the time we were back at the car, our hunger pains were cranking up, so we took off to find a spot to cook some grub. In our search we discovered a perfect spot behind a golf course with beach front views.

Our next and final spot that completed the loop was the Eungella National Park.  With a steep 10km windy climb into the mountain range, we pulled up at the Broken River campground.  With a small 50m walk leading us to a fantastic viewing platform, we watched for the first time in the wild, the shyest native animal, the platypus!  After observing one splash around for a while, we decided to pulled out our mat with some more delicious goon and spend the evening by the river.  Here we continued to watch a few platypuses swim a mere 10m away from us.  It was such a spectacular experience.

Waking to a frosty 2 degrees (which was a total shock to our system!), we climbed back down the mountain to a walking trail that lead to The Wheel of Fire Waterfalls at Finch Hatton Gorge.  This was an overall 4.4km return walk, involving a steep climb with a section requiring us to hop scotch across stones as the path seemed to have washed away in the river.  At the end, we came face to face with our own private swimming hole and fresh water flowing in from the falls.  It was just unlucky that it was so bloody cold, we didn’t swim!   

After visiting these calming waterfalls in the morning, we had a solid 5 hour drive that same day to make it to Townsville.  This section took us back past Airlie, where memories of great times with the Johnsies (only 2 weeks prior) flashed back and were discussed about in the car.  Making it to the Townsville Marina by 6:05, we were right on time to catch the barge to take us out onto Magnetic Island…