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Published: September 25th 2008
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We only had one night back in Cairns, which was very interesting with it’s unique hostel entertainment. Our next venture took us inland, until now we had hugged the coast up from Sydney but it was time to see some red and leave the pacific.
Sam our tour guide picked us up for the funniest and most entertaining tour to date, we climbed aboard Wally, the bus and off we climbed over the Great Diving Range and onto the Atherton Tablelands. The main road had over 230 corners climbing up over seven hundred metres in only a few Km’s, it was a journey to remember and the views were stunning. The story goes that when the route was first established it was single carriage way with a gate house at each end and three hour time slots for each direction, so if you missed your slot there was nothing else to do but sit in the pub and wait turn. As you can imagine the accident rate was massive, statistically they still loose at least one vehicle a month even more in the wet season. We passed a few cars in trees, apparently it’s cheaper to buy a new
one then organise a crane to lift it off the hill side, only in Australia.
The forest was amazing and just to show us how diverse it could be we turned a corner and the open woodland turned into dense rainforest like the town planners had drawn a line. Our first stop on the magical mystery tour was to Cathedral Fig, strangler fig trees plant their seeds half way up a host, through the gut of a bird and send roots down and shoots up, over many decades the host tree is smothered, it dies and leaves the fig tree. They are really dramatic and artistic and extremely useful to the wildlife for homes and climbing. The cathedral fig looks straight out of Lord of the rings, we both walked inside for a few pictures and to marvel at its massive size.
The day was warming up and it was time for a swim, our first swim stop for the day was Lake Eacham a big crater lake and crocodile free, it was really refreshing and the little fish swam around us. We had our lunch and moved onto the waterfall trail. The group was getting to know
one another and Sam the guide was really great.
We stopped at Millaa Millaa falls, not only absolutely stunningly beautiful but famous for both shampoo ads and Peter Andrei’s music video. Sam got all the girls to try the infamous hair flick before we all swam out through the water fall and sat on the rocks watching the water cascade over. The sight was mesmerising as little rainbows flickered through the air, I could have sat there for hours and if the water had been a tad warmer I may well have. We all had some welcomed chocolate back on Wally as we laughed and sang our way to some more water falls. We stopped off at a massive crater and listened as rocks fell the 56 meters down to the water.
It was soon time to hit the lodge and meet some of the most friendliest staff we have come across. After a nice bit of cake and some tea it was a fond farewell to most of our group as we split between overnighters and day trippers. Although no rest for the wicked as the six of us left made our way down to the creek
to watch for the waking platypus. It was so much fun sitting on the river side whilst the little fellers popped up and down for breath as they fed.
Back at the hostel and it had got quite busy as a school group from Melbourne had all checked in, sixteen year olds running around everywhere. We sat down with some of them for our barbeque dinner as they asked us all where we came from and what we were doing, they were very interested in us all.
Day two and it was off on another knowledge filled tour of rainforests and lakes. We took a cycle ride, which was tiring but fun before some more swimming. In the afternoon we went kayaking, it has a massive divorce rate! We made it through though and at the end we painted each others faces like aboriginal warriors. Along the banks of the lake there was all sorts of wild life from water dragons and lace monitors to ducks, bush turkeys and snakes. It was great fun, Alice decided to ram the other boats but eventually we sorted our steering out.
We had to then say goodbye to the rest of
a head ache cure
little spikes in the leaves relieve tension our tour group as they headed back to Cairns, as we had another night at the hostel. It was even worse then the first time as we had gotten to be quite close to our little group and the hostel felt quite empty without them, but it was more then made up by the fantastic staff.
We spent our last day on the tablelands taking walks to find more platypus, visiting a cheese and chocolate factory and watching cows being milked. Generally chilaxing in the warm Queensland sunshine enjoying the small village of Yungaburra.
We got our lift back to town on the crazy singing Uncle Brian’s Bus. Basically a one day fun informative trip of the tablelands. We had a great laugh singing along all the way back to Cairns, everyone on the bus looked absolutely knackered when we dropped them off but still raving about the day.
The best tour by far that we have done, they team at on the wallaby really brought the tablelands alive for us.
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