8 to 29 July 2022.

(Click maps for a larger size if they are too small to see).
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Jools and I are flying north to North Queensland tomorrow for three weeks. You would think this would be quite a change from the currently cold climate of Canberra and for the most part it will be, though in these times of unusual weather, Laura looks like being much the same as Canberra.  We attempted this journey in 2021 but had to bail out when we got caught in a COVID lockdown in Brisbane for a week and the ACT Government advised all travellers to return.

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In 2021 we flew north to Brisbane to stay with friends for a few days and had intended to fly on to Cairns (as shown above).  This time, we fly straight to Cairns and back.  The itinerary up there is very similar but we are taking more time this time and there are a couple of additions.

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From Cairns, we drive south to the Atherton Tablelands, staying in a small village and then in rainforest near Lake Eacham and Craters Lakes National Park.  We expect to visit Cathedral Fig Tree, Lakes Eacham and Barrine, Yungaburra, Curtain Fig National Park, Atherton, Hasties Swamp National Park (bird hide), Herberton, Mt Hypipamee National Park, Ravenshoe, Tully Gorge Lookout and Millaa Millaa waterfalls.  We also expect to visit the Art Deco town of Innisfail and various waterfalls and nature sites along the way.  This is not shown on the map which I haven’t updated it since last time but it’s a loop down to the coast, starting from Millaa Millaa and meeting up with the road from Cairns to Atherton where it goes inland.  You can see it if you click the map for a larger view. 

Wildlife we hope to encounter includes striped possums, platypodes (the correct plural of platypus since the word derives from Greek not Latin) and tree kangaroos.  Tree kangaroos may be elusive though.

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We then drive to Laura where we stay overnight and join a camping excursion for Aboriginal rock art over three days and two nights.  We next drive to Cooktown where we stay for several days and join another Aboriginal rock art tour on the last morning.

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After Cooktown, we drive to Mossman Gorge where we stay for two nights.  Next is an early morning wildlife cruise on the Daintree River, then we head to Daintree National Park, where we stay for a few days at Cape Tribulation.  The rainforest here comes down to the sea and we may encounter a cassowary. 

Next we drive down to Kuranda, in the hills near Cairns and stay overnight.  The next day we drive back down the hill then take a cablecar back up to Kuranda and come down again in a small train.  Then we have a day or two in Cairns including a day trip to Fitzroy Island (where I visited in 1987 taking pictures of lighthouses).  Finally we catch our plane back to Canberra.

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I am planning to take both just Fuji photographic equipment.  In the abandoned trip in 2021 I also had Nikon for long telephoto and wildlife.  The penalty for that change is that the autofocus of my cameras will not be nearly as good for birds in flight (a new Fuji camera is, but It’s not available yet) and I will not have as much capacity to compose loosely and crop down (eg for wildlife which may move unpredictably).  The advantage is about 3 kilos less weight and a long lens easier to hand hold.

I will have Fuji X-T2, X-E4 and X-T2 IR cameras, together with 4mm f2.8 fisheye, 8-16mm f2.8, 14mm f2.8, 23mm f2, 35mm f1.4, 56mm f1.2, 80mm f2.8 macro, 70-300mm f4-5.6 and 200mm f2 lenses and a 1.4x TC.  My photographic pack will be about 11 kg which is fine.  Jools will  have an X-E4 and a 18-135mm lens and will be able to borrow the 70-300mm when I am using the  200mm for wildlife.

There’s a complication with selecting lenses for infrared because some produce a “hot spot” or bright flared area in the centre of the image.  So I could have taken the 27mm instead of the 23mm and 35mm but it’s not good for infrared.  The 8-16mm is only good for infrared at f2.8 so I took the 14mm as well, the 80mm macro is no good for infrared and the 200mm is only good at f4 and below but I have the 70-300mm. 

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I may find time for some temporary posts while travelling and will in time include below links for all posts I make from this trip.  In the meanwhile I have one more post to release from Crete and will resume posts from that trip later. 

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Here are links to the Brisbane posts from the 2021 trip:

Brisbane posts:

• Mount Tamborine
• At the water’s edge
• Lockdown is for the Birds 

Links to North Queensland 2022 posts to appear here….

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30 July to 15 August 2021.

(Click maps for a larger size if they are too small to see).
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Jools and I are planning to fly north to North Queensland for a couple of weeks. This would be quite a change from the currently cold climate of Canberra. 

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Current Queensland border closures.

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However, it all depends of COVID restrictions and border closures.  Australia is pretty much closed to the outside world so we can’t leave the country and there are also restrictions for internal travel.  Queensland currently has closed its borders to New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia but not the Australian Capital Territory (Canberra).  New South Wales is experiencing an explosion of the COVID Delta variant (by Australian Standards at least, 172 new cases yesterday), whereas Canberra hasn’t had a locally spread case for over a year.  We just have to hope that the borders will stay open for us at least for the next three days until our planned departure date.

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We are intending to fly north to Brisbane, stay with friends for a few days, then fly to Cairns.

Edit:  We got to Brisbane and then were caught in a snap 7-day lockdown.  Towards the end of that, Jools had already gone back and I was contemplating going on despite a 3-day North Queensland lockdown when I received an email from the ACT Government warning against further travel.  So I came back as well.  I was concerned I might have to come back to hotel quarantine.  ACT is now in lockdown so we’re now in lockdown there.

Hopefully we’ll be able to do the trip at a later date, perhaps next year.

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Brisbane posts:

• Mount Tamborine
• At the water’s edge
• Lockdown is for the Birds 

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From Cairns, we drive south to the Atherton Tablelands, staying in rainforest for several days near Lake Eacham and Craters Lakes National Park.  We expect to visit Cathedral Fig Tree, Lakes Eacham and Barrine, Yungaburra, Curtain Fig National Park, Atherton, Hasties Swamp National Park (bird hide), Herberton, Mt Hypipamee National Park, Ravenshoe, Tully Gorge Lookout and Millaa Millaa waterfalls.  Wildlife we hope to encounter includes striped possums, platypodes (the correct plural of platypus since the word derives from Greek not Latin) and tree kangaroos.

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We then drive to Laura where we stay overnight and join two tours of Aboriginal rock art the next day.  We next drive to Cooktown where we stay for several days and join another Aboriginal rock art tour on the last morning.

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After Cooktown, we drive to Daintree National Park, where we stay for a few days.  The rainforest here comes down to the sea and we may encounter a cassowary.  Then we drive down to Kuranda, in the hills near Cairns and stay overnight.  The next day we drive back down the hill then take a cablecar back up to Kuranda and come down again in a small train.  From there we drive to Mossman Gorge, stay near there overnight and explore the gorge the next day.  Then we drive to Daintree Village where we stay overnight.  Early the next morning we have a photographic tour on Daintree river, then drive down to Cairns airport to catch our plane back to Canberra.

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I am planning to take both Nikon and Fuji photographic equipment.

I will have a Nikon D850 and a 300mm f2.8 plus 1.4x and 2x teleconverters as my prime telephoto equipment for wildlife.

To reduce weight and also carry a larger range of equipment, I will also have a Fuji X-T2, X-E4 and X-E2 IR cameras, together with 4mm fisheye, 8mm fisheye, 8-16mm, 23mm, 27mm, 35mm, 56mm, 80mm macro and 70-300mm lenses and a 1.4x TC.  (I could perhaps leave the 23mm and 35mm behind but they’re fairly small and light.)  Jools will  have an X-E4 and a 18-135mm lens and will be able to borrow the 70-300mm when I am using the Nikon 300mm.

Next will be a technical post on setting up the new X-E4 but there may be no posts after that for two or three weeks.