After our stay in Cairns we booked a week at a camping called Etteleah Park. It is run by a retired couple at a location about 45 minutes from Cairns. Oscar got his first real test, because apparently the camp site was up on quite a mountain and it was 30 minutes of driving steep hills and sharp turns. He did good though, and upon arrival we discovered that the camping was truly a paradise on earth, with a huge garden and loads of fruit trees which we are allowed to pick and eat as much as we want. In addition to that it has a beautiful pool who basically nobody else uses and two dogs to cuddle and play with. A campfire is lit at night and everybody sits around talking and drinking and sharing stories while it gets dark. But our luck didn't end there, because after the first night, the camping owners came to our van and wanted to have a talk with us. I was thinking we had done something wrong or whatever, but no, they needed to go out of town for a week and since we didn't have a job and were planning on staying here for a week or more, they figured we might be interested in a free stay + half of the income of the campsite in return for being camping managers for the week. Well, that was of course an offer we could not refuse. It basically means just being around in case guests show up, do some light cleaning, lighting the campfire and feeding the dogs. We loved being here anyways, only downside is we can not go hiking or whatever together during opening hours, but we are fine by the pool for now...
We used our last day of freedom to go see the tablelands and take the watefallcircuit. The waterfalls were amazing but the water was freezing. It took us a whole day and quite some kilometres (I think we made about 500) to see everything, but I guess that is something we will just have to get used to around here.
We have kind of made up our minds that we will probably go for whatever farm work we can find after this, because we'd like to get our 88 days of farm work (so that we are eligable for a 2nd year visa) and save some money to travel further. So we are just applying for fruitpicking jobs around in Queensland, hoping we can find something nearby.
For now we are very happy being camping managers at our own personal paradise!
You can view the pictures at a larger scale by clicking on them.
Resting during a hike
Our first campingspot!
Picking mandarins
Private pool
At a huge fig tree during our roadtrip
Milaa milaa Falls
Cool boy
On the road
Explaining to Willem how to take a good picture
The apprentice has succeeded
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