It started to drizzle as we left the farm. Not something you want when you are traveling on gravel roads. Our poor car was covered in dust when we arrived in Innot. Thankfully the rain had stopped by the time we had arrived.   Good timing.

We had stopped at the Innot hot springs to dip our toes into the hot spring water.

The spring bubbles out of the ground and runs into a creek. There isn’t much to look at. It is a creek. A nice looking creek but a creek none the less.

Regulars dig holes in the sand making little pools of water to sit in. Other people like us, just rolled up their pants and stood in the water. What was interesting was you would expect the sand near the edge to be the coolest as it was away from the source but it was the hottest area. We watched people go to the waters edge to only jump back in surprise with how hot it was. Before I jumped into the water I was warned to stay out of the green bits, as they were the hottest. Around the green bits you could see the bubble coming up to the surface of the water.

There was a van park, which was right on the edge of the river. The park has their own personal hot springs pool. We talked about staying a night but for $40 unpowered a night we decided against it. How long are you going to sit in hot water for? We splashed around for about an hour then headed off.

As we left the town it started to rain again. Good timing.

Archer Creek Rest Area.

We had stoped at Archer Creek Rest area before. It is about 25k before Ravenshoe. Last time we only stopped for a look. The site had been empty then except for a man camping in the ‘No Camping’ area beside the river. This time when we stopped we could barely get a parking spot. Our idea was to spend the night and travel on to Ravenshoe the next day. We had been warned the Ravenshoe camp would be packed.   We figured it would be a better idea to arrive first thing in the morning than last thing in the afternoon.

The Archer Creek rest stop was a nice spot. It was a little too close to the road but lovely and green. We walked down to the river and along the bank. It seemed half the campground was doing the same.   We stopped to talk to a couple that had camped near the old windmill. (I couldn’t remember it being there the last time we were here.) They were not happy with the noise it made. They told us they thought they had scored big time when they had seen the spot open when they had arrived. They drove right in and set up camp, only to realize the windmill made a lot of noise when it caught the breeze. By then the camp was allot fuller. They were praying for a still night.

People kept coming even late into the evening.

We did think we would be hearing the traffic throughout the night but by about nine it slowed down. We were up early the next morning for our short drive into town.