Back to the Aussism’s at the request of some followers:

• dinkum – as in ‘fair dinkum’, genuine, fair, honest, truthful
• pushover – A person or thing which is very easy to do, master or acquire. ‘That exam was a pushover’
• cop-shop – a police station

Location: Hamilton Island

Weather: Oh my goodness, it’s raining! Still a balmy 28c though….

It was officially the start of spring here in Australia on the 1st September which of course heralded a change in the weather…I awoke to grey clouds and even light rain, how on earth would I cope!

Bre arrived back on Hamilton Island yesterday after her extended spell down on the Gold Coast, it’s awesome to have her energy back in the house and as Mum and Dad are here we all headed out to Mariners Restaurant on Front Street for a reunion dinner.

Now I love my seafood, like really love it! Whenever there’s a seafood platter on the menu I just have to try it and tonight was no exception. Mariners is rumoured to be one of the best on the coast so the inevitable order happened. Twenty minutes later I was presented with a mountainous plate of both hot and cold seafood; oysters, prawns, soft-shelled crab, lobster, fish and attempted to make my way to the bottom of the pile.

Question – What exactly is the difference between a crayfish and a lobster? (I thought it may be either a regional variation in name or something to do with having pincers or not. Would be great to hear your answers? Some ideas are here

Anna Bligh, the Premier of Queensland, recommended to me a few weeks ago that if whilst doing this job I wanted to try and maintain my waistline I should avoid eating red meat and go for the fish option when eating out…..do you think stuffing myself to almost bursting point on seafood counts? I hope so.

As all of us are together again for at least a few days we’d decided to head away from the islands for a few days and visit what’s known here as the ‘Big Island’ – or mainland Australia, so we caught the Fantasea ferry across to Shute Harbour jumped in a cab and made for the car rental offices in Airlie Beach.

This last car I actually drove that wasn’t my golf buggy was the Audi RS6 V10 monster on the airport runway during Race Week, so when I found out I’d be driving an automatic Hyundai Elantra for the next couple of days I was just a wee bit disappointed – oh well it’ll get us there!

We headed south along the Bruce Highway past seemingly endless sugarcane plantations, through my first taste of traditional Queensland towns and villages before finally turning inland towards the Clarke Range of mountains and our final destination Eungella National Park, west of Mackay.

The park covers nearly 500 km² and climbs to 1280m above sea level at the impressive Mount Dalrymple but is mainly inaccessible due to its mountainous geography except for the walking tracks around Broken River and Finch Hatton Gorge. There’s large areas of tropical and sub-tropical vegetation that have been isolated from other rainforest areas (or riverine forest as it’s actually known here) for thousands of years and now boast a number of unique species.

We headed straight for Finch Hatton Gorge and the Forest Flying cable runway experience which allows you to strap yourself into a seat harness and fly through the canopy of the forest 20 metres from the floor…I’d cunningly booked all four of us in for this knowing that if Mum caught wind of what we’d actually be doing she’d back out, so when we arrived at the launch site and it dawned on her there’d be nowhere to run to. God, I sound like an awful son don’t I!

The trees around the site are teeming with fruit bats all hanging upside down in the sunshine, wrapped in their wings, screeching every time they’re disturbed and tainting the air with that lovely smell that only bats can provide. Picking our way through the melee we found Dave ready to strap us into out harnesses….

After a five minute climb to gain some altitude we arrived at our first launch platform and in turn strapped ourselves onto the 220m cable and launched ourself down the runway, what a fantastic way to see the rainforest from a totally different angle – I spotted a python resting on the canopy after a meal of tasty bat, a huge spider and loads of fruit bats who scattered as I screamed past!

Mum admitted to being scared s***less before having her first go but once she’d actually gone down the first of the two cables was thoroughly enjoying herself and smiling again. But as with all good things, it was over far too quickly and we made our way back to the car and headed off for some lunch.

One of the main reasons for the trip to Eungella was to visit Broken River to try and find the very unique and recluse Platypus – that very Australian of creatures. Rumour has it they frequent the river in this part of the park so a great place to finish off the day.

We checked into Broken River Mountain Resort and found a beautifully relaxed retreat  nestled in the woods with a quaint little cabin overlooking the river complete with two rooms and woodburner stove – and surprisingly we’d actually need it as the temperature would drop later in the evening!

Off to find one of these little critters then…there’s a viewing platform on the banks positioned above the water and from here we stood and waited. First the tell-tale sign of bubbles, then a swirl of water and finally the little thing poked its head out for a breath! Excellent.

I stood and watched the platypus for ages taking great delight in tracking its movements under the surface as it used its highly sensitive bill to detect even the slightest electrical signals given out by the muscular movements of its prey – freshwater shrimps. The Platypus is much smaller than I’d imagined but perfectly designed for the job; webbed feet, broad tail and waterproof fur make it a specialist hunter.

Once we’d had another superbly cooked dinner and filled our bellies to near bursting point it was a short waddle back to our charming little cottage for the night but being up at around 800m the night-time temperature was decidedly cooler than that on the island. In fact it was so much colder we even lit the wood-burner to provide some additional heat whilst we whipped through 12 games of Scattagories.

This is a part of Queensland I hadn’t been to at all and it was excellent to get into a car a feel the freedom of the open road once more…memories of last year driving around Africa came flooding back! This week I’ll be doing it again but instead heading north towards Townsville as I venture up the coast before stepping off on Magnetic and Hinchinbrook Islands, there’s some extremely exciting dives coming up which I can’t wait for!

End of day location: Eungella, Queensland

Distance travelled: 223kms