Babinda is a small town about 60 kms south of Cairns in North Queensland.

It’s quaint main street has been yarn bombed …

I guess it’s for winter although it doesn’t get that cold here to think about an overcoat 😊

Babinda takes its name from the local Indigenous Australian language for mountain. Other sources, however, claim it is a Yidinji word for water, possibly referring to the high rainfall of the area.

What a history this place has! It’s basically been destroyed and rebuilt 3 times in the last 100 years due to devastating cyclones or fires. How resilient must its residents be? Here’s an example- the theatre in town.

• 1918 Destroyed by a cyclone. Rebuilt
• 1942 Destroyed by fire
• 1956 Destroyed by a cyclone
• 2006 damaged by Cyclone Larry

The text above may be too small to read but I loved the little detail that the Beatties who owned the theatre actually lived there with their family under the stage!

Nearby are the Babinda Boulders with their rainforest rock pools and huge water smoothed rocks.

Unfortunately we didn’t travel out to the Boulders as Babinda shared some of it’s 4 metre annual rainfall with us while we were there so we decided it’s beauty would have been overshadowed by the very wet conditions. It’s going on the bucket list for ‘next time’!

Across the highway the Babinda Rotary Park offers camping for a donation with hot showers ($2), toilets, picnic tables and sandy beach by the river. These happy flowers surrounded my van for my two night stay. Life’s good 😊