We spent a couple of months resting and holidaying in Port Douglas and Cairns, the offer we’d got for our next adventure had stalled a couple of times with contract problems between two parties (not our contract), my experience in this area had us cautious, if it begins bad it usually ends bad. So after a couple of start dates passing we decided the timing was right for a trip to the Kimberley and work the season in Broome.

It was a Friday, June 5^th and the third deadline was about to pass whilst walking to The Court House Hotel in Port Douglas to catch up with friends from Traralgon who were up for the week we decided that if the contract wasn’t signed by 4pm today we were headed for Broome in a few days. We left around 2pm on our walk into town and before we arrive on the 15 minutes walk I got a call saying the contract was signed we were starting in Cardwell in a week. We had a couple more hold ups after this but we’d committed and we were on our way south so we wouldn’t back out after committing to The Nulleys.

We spent a week at Leos place in Cairns setting the van up better for free camping as we’d decided to spend a few days near Mission Beach at Bingil Bay a great free camping area right on the beach looking across at Dunk Island on the Coral Sea.

We headed south from Cairns with two cars and a caravan on an easy drive of 150ks, around ten kilometers short of our turn off I noticed a sign for the old El Arish Hotel a real old Queensland type of pub almost 100 years old. Our quick stop for a beer only 15ks short of the destination never happened with both cars being pulled over by the police who asked me a few fair questions “how long you been traveling” and how long since you’ve got any mail” it was then that I worked our where he was going with his line of questioning…

Not to say too much, but that episode cost a few thousand! Luckily we got permission to drive direct to Cardwell giving us time to fix the problem in the coming days. We didn’t get a few days camping on the Coral Sea under the stars, that hurt as much as the fines we received.

We spent the next week in the caravan park across the road from our new workplace and home, I got the call at 4pm on June 28 “why aren’t you two over here, the contract is signed and we need your help to drink this bar dry tonight”.

We had a good night trying to drink the place dry, played loads of load music, I am sure I have a video of Faith & Shelly dancing, I must have one, I have one from every other time they get together. I have a picture of me with a silly hat on that come out of the box of promo gear that Shane Mullins the business sales guy bought in, these another silly one of Joe looking more like Colonel Sanders than the Colonel himself and the worst or best of all was Max behind the bar with his shirt off doing whatever he was doing. I don’t know so I guess he didn’t know.

A great and late night was had before we got stuck into the reno the next morning. We moved the van over, blocked off all the entrances to the motel, bar and bottle shop with “closed for renovations” signs at each entry point.

The Lyndoch Motor Inn is a large venue with around 90 meters of highway frontage and 40 meters to the back fence so 3600 meters is a fair size property with a full commercial hotel license, 40 rooms, a bottleshop, a good size kitchen with a restaurant that seated 60 inside and 30 outside in the beer garden over looking the resort style pool.

We started in the kitchen, bar and dinning area with our renovation knowing we could work on the rooms once the business was open, we had hoped two weeks would see the place up to our standard but we pushed into a third week to make sure we were all happy with the place. It wasn’t so bad overall but dated with its mission brown brickwork bar face that went floor to ceiling and the best (worst) part being the archways to expose the inside of the bar.

My preference was to knock the top part over, it wasn’t load bearing but we decided to paint it white and the tile bar top a cream colour, it took far to much paint to cover the rough brown brickwork but once complete it certainly brightened the room up. We ripped out everything that looked out of place, cleaned up the kitchen and fitted new deep fryers.

Once we had plenty of rooms ready to go we opened up on a Friday afternoon and a few locals started to come and check us out. Cardwell is a great place the weather is great, the fishing is great with loads of fishing clubs coming to town for Barramundi fishing competitions and the people were either fantastic or total _ _ _ _ _%$@s it was strange how we didn’t come across many in-between these two types.

Shelly came up with a new menu, it took a bit to get it going but once we got the right locals coming in for dinner the town was talking about Shells food and how it was without doubt the best in town…. But we already knew this. We didn’t get swamped with people on the first night like we did when we opened Bundaberg but we built business up by joining the local golf club and knocking on many doors at Port Hinchinbrook and handing out flyers and talking to the locals who had the money to eat out a few nights a week.

Cardwell is in the middle of Cairns and Townsville approximately 150ks to each of these major FNQ centers and has population of almost 1500 not many but the place swells to a few thousand in the winter with all the grey nomads in town for a few months. Its an old place with the first white settlement in 1864 and the name of Port Hinchinbrook in the shadows of Hinchinbrook Island before adopting the name Cardwell after a rather hairy looking fella by the name of Edward Cardwell, 1^st Viscount Cardwell.

Old Edward was a Tory politician from Liverpool who lived to a decent age of the time 72.

Port Hinchinbrook is now the name of the Marina precinct just few hundred meters south of Cardwell developed by Keith Williams, but his death and the devastating cyclone in February 2011 has left the place without a sole. Tropical Cyclone “YASI” ripped through the area with wind gusts at 250ks an hour and sadly this place is now most famous for these pictures.

We got to know some great people from that area and we hear it could finally be going ahead with stories of up to $500,000,000 about to be spent on the rebuild and expansion, if true it will bring many jobs and plenty of money back to area something it needs greatly.

Port Hinchinbrook pre Tropical Cyclone Yasi.

We made plenty of friends at the Cardwell Golf Club with most people being great, I got my first handicap and sent out on a mission to break 90 and get my handicap under 20, I have achieved one of these goals. The very first day I played in a competition at Cardwell I meet Warren whilst paying for the comp, we played that first round together and almost every other round, we got on well.

Warren from Beaumaris and Port Hinchinbrook depending on the season is retired and loves the yachting, he’d done well in business in Melbourne but was very down to earth and we got on well. We have a large night on one night knowing we would do over 100 meals so I asked him to help out and drive the courtesy bus, he did this and helped out in the kitchen. Shelly and I spent the night at his Beaumaris house with he and his wife Glenda over summer in 2016 just before he headed back to the sunshine for another perfect winter in Far North Queensland.

Shell played a bit of golf and even played in her first competition where she had a number of hits on one of the worst days for golf, she had good company though driving around in the cart with Jodie Jansen wife of local police office Dave Jansen, these were the nicest couple in town except for us of course.

We met Dave early on when he came in to look at CCTV footage in the hope he’d see a vehicle that was involved in a robbery across the road. We got talking and soon discovered this tall dude had played footy with a couple of my friends at two different clubs in two different states. I talked to Dave about going to have a kick of the footy some time, Cardwell had no sporting clubs other than the golf club and a girls softball team.

I put the word out and called for people interested in having a kick of the footy at the local rugby ground, flyers went up all over town, asked every one I ran into around town, started a Facebook group and got a story in the local papers, to try and attract players. First night out we got two people, then we got three or four and it built up from then, all up we had 12 different people train over the first five weeks.

I made contact with the Townsville Sharks Masters Football Club who had a good group of players and play games regular, the played a few games in Cardwell since Cyclone Yasi, the guys from Cairns Masters would travel down for a game on the local rugby ground trying to put some money back into the struggling community.

Maurie Soars from the Townsville Sharks was great, he’d been involved for years around Townsville and still played into his 60’s, Maurie sent up four decent footys and some water bottles to help get us going. He also committed to get the Cairns boys to come down and play another game in Cardwell in November. It was my job to get as many local to join in as possible. I was over at the ground trying to put a bit of fitness into my legs when I got a visit from five kids across the road and their mum, four brothers and there sister and mother joined in and he had a mini skills training run. They had great natural skill for kids who had never played any sport, with no sport in town its not surprising kids get into trouble when they grow up.

Things were going ok in the business, wed managed to renovate the extremely dirty managers apartment above the bottle shop and had moved in on the freshly sanded and painted floorboards when we got word that Shells dad Rob wasn’t going so well with his battle with Cancer. Shell went down a couple of times and when she decided she’d be staying down after we went down for Robs birthday I arranged a ride back up with our neighbor in his truck.

I’d traveled much of Australia roads but never sitting up high in a truck and the ride with Pat was great. Pat lived on the land behind us and spent four days a week on the road and three at home getting ready to travel and keep his business running. He’d come in for a beer and a feed and always got on well with everyone, we liked Pat very much and no doubt will run into him again some day.

We had discussed Shells departure with Max & Faith who as always were fantastic, we may have been the face of the place and running it day to day just as we did at the Lions Dem Hotel but they were great and always around to back us up when required. They knew once Shell wasn’t coming back I’d be close behind her and gave us there blessing to go. We didn’t quite make it to the end of the contract but under the circumstances I guess we never would have.

When I returned from Tannum without Shell and we got closer to the November game we picked up four new guys, I had heard they knew a bit about footy but were all League players, we had a training run just prior to the game and these League guys were great and picked up the game on the first night. At this rate (with a few unavailable) we could have around ten locals play on Saturday. A few of the guys from Townsville and Cairns stayed at our motel and a few camped at the footy ground, on match day I was up early converting the rugby ground into a footy ground.

With two games organised, over 45s would play the curtain raiser before the under 45s, I am not sure why but I was told to play in the under 45s game. It was a great day with plenty of locals out watching, things didn’t turn out so well for me after kicking the first goal of the match on the run I dived forward and to the right to grab the footy from a poor kick to me.

Cardwell doesn’t get a whole lot of rain the ground was as hard as a road as I was fully stretched out and got my hands on the footy my rib cage landed first and I felt a sharp pain in my ribs, next my head hit the deck as the ball spilt from my grip, I got up very slowly with my ears ringing and the feeling of a couple of broken ribs. I played a couple more quarters without any influence on the game, I couldn’t move and couldn’t hear much. MY hearing came good after around a week but almost twelve months on I still haven’t recovered from the rib injury, it affect my greatly when playing golf and when I played a game of footy at my home club in Traralgon it probably told me that the game in Cardwell should have been my last….

The local guys did well in the two games, the rugby guys had a real crack and one in particular kicked a couple of goals. Big Dave the local police officer destroyed them in the ruck I can see why my mate Bova said Dave was the reason he made the ACT team of the year. A guy who’d made contact about having a kick was Adrian from Innisfail, we hadn’t seen him at training but on the day he was best one ground by a long way and won the medal for the best player on the day. We did well considering a few weeks earlier when we first trained only two of us turned up. I left all the gear in town and think the rugby guys will keep it going this year.

I packed up and left Cardwell the next day, after saying goodbye to Max and Faith (and Lynn) I stopped in at the Police Station, Dave lived next door, he was on duty but we went to his place and had a coffee, I got pretty emotional and found it hard to say goodbye, I guess because I knew where I was heading and what lay ahead but I also think it was because I had just met a few really good people in Cardwell in the rugby guys and knew if Id have stayed we’d of had some great times. Dave and Jodie were great people, Shelly and I got along with these guys great so hopefully we’ll meet again someday in the future.

We had a few friends drop in during our time in Cardwell our German friends travelled down from Port Douglas a couple of times to help out, a good thing considering our first large function was possible the best drink I’v seen by 100 thirsty locals at a wake, they had us running to keep the beer up. Butch came up from Traralgon for a few weeks and Brendan and Gail Broker dropped as they had done a year earlier to the Lions Den only this time they were heading home after taking part in the variety bash.

I headed south with plans of a few weeks alone in the bush hunting gold…..