Atherton Tablelands
Our flight from Hervey Bay stopped in Brisbane before we switched planes
to arrive in Cairns around noon. We headed to the rental car booths to
find that only one company could offer us an automatic transmission car.
The rest were sold out. Yikes. Of course we took it, a Holden, one of
Australia's own car companies. It seemed pretty ordinary to us.
Out in the open air of Cairns we noticed it was warmer and a lot more
humid. We were a lot closer to the equator now. Our first stop on the
way to the Atherton Tablelands (after the bank to change money, anyway)
was Kuranda, a shopping village in the forested hills northwest of
Cairns. We had lunch there and drove around the area in search of
accommodation. One neat lodge by the side of the highway was closed,
nothing else looked interesting.
We followed the signs to a waterfall area. It was a small hike on a
paved trail which ended up following the railroad track for a bit before
overlooking a steep valley. The falls were surprisingly magnificent,
even for the dry season. They must be incredible in the rainy season.
The railroad track was part of the Kuranda Scenic Railway, which we
didn't take because we didn't have time, and the falls were one of several
stops the train made. It would have been neat to see the train.
We continued along the highway towards the Atherton Tablelands and the
town of Atherton looking for lodging. One really neat rainforest lodge
was 6 miles from the main road and totally vacant. But the proprietor
said we could only stay one night since they would be completely full
with a wedding the next. Dang.
We drove on to a town called Mareeba. We left the main road to drive
through the town and were not at all impressed. Compared to everywhere
else we'd been in Australia, Mareeba was industrial and devoid of trees.
Nope, we're not staying here. We turned the car around at a golf
course and I noticed a troop of kangaroos on the 1st fairway. Being late
in the afternoon there weren't any golfers teeing off, so we got out of
the car and approached as close as we could to take some pictures. I
noticed they were on a few other fairways, too. All of the kangaroos
were enjoying the plentiful grass and water. Mareeba wasn't a total loss.
We continued down the highway for a while wondering where we would be
staying that night. In Tolga we followed a sign pointing to a lodge on
Lake Tinaroo that sounded nice, so we followed the sign. Now we were
driving along ranch and farm land. Plenty of interesting birds were in
the air and perched in the high trees. We lost the trail towards the
lodge but found another accommodation sign near the kangaroo crossing
sign. I got out to take a picture of the memorable sign and noticed a
small flock of wild guinea fowl running across the road.
We followed the next sign about a mile and eventually ended up at yet
a third lodge called the Tinaroo
Haven Lodge. Its driveway ascended a small hill and the wallabies
eating in the yard all fled. The sight of wallabies in the yard
solidified the choice in Kelly's
mind that we'd be staying here. They were available for the next 2
nights and we unpacked our things from the car, hanging some of our
still-wet laundry from Hervey Bay up to dry wherever we could find an
appropriate hook or hanger.
The lodge was an interesting design. Essentially a large 2-story
cylinder, the rooms encircled the circumference while a spiral staircase
wound its way around the massive center pole. The top floor housed the
kitchen and a beautiful balcony deck that joined up to the proprietors'
more normal-looking house next door.
Colin and Jan were very nice hosts. They pointed us towards the
convenience store where we could get a quick dinner or towards Atherton
itself if we wanted to eat at a restaurant. We lazily opted for the
frozen pizza at the convenience store and ate it in the lodge after
Colin heated it in their oven.
The next day we woke up early, as usual. Out on the front lawn were
several wallabies. The dawn light was just getting stronger. Every
move we made up on the balcony jolted them all into a heightened state
of alert. At 7:00a Colin marched out into the middle of the lawn,
replenished the bird feeder, and then scattered birdseed on the ground
before retreating into the house. The wallabies had scrambled away in
fear but were soon back to enjoy the new lawn treats.
After enjoying the wallabies for a while we headed out to the waterfall
circuit. On the way through
the ranchlands we saw tons of different birds - from the stork-like
brolgas to hawks and kites to cattle egrets to cockatoos. In Yungaburra
we turned off the ranch highways onto the circuit and the first stop was
the Curtain Fig tree.
The Curtain Fig was unbelievable. Yet another victim of the strangler
fig, this host tree collapsed sideways onto a neighbor tree before the
strangler fig could complete its devastation. Instead of its gripping
roots streaming straight down the drunk, the roots now spanned across a
fallen trunk at 45 degrees. The resulting drapery effect carried onto
the tree that still propped up the fallen one to become an amazingly
massive root system.
We continued on to the first sign of a waterfall. The falls themselves
were quite lame, but a rainforest path across the street looked interesting.
Too dark for pictures, but filled with life, here we saw a number of
elusive catbirds, and not way high up in the canopy either. Bush turkeys
and magpies were making the rounds, too. The path wound near the river
which warned against feeding the platypus, but we didn't see any. A
visitors center next to the falls was finally opening when we were done
with the small hike, but they wanted money to go inside. That's alright…
The drive to the next waterfall, and for that matter the entire rest of
the way, was through hilly ranchlands that looked like they'd been carved
out of the rainforest. Many small patches of rainforest dotted the
landscape. We could never spot any rivers, but all of a sudden we were
driving through rainforest and there was a waterfall.
Millaa Millaa falls was the next stop, perhaps Australia's most famous
and photographed falls. During the dry season it was just trickling.
The water ended up in a wide pool that you could apparently swim in.
Lush, tropical vegetation surrounded the falls. Only a few cars found
their way into the parking lot. Tourism must have been way down. A
bush turkey walked right next to me in the parking lot, on its way to
collect more leaf litter for its nest mound.
The loop road continued on to 3 more waterfalls. We hiked all of their
paths and took pictures of them all. They had aboriginal names, too.
At the end of our road we stopped at a deserted restaurant/bed-n-breakfast
by the side of the road. We were the only customers. That was the best
sandwich I ever had in my life. If you go to the Atherton Tablelands
and are looking for a great sandwich, stop at the large white house
restaurant (I think they called it a tea room) just at the turnoff
pointing you towards Millaa Millaa falls.
After lunch we continued along the main road looking for more sites.
The further south we got, the more flies there were. The flies were
annoying at a particular private tourist stop that had aborigines playing
music in the yard next to the waterfall. Further down the road at a
state park we didn't even make it 100 yards down the path before we were
turned back in frustration and disgust from the relentless onslaught
of flies. That was enough, we got in the car and headed back.
On the way back we found a road that advertised a lookout high up on a hill.
The view was quite beautiful -- you could see all the ranches that
carved into the remaining rainforest, very green.
Back in Yungaburra we stopped at a platypus viewing site along a creek,
but there was so much road construction going on that the sign redirected
us to a town park. All we saw at the park was a large egret and a horse.
In a small lawn near the small main street of the town we found a masked
lapwing that was close enough to photograph. We'd seen these birds here
and there, alone or in pairs, all across our travels in Queensland.
It started to drizzle as we headed back to our lodge.
Colin met us on our arrival: "Have you seen any platypus yet? No!? Well,
get in the car and I'll take you to my lucky spot. I've had a 95% success
rate in the evenings and a 100% success rate in the early mornings."
Cool! We couldn't refuse an offer like that. He drove us to the
backside of the Tinaroo Dam (the other side from the lake it created)
where the rushing water quickly smoothed itself into a lazy stream.
Still drizzling we waited quietly along the bank and a platypus popped
its head out of the water momentarily. After a breath of fresh air it
resubmerged to continue its bottom-foraging for food.
We were quite excited to see a platypus. The 2-ft long mammals live in
families of 4-8 or more in calm stream water. Apart from the echidna,
an Australian hedgehog-type animal, it's the only mammal that lays eggs.
Apparently it's poisonous, too, although they are way to afraid of humans
to ever have the chance to threaten. We tried, but the light was too
dark to get a good photo. We would try again the next morning.
Colin drove us further around the lake to a point where the eucalyptus
forest stopped and the rainforest began. He called it "God's line in
the sand" and it was surprisingly abrupt.
We drove back to the lodge and basically hung out with Colin and Jan for
the rest of the night. They let us use their computer to check email,
and we sat on the porch watching the nocturnal animals like possum and
bandicoot come out onto their lawn. Found a lot of cane toads out and
about, too. Colin was going into town for pizza (not frozen) and we
placed our order with him. Yes, second night in a row for pizza. Oh
well. We retired for the evening.
The next morning we settled our bill and said goodbye. We headed right
back to the platypus stream where Colin said they'd be out until 8:00a.
We got a few average pictures of them when at 8:00a on the dot they
vanished into their burrows. I don't know what was on their agenda at
8:01, but they didn't miss it.
We left Tinaroo Lake and headed back down the meandering ranch roads.
As we drove by a large sign, Kelly noticed this black-shouldered kite perched
on top of it. What the heck, let's turn around and see if we can get a
shot. I asked Kelly to try and photograph it while the car was moving
slowly down the road. She had a lot of trouble and asked me just to
stop the car. Nope, we would scare it away. Let me try. I turned the
car around and pointed my camera out the windown as I was driving about
25mph. I clicked off 2 shots and was certain that they were wasted.
But as you can see, the kite turned out! We turned the car around
again for Kelly's second try. She still couldn't get it. I stopped the
car on her second request and the kite flew away. By the way, thanks to
the readers who identified the bird for me!!
Shortly before we got to the main highway we spotted a huge flock of
sulfur-crested cockatoos that landed in a grove of trees. It wasn't too
much trouble to find a side road that approached those trees and we got
out for a look. Wow, were they noisy!! They occupied at least 5
different trees (and with 10-25 birds in each tree, that's a lot of
cockatoos). The area where we parked was a small industrial area and
we couldn't help but wonder how anybody in those buildings could get
any work done with that kind of racket going on outside. Luckily it
was a Sunday.
We walked down the road and onto a poorly maintained forest path to try
and get some closeups. The birds always remained high in the trees, so
it was difficult. My new 1.4x teleconverter helped here.
We headed back onto the highway back towards Mareeba. We saw a small
flock of black cockatoos pass overhead going the other way. Shortly
thereafter we came upon a stretch of road that had numerous termite
mounds along side. We stopped and I had Kelly take my picture next to
one. I'm 6 feet tall, so these particular termites must have been
quite busy. Well, I guess all the mounds were similar in size. I walked
up to this one and knocked on it. It felt like cement and no termites
came out to investigate the disturbance.
We continued back past Mareeba and into Kuranda again. We stopped here
for some souvenir shopping and lunch. It's a cute town with plenty of
T-shirt and junk shops. I was amazed at the number of didgeridoo shops
there were, not only here in Kuranda, but everywhere we went. Not only
that, but the number of didgeridoos in the shops was astounding. I
don't think I saw more than 3 people on our entire trip carrying one,
and 2 of those were in the airport. Seemed to me to be an excess of
expensive supply for a small demand.
All the stores sold boomerangs, too. These were a lot more economical
and compact souvenirs to purchase. They ranged from plain, small ones
to shiny, lacquered, brightly painted, large ones that came with their
own artsy stand. I picked up 2 as gifts for some folks back home. I
also picked up a few t-shirts and Kelly and I got matching outback hats.
Later that night I had to pitch some of the old clothes I brought on the
trip to make room for the new duds.
After lunch we headed back down the hills towards Cairns. At the highway
intersection, though, we turned north to drive to Daintree National Park.
We would see Cairns at the end of our trip.
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