Fireworks with my wife
6th September 2025
I have been feeling pretty burnt out of late. I asked my wife if I could have 3 days in the bush on my own and she knows when it is time for me to be alone. She asked me if I could go to the Cairns Festival fireworks with her before I headed off ……so that we did.
I must say the fireworks were not as spectacular as in the past. Perhaps budget cut backs?
A couple of days later and I had cleared work so that I could make my way to Herbert River Falls. There is no camping allowed at the falls so I needed to book a site at the nearby Princess Hills camp grounds and hike to the falls from there.
From Cairns to around the back of Tinaroo, Atherton, Herberton and then the Irvinebank area to camp.
There were no campsites available at Princess Hills on my first night away so I decided to spend the day roaming around the Irvinebank area and camp in there somewhere.
Day 1 - Time spent with the Swans and Bats
I spent most of the first day of the trip at Montalbion Town Dam. I had noticed on previous trips that there were was quite a lot of bird life there and on this day when I arrived a couple of Black Swans were feeding.
I sat there for about 3 to 4 hours having lunch and drinking Milo. After the first couple of hours the Swans were very relaxed and started feeding right in front of me.
As sunset approached the Swans were so relaxed around me that they had come very close. it was time for me to head off and find a campsite for the night as it would be dark soon.
I headed towards Emuford and found a camp site in a dry creek bed well away from the road as it was getting dark. I set up camp, got a fire going and had tea.
It has become my habit to sit at the fire before bed with my camera and take photos of it. The simplest things give me pleasure.
I was asleep in my tent before 8pm. Well that is not quite true…..you see the spot I selected to camp was also home to a large colony of bats and they are very noisy during the night. After putting in my motorbike riding earplugs I was soon properly asleep.
Day 2 - Heading to Princess Hills
I slept well but it was quite cold in the morning so I did not head out of the tent until about 7:30 despite having been awake since just before sunrise with the birds.
After packing up it was time to make my way to Princess Hills campsite to hike into Herbert River Falls. More on that in this post.