DIARY UPDATE: Karumba/Port Douglas Trip 2026

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26

Husband and wife team, Dave ‘Chips’ Smith and Leanne are Coach Captain and Tour Leader respectively for our Fun Over 50 trip to Cairns via Karumba. Dave represented the Sunshine Coast in a rugby league trial against Combined Brisbane’s National Panasonic Cup side at Nambour Showgrounds in 1984, a match I covered for Brisbane’s Telegraph newspaper. ‘Chips’ says he read my stuff when I was a league writer for Qld Newspapers. He is from New South Wales originally and as we near the XXXX Brewery tells everyone we are approaching the Brisbane waste water treatment plant.

Tea and scones at Picnic Point, Toowoomba and then lunch at Club Hotel Chinchilla. As we pass through Dalby Chips mentions it was the home town of actress Margo Robbie as well as Australian league star, Steve Price and rugby star, Jason Little. No mention of Johnny Gleeson in Chinchilla, but you can’t mention everyone and our crew are not necesarily league fans.

Roma is our overnight stop and the sculpture trail near our motel is excellent. It is amazing what they can do with spanners, horse shoes, spades etc. The first person we crossed paths with on this trip was Brenda Mason from the Gold Coast, who was dropped off at the coach departure point in Brisbane by her daughter. As we were waiting to board the coach another member of the tour group, Nancy Hunter from Cairns raced across the road to tell us where the coach was stationed. For a moment I thought Nancy was our guide – ‘Wow. The gear is very informal’ I said to Marie. Nancy has what you might call a hippie taste in clothing.

The funeral of Heather Munro is held at Kedron. Heather, or ‘Lady’ Heather as she was known on my Kangaroo supporters’ tours, died just a few weeks after her husband, Don, a former secretary of the Brothers Rugby League Club.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 27

This is my first visit to Blackall since 1976 or 77 when I covered a court case which involved a double shooting. My recollection is that a local police officer shot his girlfriend and her publican dad, at the pub, after a day in which he was bitterly disappointed at his failure to make the Central West rugby league side. Neither person died, but naturally the charges were very serious. When I say it is my recollection, I cannot find anything on the internet, and the only local I spoke to knew nothing about it, particularly as she was born after the event. I had hoped to ask regulars or a barman/publican at the Barcoo Hotel where Marie and I enjoyed a beer with Errol Coombs from Newstead in Brisbane, a fellow over-50s traveller who called Rockhampton home for many years. But the barmaid was a back packer and Marie and I were so engrossed in conversation with Errol we didn’t mix with any other people in the bar. Errol played rugby league for Emerald and is a great supporter of the 13-man code. As we were leaving I heard one bloke at the bar telling his mate about hypnosis being used to stop smoking.

The main purpose of our stop in Blackall was to visit to famous Woolscour. On our way from Roma to Blackall we had stopped at Morven for morning tea and Tambo Teddies for lunch. A Kiwi lass, a part owner of the business, tells us about the history of Tambo Teddies, which are now world famous. We also have a female guide at the Woolscour (accompanied by faithful dog Hugo) and she is informative in a down-to-earth way. When we are looking at a bale of wool I tell the story of Bobby Banks’ contract at Cunnamulla, which included a bale of wool. Banks was chosen for the Australian Rugby League side while based at Cunnamulla. Dinner in the restaurant of our Oasis Motel is excellent and the bar staff, headed by a young chap from Lyon in France, are sensational.

FRIDAY, AUGUST 28

The bore water smells of rotten egg gas as I shower, but the it does the job.  Breakfast is not at our hotel. Instead we head north to Barcaldine, the birthplace of the Labor Party, for a break at Desert Dreaming Centre where we are looked after by a dynamic one person show, Sheryl Thompson, a former teacher who is a wonderful advertisement for Indigenous culture of which she is so proud. Some aspects of her address are confronting, but she never speaks in a condescending way and never lectures. I could have done without the cultural workshop in which we had to make something with feathers. I am all thumbs and Sheryl has to help. I think she said something like: “I have never seen that happen before” – which brought back memories of the IT people at Queensland Newspapers who were forever helping me.

The Wellshot Hotel at Ilframcobe is our lunch stop and there are some great characters at the bar including Paul, a shearer who is originally from Geelong, a man who has great knowledge of AFL (as you would expect), rugby league and rugby union. And beside him is a Maori chap and his white Aussie wife from the Clare Valley in South Australia, who are on their way to Darwin. The Maori is from Whatakane and played union against Benji Marshall’s brother, and also played in selection trials for the All Blacks. When I think of this pub and Ilfracombe I think of local lad Matt Scott, who won a NRL Premiership with the Cowboys and played for Queensland and Australia, a great bloke.

Longreach, our next destination, is pumping because there is a Yellowbelly fishing competition with a $15,000 prize. ABC’s Landline are here to cover the event. During our sunset cruise on the Thompson River we see hundreds of fisher folk on the river banks, most set up for two night camps. The Irish lass in the boat’s bar is from Galway and the chef – back on shore at Smithy’s where we have a camp oven dinner, including damper – is from Uruguay. The entertainer sings mainly Australian songs and is very good after a shaky start. He also does an excellent spoonerism and I tell him about my father Jon William Ricketts’ love of Spoonerisms.

At the Melbourne Cricket Ground our grand daughter Evan plays Auskick at halftime in a finals match between the Magpies and Bulldogs. She makes a terrific break and looks set to score a long range try only it’s not rugby league. She is meant to bounce or kick the ball. Oh well at least she ran in the right direction.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 29

First barista coffee of the trip – from The Vault in the Longreach CBD. On the way back to our motel I pass two fig trees planted by the Queen and Duke in 1970.

The Courier-Mail’s Peter Badel contacts me with the shocking news former Broncos’ CEO, Shane Edwards has died of MND. Peter asks me for a few words for the tribute he is writing and I do so  in between the movie and outdoor show at the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. Our tour group started the day at the Qantas Founders Museum where memories came flooding back as we ‘boarded’ a jumbo, this one built in 1979. Ours flew out of Brisbane in October 1977 bound for the UK on our first Northern Hemisphere trip. Our guide is amazing. An Aussie who lived much of his life in Canada, he talks at a rate of knots but still makes everything clear and is entertaining at the same time. The Stockman’s Hall of Fame is inspirational and husband and wife team who provide the live show are great. A Victorian, the male is a genius with the whip. I tell him about my great Aunty, Dorothy Ricketts (aka Sister Dorrie) who travelled the country with Tex Morton, but he hadn’t heard of her. Tex was handy with a whip as well.

Marie and I walk from our motel to see the house where Marie’s close friend Michelle Smith (nee Gordon) grew up. Marie has not been to Longreachbut wrote quite a few letters to Michelle when she lived in Quail Street. Michelle was murdered by handbag thieves in Phuket in 2012. Our group dines at the Birdcage Hotel where the NRL is on television. I am wearing my Roosters’ polo but they lose to the Dolphins, much to the delight of the regulars. Chat to Lex Johnson from Rockhampton who laps up everything on the trip and is a great walker. Lex, who is well read, just loves life and people.

Learn of the passing of former Manly-Warringah and New South Wales five eighth Ian Martin at Sawtell on the NSW North Coast. I interviewed Ian at a sportsmen’s lunch at Tuncurry a few years back. He was one of the best defenders to play the game.

SUNDAY, AUGUST 30

Our Longreach Motel is in Galah Street and we see quite a few galahs on the way out of town, all of the feathered variety. Our guide at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs outside Winton is Grant, who has opened the centre specially for us. He is excellent and refrains from making jokes about all the old dinosaurs on our trip.

The huge North Gregory Hotel at Winton is our lunch stop and we are addressed by Irene Moore, the daughter of the farmer on whose land so many dinosaur bones were found. She and her husband, Chris took a huge risk taking on the management of the pub and hopefully it is paying off because they really have their hearts in the job. Australia’s unofficial National Anthem Waltzing Matilda, was sung in public here for the first time.

In Cloncurry, our overnight stop I see the first Indigenous person on the trip, other than Cheryl and her mum in Barcaldine. At dinner Marie and I sit with Nancy and Debra, with Nancy recounting the day’s activities, which is handy for those of us who can’t remember what happened five minutes ago. I am still shaken by a mishap at our afternoon stop – the Walkabout Creek Hotel which was used in the Crocodile Dundee movie. Jenny Krassnig, a former school teacher with international experience asked me to take her photo. I dropped the camera she handed me and and now it doesn’t work. It was so small and when I reached out my grip was prepared for a smart phone, not a real camera. She is philosophical about it, bless her but I still feel guilty.

Cricket season is just about upon us and back in Samford Valley the Mountain Ashes are contested at Highvale between the Mongrels and the Legends. Marie and I watch Vicar of Dibley and the head of the Parish council reminds us of our English friend, John Tapp.

MONDAY AUGUST 31

A Courier-Mail story by Bruce McMahon is plastered on the entrance to the Burke and Wills Road House where we have a morning tea stop. The countryside is never boring but Leanne and Chips have devised a ‘True and False’ game to help pass the time.

Lunch at Albion Hotel, Normanton where I have my first VB of the trip. The barman says he uses VB to clean the BBQ. As we reach Karumba it is so sad to see the Raptis fleet of fishing trawlers stuck in port after the company went bust. One of our former neighbours, the late George Holmes had a lot to do with Raptis’s formative years in Karumba.

Our Croc and Crab Sunset Island Cruise is superb – Mount Karumba our guide calls the sandbank as it rises from the waters of the Gulf about 7km off Karumba. Watching the sun go down over the Gulf as we enjoy beer, wine and prawns on our own ‘island’ is something I will never forget. We saw a croc resting on the banks of the River as we left Karumba. Divers were working from a croc proof cage under a jetty. The caravan parks are emptying as the wet season draws closer with Karumba always cut off from civilistation for months ar a time.

That night Marie and I risk it and have one drink at The Animal Bar, which is tame these days compared to the wild west days of the booming prawn industry. The Karumba Lodge Hotel Motel, which includes the Animal Bar is basic and we were told that would be the case. But there do not appear to be smoke alarms in a number of rooms and our floor is no particularly clean.

Learn of the passing of former Boxer, Tony Mundine. I met and interviewed his son Anthony a number of times, but never had the pleasure of meeting Tony. I saw him once in the flesh – at Lang Park where he did a lap of the ground ahead of a rugby league match, wearing a white suit. We’re talking the 1970s so boxer or not, he was a brave man. Most of the crowd seemed to be Mundine fans although there were a few jeers. I always remember my father saying Tony had a glass jaw.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 1

A Barramundi latches onto my finger as I feed the fish at the Barra Discovery Centre in Karumba. “I haven’t seen that before,” says the guide. Once again sounds like the IT people at Queensland Newspapers. The guide is from WA and will return there in summer “for the harvest”.

Once again Marie and I brave the Animal Bar and the c..word gets a run at the table near us. There is graffiti nearby which reads: “Some drunk c…..’s writing” although the dots are not there – the word is. Dinner is enjoyed at the End of the Road Motel’s Sunset Bar where we sit with Sheila Marchant who was born in Uganda. Her dad, a Kiwi, was a coal miner; her mum an Aussie from Victoria. “I have lived longer in Queensland than any other country,” Sheila says. I know where she is coming from. Sheila, who also has Isle of Man ancestry has a nursery at Kilcoy, north west of Brisbane.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

Errol Coombs is a true blue Queenslander – he says port, not suit case. As a schoolboy in northern New South Wales I also called it a port. We jump on the Gulflander train at Blackbull and travel to Croydon where there is a lunch of corn beef and salad at the pub, where Errol chats to an Indigenous chap at the bar, where there is a great tribute to Arthur Beetson, the first Indigenous man to captain Australia in any sport, in this case rugby league – of course. In the pub’s toilet there is a message on the wall to residents of the shire bagging Albo for cutting disaster relief to Queensland.

Next stop is Forsayth’s Goldfields Hotel where we enoy a drink while waiting for our transfer to Cobbold Gorge. The Saunders family manage the hotel and the member of the family I am chatting to is a league man through and through as I discover when a former Aussie rules player from Colac in Victoria asks if the AFL will be on the TV. “We don’t show that shit here” says Saunders, a man after my own heart. The publican says his son, Michael once contacted me asking if he could use some of my ‘Origin of the Origin’ series in the Charters Towers Miner newspaper. Michael is now a Government media adviser in Tasmania. Chips is a Blue through and through and played league in Queanbeyan from where he was approached by the Canberra Raiders. Nothing eventuated from talks and he found his way to Queensland. Joining this tour means I miss the Family of League State Lunch which is held today at the Convention centre in Brisbane with dual rugby international, Brad Thorn and Matt and Cooper Johns among the special guests.

From Forsayth we get a transfer coach to Cobbold Gorge Village where we stay in cabins. Dinner at the motel restaurant (Roast lamb followed by apple tart) is beautiful. We have drinks with Warren and Carla Oakes from Lake Macquarie. They are the only people on the trip who do not live in Queensland. Both are ex RAAF. We sit with John and Karen Leahy at dinner. Karen is originally from Northern Ireland and recalls being on television in the UK when she was interviewed on a secretary’s day out. John is a member of a band called The Hip Replacements and once drove a mini from Perth to Hobart. That will do it.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3

After breakfast I enjoy a flat white courtesy of female barista from just outside Frankfurt in Germany. Our guides on the trip down the Gorge are South African and Italian blokes. The National Parks and Wildlife Service let private guides run the show in Cobbold Gorge. Our electric powered boat glides through the narrow gorge which cuts through the sandstone landscape. We also walk across the new glass bridge built high above the Gorge. Our afternoon chopper flight over the Gorge reveals how the this natural wonder stayed hidden for so many years. Our pilot is a young female from Brisbane  who is getting up her hours. It is my wife’s first helicopter flight and only my second. My previous flight was with a Brisbane Telegraph photographer in the official Seaworld helicopter back in the 1970s. The photographer was tasked with getting pics of a luxury yacht entering the Southport Broadwater. I never thought twice about going up in the chopper in the 1970s, but I’m terrified now and mightily relieved when it is all over.

After dinner (Chicken Maryland followed by sticky date pudding) Marie and I watch the Broncos v Bulldogs game and Broncos hooker, Billy Walters, not long back from a long-term knee injury, is easily the smartest player on the field.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4

Another train trip, this time on the Savannahlander and although the train itself is not as interesting as the Gulflander, the countryside is far more varied on the way to Mt Surprise from Einasleihg where we had lunch. Mark, our driver, is from Christchurch originally and has found his way north via Byron Bay. His commentary is entertaining and he wins over the travellers by allowing us each a turn up front with him. He proves a hit with the ladies in particular. During our journey the train has to slow down a few times for cattle and on one occasion a Wallaroo.

To Discovery Resorts Undara where we have dinner in the Lodge restaurant with Peter and Josephine Nolan from Toowoomba. He is a retired GP. Josephine has Italian heritage – from the Prosecco producing regions of the north of Italy. They talk of their Italian travels and 11pm Christmas Mass followed by mulled wine. ‘Chips’ has the TV switched to the NRL. Marie and I and Errol are the last to leave the bar. Errol’s favourite beers are Tooheys New and Asahi Black, but neither are available here.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5

Bush Brekky about 500 metres from the Lodge is fine but the coffee is horrible. We have a male South African guide on the local bus which takes us from the Lodge to the Lava Tubes, and then we have an Aussie lass for the walk into the caves

The very grand Ravenshoe Hotel is our lunch stop as we arrive on the Atherton Tablelands and the food – pork belly – is excellent. The manageress tells us about the history of the hotel and invites us to inspect the upstairs quarters. On our descent to the Coast on the Gillies Highway the coach stops to let a cassowary cross the road. One motorist behind us is impatient and gives Chips the finger as he overtakes. Probably that moron with the jetski who parked across three disabled bays at a Bunnings Store the other day. Jetski and moron seem to fit nicely together.

After checking into the Shangri-La at The Marina in Cairns, the group enjoys a farewell dinner at noisy Salt House. Chips tells me he once got on the turps with Rupert Murdoch at a winery near Yass in NSW. I took a payout from Rupert but never had a drink with him

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 6

It’s farewell time with most of the group heading home. Marie and I are staying another night in Cairns before a six night break at Port Douglas. It is my 74^th birthday as well as being Father’s Day and it proves a miserable day really as I have an infection at the back of my mouth. I spend two and a half hours at a medical centre where most of those in the waiting room appear to be of Indian descent. I don’t get it, particularly as I believe they make up less than 2 percent of the population in the Cairns district. My doctor is also Indian and prescribes antbiotics. I am well enough to have dinner with Marie at Dundee’s in the Wharf precinct. There are two tables of Asians who all order Wagyu steaks and there is a procession of waiters past our table as they convey the precious cargo. My birthday meal is calamari. I don’t fancy munching into a steak with my current dental problems. Not a a great way to start my 75^th year.

People on our trip who I have not mentioned were Greg and Eve Bennett, Bruce Cavanough Sandra Dore, Carmel Ryan and Judy Sewell. ‘Chips’ and Leanne said we were a great group. ‘Chips’ and Leanne were certainly great guides.

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