Blogs from Atherton Tablelands, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 9

Jenny: Well, where to start? We don't usually leave it this long, but the internet is more expensive here, and computers less common in hostels etc. Well we picked up the car in Cairns, headed up to Port Douglas for a night, we spent the afternoon in the pool and just had a quick peek round the town in the rain the next day. From there we drove up to the Daintree National Park. First stop (of course) was a tropical fruit winery, to provide lunch for the mozzies! Seriously, I've never seen so many mozzies (well except maybe in Peru in the jungle). We tried 13 different types of wine, actually some were very nice and they weren't all sweet either. We particularly liked the passionfruit wine, but they also had a good black sapote ... read more

On the morning of 28th we headed inland to the Atherton Tablelands between Cairns and Mission Beach. An area of origibally dense forest but now taken over mostly with dairy cattle farming. Along the route visited several waterfalls, including Millaa Millaa Falls, Mungalli Falls and Elinjaa Falls, where Mark and Roger went swimming, not that it made much difference because by the time we'd made the short walk there we were soaked through from the tropical downpour. After all that we had a lovely lunch stop at Mungalli Creek Dairy where we tasted (and bought) cheeses and various types of yogurt. That night we parked up in Malanda and had a tasty BBQ in the rain! The following morning (29th) we drove to a crater lake called Lake Eacham which had turquoise waters suitable for swimming ... read more

Tues 20th Nov: Early start to drop Sheila at garage for 0800. Walked back into city and back to the internet cafe to kill a few hours. Back to mall to pick up a few things then finally on the road, heading for the Atherton Tablelands and the hostel, On The Wallaby in Yungaburra. The drive was only 100km so we couldn't understand why we were told the drive would take approx. 2.5hrs. We got as far as Gordonvale and then we understood. We began climbing and winding around hairpin bends and this continued for about 90mins. I probably took an extra hr on top of that as the views were outstanding and I kept making Laz stop so I could take photos. After climbing 900m we eventually began to descend and the road straightened out, ... read more

After much debating, Atherton Tablelands won over Cape Tribulation for our day out! We have read a lot about both and well, the consensus of backpackers was Atherton wins so we trust our fellow backpackers in this one! (or maybe it's because we got to swim in the waterfall that the famous Timotei ahri advert was filmed at - and oh yes - we did the hair flick too! but more about that later!), sp we got picked up by 'Hutch' our crazy driver and guide and away we went! Atherton Tablelands are rainforests about an hour away from Cairns and are stunning! George discovered these forests, yes good old George erm I can't remember what I was told if it's Geprge Tableland or george Atherton - it's one of the 2! First stop was Catherdral ... read more

Just wanted to post up some picture of the Hot Air balloon trip over the Atherton Table Lands inclusing the first sighting of Kangaroos in the wild! Looking a tad rough in the piccies as it was a 3:15am start and we had a few cocktails the night prior. Love to all g&pXXX... read more