Tropical North Queensland

Best Family Friendly Accommodation in FNQ

With Coronavirus restrictions starting to be lifted, I’ve got a feeling that many people might be dreaming and maybe even planning a getaway somewhere for the upcoming school holidays in June/July, so I thought I’d share the best family friendly accommodation we have discovered to date in FNQ, and when I say family friendly I’m talking about big enough for our whole gang of two adults, four kids – yes – we are breeders!

We have been fortunate enough to have quite a few quick trips or one week stays around the traps in FNQ over the last few years, particularly as for the past six years we have had people living on-farm with us, so we really enjoyed the chance to get away and have some quality time ‘just the Fealy Family’ together.  These are not campsites, which is a bit different to what I usually post here on the blog, but for the three years of so duration of Matt’s Nuffield Scholarship – we haven’t had much time or energy for camping so it was holiday houses instead.

Here’s some of our favourites in no particular order ….. oh and I’ve included a photo from the property website as well as one of our stay there – just so you could see that they are as good as they look in the advertising! Continue reading

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Goshen Station Camping

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One of the best camps we have ever done hasn’t yet been recorded here on the blog, so time to rectify that!

Campsite No 5 at Goshen Station is awesome.  We spent a week here in July, 2016 and loved it.  It was the perfect cure for the hangovers we were sporting from a busy week and awesome night hosting the Boots for Change dinner on the farm the weekend before, complete with guest Paul West from River Cottage.

Goshen Station is a working cattle station where the first series of Australian Survivor was filmed in 2001.

It is about 5.5 hours from Cairns (90 kms past Mount Garnet) west of Blencoe Falls.  We took the Mt Garnett (Gunnawarra Road) way in and then went out via the Kirrama Range Road – a fantastic round trip. Continue reading

Categories: Atherton Tablelands, Qld Camping, Tropical North Queensland | Tags: , | 1 Comment

Roadtrip Tully, Cardwell to Ingham

IMG_2516Although things have been very quiet on the blog over the last couple of years, those of you who follow us on Facebook, Twitter  and Instagram will have seen we’ve still been out and about having a few adventures with Black Betty and Peter Prado.  As I have been getting to know our blog again, it is really interesting to review our stats and see that we still get anywhere between 50-100 visits per day to the blog through people searching for camping spots and landing on places we have visited, so I definitely want to add this small trip to the blogosphere!

Way back in June 2016 when Matt and I were both still Scout leaders, we headed off to a scout camp with the kids in Ingham and along the way managed to add in some quality family time by turning it in to a long weekend.  To start with, we took a whole day to travel just over 300 kilometres to our overnight camp at Abergowrie State Forest.  It was an ‘explore your own backyard’ kinda day.  We really loved it – we could almost pretend we were back on the road travelling around oz again!

Here’s how the weekend went down ……………. Continue reading

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Lake Tinaroo – Barrabadeen Campground

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It’s a lovely overcast afternoon here at Blue Sky – as close as we are going to get to a rainy day in Mareeba, so perfect blogging weather!  Those of you who follow us on instagram and facebook will know that on the ANZAC Day long weekend we had a terrific time camping with all the extended family at Camp Barrabadeen, Lake Tinaroo.  Camping at Lake Tinaroo was on our ‘hitlist’ for this year so it is awesome to have ticked another little adventure off.  Camp Barrabadeen is owned by the Scout Organisation and we have camped here many times with the kids as part of their scouting activities so we knew it was a top spot.  Hot showers, toilets, firepits, pretty level and shady sites right on the water, ability to hire canoes and you can launch your boat from right in front of the campsites – it doesn’t get much better than that!  It is a little expensive – $10 per person per night – kids under 6 free, but the money does go to a good cause! Continue reading

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Maytown

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So I had set myself the goal of finishing all the posts about our ‘Fealy Family Adventure 2015’ by the end of January.  I’m hoping that finishing this last post off by the end of February kinda gets me over the line? Sort of, maybe?  No, not really, I know.  Anyway, we are right in the throes of planning ‘Fealy Family Adventure 2016’ now, so definitely looking forward to some new posts later in the year!

Ok, right – where were we? After a wonderful few days at Elim Beach, we dragged ourselves away with the promise from Matt that we would find a beautiful spot on the Palmer River near Maytown to set up for the next few nights.  Just for the record – I had voted to stay a few more nights at Elim, but Matt loves freshwater far better than the beach so he was keen to head off and find a little spot of paradise all to ourselves! Continue reading

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping, Tropical North Queensland | 1 Comment

Emerald Creek Falls

IMG_1509Guess What?  We ticked another item off our ‘Must Do’ list yesterday!  Emerald Creek Falls walk and swim ‘owned’ as the kids would say, meaning we did it and it was awesome :-).  Can’t believe it has taken us so long to get there and definitely going again soon – swimming in the waterhole under the falls was beautiful.

Emerald Creek Falls can be found just outside Mareeba in the Dinden West Forest Reserve.  You turn off the Kennedy Highway onto the signposted Tinaroo Creek Road, follow Tinaroo Creek Road for about 3 kms and then turn left into Cobra Road.  From Cobra road it is all dirt and quite corrugated and steep in parts, but regular vehicles can still get out there just by taking it steady.  It is unsuitable for caravans and trailers and unfortunately there is no camping.  However, the day use area has wood fired bbq’s and picnic tables and there are some nice spots along the picnic area to swim with the kids. Continue reading

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Elim Beach

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Hello Everyone!  It’s always this time of year that sees us with very itchy feet – just wanting to be done with mangoes, avocados, backpackers and all things farm related!!!  We are in a bit of a lull at Blue Sky at the moment while we wait for our avocados to be ready so we can start picking them, which means Matt and I have had some time at home together to start planning our camping holiday in July – so many places, so many options!

Anyway – with Easter coming up – I thought I’d better get my act together and tell you about Elim Beach – it is an amazing camping spot and you might just want to head there these holidays! Continue reading

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Cooktown

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Right, I have set myself a goal to finish the blog posts about our Fealy Family Adventure 2015 by the end of January as this is just getting ridiculous blogging six months after the trip!

Ok, so after we spent a day on the Bloomfield Track and set up camp at the Lions Den Hotel for a couple of nights – it was time to spend a day exploring Cooktown.  We have to put a disclaimer out here that Kipp did not sleep much at all at the Lions Den for the whole time we stayed there, so we must admit that we did not tackle seeing the sights of Cooktown with our usual vigour, instead opting for some very ‘cruisy’ driving around, long lunch at the playground kinda visit.  We will definitely need to make a return trip to check out some more of the sights! Continue reading

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping, Tropical North Queensland | Tags: , | 1 Comment

Australian Butterfly Sanctuary – Kuranda

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You guys are all going to fall down in shock, but guess what?  We had a little day out on the weekend, ticking one of the ‘must do’s’ off the list of things to explore in 2016 AND I am even going to blog about it only a few days after our visit – not weeks or months later – wahoooo says I, giving myself a pat on the back 🙂 🙂

So, due to the fact that everything Mr Blue Sky Produce Matt touched last week, broke down – including (and this is no exaggeration) – two tractors, the mower, two quad bikes and the dishwasher – we found ourselves on Sunday with a very unexpected day off mid mango season!  As we live up here in the country – most shops still do that thing of closing by 12pm on a Saturday, so there was no going into town for the required parts to fix all the broken down farm machinery.  Mr Blue Sky Produce was in a lovely mood (not!) so you can imagine just how happy he was when I suggested a family day out to the Australian Butterfly Sanctuary in Kuranda on Sunday. Continue reading

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The Bloomfield Track

IMG_8996The first three months (January – March) are super busy times for us on the farm and our adventures are pretty much non-existent during this period, so I’m going to take the opportunity to catch up on some long overdue blog posts!  First up – to finish off our trip in June/July last year exploring the Daintree, Cooktown etc.  The last post I did was a wrap up of Cape Tribulation – so now to share the awesome day we had exploring The Bloomfield Track.

I’ll start by saying that the Bloomfield Track is probably one of the most scenic and interesting 4wd trips we have done to date.  It had everything from creek crossings, terrific views, great places to stop and explore, steep climbs, winding ranges, a narrow track and scary descents – it was fantastic and if you get a chance – might sure you do this drive! Continue reading

Categories: Camping, Qld Camping, Tropical North Queensland | Tags: , | 2 Comments