Blogs from Undara Volcanic National Park, Queensland, Australia, Oceania

There is no worse way to wake up in the morning than having Brush Turkeys falling out of the sky. I kid you not. The resident Brush Turkeys of Alligator Creek sleep in the trees. In a co-ordinated morning wake up mission, they return to earth on mass. It’s most disturbing and I, still reeling from an ignominious defeat at the hands of ‘sly hand Whittle’ in round 2 of the scrabble challenge the previous evening, was not in the best of humour to start with. Things started to improve when we mounted the ‘save the frog from the drain’ expedition. Chris personally dismantled the plumbing system of one of the sinks and was left holding the length of pipe with the frog in it. It appeared that the frog didn’t want to be rescued after ... read more

Undara Lava Tubes are only 190,000 years old – the result of the Undara volcano explosion. The lava ran for 160kms from the volcano across the plains. The tubes were created by the lava getting stuck in a river valley, and the upper lava hardened quicker than that which flowed below, essentially creating a tube. Undara Lava tubes are the longest in the world, and youngest (one of only 20 known lava tubes). The boys were enthralled with the information our tour guide provided. The great thing about the tour was there was only 9 of us on the ‘Active’ tour. With such a small group, the guide decided that we’d have time to explore a couple of extra tubes. We scrambled over logs and down into the ground. We saw these micro-bats and all sorts ... read more