17th September to 25th September 2011

17^th September2011

We had a lazy day today but in the late afternoon drove the 3kms to Yungaburra and visited the amazing curtain fig tree and then went to the platypus viewing platform and were lucky immediately.  The platypus put on a good show for us that helped catch some good photos and videos.  We then parked in town and took Foxy for a walk through part of the town, across the river via a swing bridge and along the river bank back to the platypus viewing platform and back into town which introduced us to some of the picturesque buildings of the township.

18^th September 2011

We packed a lunch and drove down to Malanda and visited the Nerada Tea Plantation and Factory.  Unfortunately the factory isn’t actually operative at this time of year as it is a seasonal like most if not all agricultural crops.  Consequently we didn’t do a factory tour just to only see the equipment whilst stationary but we did look over the showroom displays and had our lunch in their gardens followed by a Devonshire tea as an excuse to try one of the tea blends.  The tea Merry selected to try smelt and tasted like tobacco. 

We moved on back into the township of Malanda, stopping to take photos of the Johnson River, and continued to the Museum and a tour of the township for more photos. 

We followed this with a short trip out of town to the Malanda Falls which wasn’t as spectacular as we would have liked.  It is quite small height wise and not very wide and falls into what was once a natural pool but the Shire has turned into a swimming pool by building concrete sides along each side with ladders for entry/exit. 

Also a footbridge has been placed across the narrow outlet of the pool to give access to the other bank.  With the flow of water, particularly in the rainy season, the narrow end of the pool has collected a lot of debris that has come downstream.  For some reason the Shire doesn’t deem it necessary to clear this rubbish to improve the look of the place and safety of the swimmers.  There are a couple of walks that could be interesting but as always ‘No Dogs’ so we returned to Yungaburra and did the riverside walk from the same start point as last but in the opposite direction. 

We were fortunate enough to have a long range view of a Tree Kangaroo in a treetop but only feeding, not moving.  They are the only one of the roo family that can move their hind legs independently and can therefore walk/crawl rather than hop everywhere, which must help with climbing trees.  We also had a brief look at another platypus and the now redundant old iron railway bridge to finish the circuit walk back to the car. 

As we entered the drive through the Eacham National park to get to the caravan park we had a Musky Rat Kangaroo cross the road in front of us, and on arrive at our van was greeted by Val and Barry (2) who had arrived from Mission Beach area.

19^th September2011

 In the morning we took the 3kms walk around Lake Eacham which only offers a view of the lake at the carpark/picnic area.  During the rest of the walk you only see glimpses of the water close to the bank as the path is a short distance from the bank with steep slopes down to the water.

 However, the walk was through beautiful rainforest with Musky Rat Kangaroos and numerous birds to entertain us, but unfortunately none like to stop and pose for photos and being in a national park Foxy had to stay at home.   In the afternoon we drove to the Gallo cheese and chocolate factory but were disappointed with the cheese although merry did buy one overpriced lump.  The chocolate didn’t exactly get us excited but again did buy a small amount but the most noticeable aspect was the smell from the cattle yard that permeated through the shop which was not particularly pleasant.  We drove on into Atherton to the post office to collect the Bivouac Junction shirts that we had ordered in Charters Towers and a parcel from Perth, but that had not arrived yet.  On the trip back home, as we entered the national park we stopped several times to get photos of the Musky Rat Kangaroos on and beside the road and then turned off to explore a side road which ultimately returned us to the entry to the park again for another photo session.  It would have helped if other traffic had stopped as well as they frighten the little critters away, but with going round twice we had a reasonable amount of success

Once we had unpacked and checked the shirts we went up to the park office which is also a cafe for a coffee, and were entertained by a bird feeding session with Chestnut Breasted Mannikins, Red Browed Finches and King Parrots, along with the usual Rainbow Lorikeets.

20^th September 2011

This time we drove into Atherton to unsuccessfully check on the post office again and then drove north to Tolga and had a quick look at the fine wood craft and then stopped off at the Memorial Park which is both a rest area and a free camp area  so long as you are completely self sufficient.   We had our picnic here and then made for Mareeba and Emerald Creek Falls. 

The general area looks very dry and we expected the falls to be dry but having done the dirt road to get there we walked the approximate kilometre, each way, to the Falls which was on an uphill gradient with 86 steps included. 

The falls were putting on a good display despite the lack of rain for some considerable time, and made its way down the rock face to a succession of pools, and was well worth the effort to get there. 

 When we returned to Mareeba we turned off to visit Granite Gorge which offers several walks of varying length and difficulty, with the start of the walks being on Wallaby Rock where the majority of tourists feed the rock wallabies. 

We don’t fed wild animals as we disagree with it in the belief they should feed themself, rather than rely on humans to do it for them and probably with incorrect food.  We found a female with a 'Joey' in amongst numerous boys and others demonstrating their ability to stay put on near vertical rock faces, then after spending a while with the wallabies we set out on the difficult walk which involves a lot of very difficult rock clambering exercise and eventually veered off, in the interest of our safety, onto the shorter walk as our agility wasn’t quite up to required standard.  Sad to admit it but age tends to require common sense to be used.  By the time we had finished the walk we were ready to head home.

21^st September 2011

We left earl to visit the Lake Eacham Display Centre and then headed to Malanda to try and spot Tree Kangaroos in the Malanda Falls area where they are supposedly seen regularly, but not today.  We had our lunch by the carpark and then moved on to the Malanda Museum which is also the visitor centre, and gained some information about the Barron Falls and the Skyrail rides, for future use.  We then moved to the other side of town to the Majestic Theatre, which is the oldest continuous running theatre in the country, to watch the Film ‘Red Dog’ as we lived in red dog territory for many years and were members of the Red Dog 4 Wheel Drive Club, and still use the club shirts. 

The theatre is very old and still very original and its central bank of seating consists of heavy wooden frames with hessian attached at the low front bar and higher rear bar so that you semi lay in the seat so that your eyes are automatically looking up on an angle at the screen.  This overcomes the lack of a rising floor towards the back of the theatre to raise the seating, and allows you to see over the seat in front of you.  However, they are very difficult to get out off.  We sat on regular chairs at the side of the framed seats which were obviously introduced to increase the audience capacity.  There is an array of lighting equipment which indicates that the theatre originally did, and maybe still does, perform live entertainment shows as well as films.  We thoroughly enjoyed the film despite spotting the obvious poetic license and padding used to enhance the story, but only people that have spent some time in the area would notice this.  It contained silly little things such as showing ore trains with ‘Robe’ on them because at the time those trains had ‘CRRIA’ on them, and they had nothing to do with Dampier and Hamersley Iron where it was based.  We returned home and again saw Musky Rat Kangaroos by the road as we drove through the national park to the caravan park.

22^nd September 2011

Drove to Atherton post office again and was unsuccessful again, so it is looking like the expected parcel isn’t going to arrive.

23^rd September 2011

We packed up the camp and moved across town to the other side of Yungaburra to a caravan park alongside the tail end of Lake Tinaroo.  It is not as shady as Eacham but is quite a bit cheaper and offer plenty of room for taking Foxy for walks.

24^th September 2011

We went through to Mareeba again to visit the Coffee Works that we didn’t have time to fit in last time we were in this neighbourhood.  It is designed as an all day event or at least a long time one, with the hope that you will also have lunch there.  On arrival you can either do the $19 each coffee tasting, museum, check out the extensive giftware and coffee sale area and use the cafe if required.  Or save $19 each and check out the giftware and coffee sales and/or use the cafe.  If you choose to do the tasting, you are given a talk about the coffee variations and then let loose on 21 different coffees and about 16 variations of chocolate samples.  You also have access to the largest museum collection of coffee pots, grinders, roasters and all things coffee dating back for hundreds of years, in the world.  However, all of this didn’t interest Barry to any great extent as he prefers instant coffee, but he did taste several of the coffees to get his money’s worth and did actually enjoy the ‘Swiss decaffeinated‘ coffee and the plain dark chocolate samples. 

We left, with our stick-on badges, and went into town for some necessities and then showed our badges for re-entry for lunch.  Whilst having lunch we also did more tasting which means we didn’t have to buy drinks with your meal.  We found that we will need another trip to Mareeba at some time as there is a military museum, aircraft museum and a heritage museum to look at.

25^th September 2011

We went to Atherton for the Tableland Garden Expo which was a load of stalls inside a Hall with a few stalls on the outside, all hoping to sell their wares with some display orchids which may win someone a prize. We were only there for about half an hour which lets you know how good it was.  We followed this up with a visit to Crystal Caves gem display which kept Merry occupied for a much longer period whilst Barry elected to stay with Foxy.

10th September to 16th September 2011

10^th September 2011

We drove the 120kms to Georgetown on the Savannah Way and did some shopping as this is the only town with a half decent shop which is also a garage, and there is a vegie shop and a butcher.  There is also a visitor centre with a terrestrial display but that didn’t appeal to us at their required price to look at lumps of rock, and that pretty much sums up the town. 

We then drove 40kms to Forsayth which is much smaller and on to Cobbold Gorge to complete the 170km journey, where we had our packed lunch whilst waiting for our 2.30pm tour of the gorge. 

On the tour we were driven out to a pontoon bridge across the river at the beginning of the gorge, but were taken up onto the escapement first to look out over the gorge from the top.  There is no lookout platform so it was a case of not going to close to the edge to get your pictures, or pay the consequences, but one gets the general picture. 

We then backtracked part way and deviated to a grave site of one of the original pioneers who fell victim to aboriginal spears whilst heading out to Townsville for supplies.  We then returned to the pontoon and boarded the electric motor driven boat to make our way along the ever narrowing gorge for about half a kilometre until it ended quite abruptly and with only just enough width for the boat. The boat has a motor at each end so the tour leader moved to what was the front of the boat which now becomes the back for the return journey. 

On the way we saw a couple of the harmless fresh water crocodiles, a Darter and an Azure Kingfisher.  The shaping of the sand stone strata cliffs with polished sides caused by the flood waters over the years was fascinating.  The tour lasted until 5.00pm which left us with about 1.5 hours of daylight that was just long enough to get past the gravel road back to Georgetown before it got dark, but still had plenty of the single lane road back to Mt Surprise with roaming cattle and roos. With the long drive home we arrived just before 8.00pm which made it quite a long day out but well worth the effort. 

11^th September 2011

As today is a much cooler day we returned to the Undara Lava tubes and turned off to visit the Kalkani volcano crater which involves a 600 metre gradual climb to the top and walked 2.5kms around the rim. 

We followed this with a quick trip into the ranger station and then on to the Undara Lodge where we treated ourselves to magnificent meat pie and chips for lunch in the Lodge’s meals area. This consists of several rail dining carriages around an alfresco area with a bar.  The on-site accommodation is also restored rail carriages. 

After lunch we walked up to the Bluff that overlooks the Lodge site and across to the 100 mile swamp, so called because it is supposedly 100 miles from somewhere unknown to us, and continued alongside the swamp on the return track to the Lodge which should have walked off some of the pie and chips. 

On the return home trip we made a quick turnaround to photo a Red-tailed Black Cockatoo that was prepared to wait and pose for us.

12^th September 2011

We drove the 30 odd kilometres towards Georgetown and then turned left onto the 45kms of gravel road to Einasleigh which took us through several creeks both dry and with remains of rain and then across the Einasleigh River and then shortly after across the new bridge over the Copperfield River.  This used to be a concrete crossing just above the riverbed alongside the old wooden railway bridge. 

We had lunch alongside the gorge and then went on our exploration of the fascinating surroundings which has a waterfall into the gorge which is part of a lava tube that collapsed at some time and had the roof rubble washed downstream during numerous floods, leaving a basalt gorge. 

Fortunately this gorge is not within a national park so foxy was able to come with us, except into the local pub which has a collection of miniature cars (Dinky and Matchbox toys) which would now be worth a small fortune, and glass cases decorated like dolls house rooms that are beautifully crafted. 

The town supposedly has 20 residents which consist of 10 single males and one single female who just happens to be 74 years old.  That leaves 9 presumably married people, so someone must be a bigamist or the last audit was totally wrong.  On the way home we stopped for photos of the river crossings at both of the rivers.

13^th September 2011

We packed up and moved to Herberton, just short of Atherton, and stayed for 2 nights.  We didn’t get a chance to visit their Heritage Village but we will return to look over it as it appears good stuff from the road.  We drove through to Eacham to look at the Caravan park there as Val and Barry (2) have booked in there soon.  On the way there through Yungaburra we were very impressed with the picturesque village and noted that there was a lakeside park which we checked out on the way back from Eacham.  We liked what we saw and attempted to book in but can’t get in for another 8 days, so we booked in for then and booked in at Eacham until we can go to Yungaburra, which is why we had 2 nights at Herberton that gave us a chance to watch the early morning feeding frenzy of rainbow lorikeets, sulphur crested cockatoos, kookaburras and pale headed rosellas.

16^th September 2011

We moved on to Eacham which is a small park and not easy to negotiate the van into position plus the pad for the annex is too wide and too long but we managed with a struggle. In the afternoon we took a short walk around the local area as we are restricted from walking too far as we would have to enter the local national park that we had to drive through to get to the park.  The national park consists of several crater lakes which we will check out but unfortunately will have to leave Foxy at home.

30th August to 8th September 2011

30^th August 2011

Merry has been off colour with a stomach bug for several days, but is feeling much better today so we packed a picnic lunch and headed into Charters Towers to visit the Venus Gold Battery to learnt some of the history of the area. 

The tour, and the fact that it was running late, took us up to lunch time which we had in Centenary Park and followed this with a walk around the park to collect photos of the statues, which also included some further down the road. 

We then drove up to the lookout for the overview of the town before driving out to the Burdekin weir (not to be confused with the Burdekin Falls Dam despite the similarities. 

This weir provides the drinking water for the town and supplies the mines and is a very pleasant picnic area that is only 14kms out of town.  The weir is unusual as it is V shaped rather than straight, which is the usual design, and as there is water coming over the wall it presents a pleasing sight. 

This water then heads off to the Dalrymple Lake and the Burdekin Falls Dam along with other tributary rivers and then out to sea north of Ayr.

31^st August 2011

We drove into Charters Towers again and visited the Cattle sales, which operates on Wednesdays to watch, listen and learn as the bulls were sold off.  

Some were a bit rough looking and we were informed that they are called ‘Mickey’s’ and are unbranded animals that have been brought in with the branded animals during the muster are sold off cheaply.  Apparently they are often bought purely for mincing to make Hamburgers at around $1 a kilo whereas the better animals fetched $1.80 of more per kilo, but can also be kept for several years to become respectable animals again.   The better animals will probably be fattened up and sold on the overseas market and the rough stuff kept for the home market. 

When we returned home Barry started making some shelves to house our set top boxes to give back the use of the cupboard they currently occupy.

2^nd September 2011

The last 2 days have been spent building the shelving unit which needed some modification from the original design but met with eventual success, and this was followed by a thorough check of the stereo/DVD player that only uses 3 out of 4 speakers.  This turned out to be one miserable connection within the plug unit on the back of the player which we can’t fix ourselves, so we have re-installed the original unit that came with the caravan.  Being a Friday the park has started filling up again with tents and camper trailers for their weekend away from home, so the noise level has risen with it.

3^rd September 2011

We drove into Charters Towers to do some necessary shopping as they don’t have Sunday trading in this town, and we also attempted to have a look at the equipment/vehicles in the old ambulance station but that only opens on Sunday and Wednesday, so we won’t be doing that as we leave here on Monday. 

In the afternoon we walked along the riverbed of the Fanning River as far as we could and then along the bank for a while until it became too ridiculous to fight your way through.  We then backtracked past our entry point and joined the Burdekin River and walked along the bank to a rocky outcrop, which was almost the end of the track, before returning to the camp.

4^th September 2011

Barry made and fitted a shelf under the table unit that he made some time ago whilst in Melbourne that also extends across the back of his seat for Foxy to lay on.  The extra shelf is a convenient place to house the numerous remote units we now possess.  In the late afternoon this campsite has a Vegie man come with his truck load of excellent vegies at excellent prices which adds to the beauty of the place.

5^th September 2011

We packed up our camp and headed into Charters Towers for some final shopping, top up the fuel tank and fill the cars 56 litre water tank plus the water jerry can and top up the vans water tanks with town water so that we can stop off at a few free campsites. 

We stopped at a free campsite by the Fletcher Creek for a late lunch and decided to stay for the rest of the day and night as it is a very pleasant spot.  The creek is very fast flowing with camping areas on both sides of the creek on one side of the main road and on the south side of the creek on the other side of the road with the option to stay for up to a month. 

We walked to the other side of the road and then to the other side of the river via a footbridge and walk along the river to the next footbridge and back on the original side of the river back to our campsite, taking photos of the creek and birds.

6^th September 2011

After a sudden very chilly night we headed off towards Greenvale which from here on has some single lane strips of road with 24 call point where the 3 trailer road trains call on their UHF radios informing their direction and the call point they are passing.  This gives other road uses the chance to get well off the road to let them have the bitumen which both avoids them hitting the dirt shoulder and throwing up stones, and keeps you clear of the third trailer which is capable of swinging a metre and a half.  We were lucky not to meet a road train or have one wanting to pass us, and the only other traffic was during the two lane areas, so our timing was good.  The road was built for the cattle industry to transport the cattle south so they have right of way over all other road users, ideally with UHF radio, however, many users don’t have this facility and have to take their chances on seeing them coming in time to take evasive action.  We do have UHF radio but in the final analysis didn’t need it but would not rely on that happening again. 

We treated ourselves to a chicken/cheese/tomato toasted sandwich for lunch at the Three Rivers Hotel which had a song written about it during the period they were building the railway to the local mines, which was later recorded by Slim Dusty.  The owners had a cat named Slim and a Corgi dog named Dusty but we only got to meet Dusty as Slim passed on a while ago.  The Hotel garden boasts a Sausage tree which is supposedly one of only three in the Australia, and apparently has no useful purpose other than to produce fruit that resembles sausages.  As there is nothing else in the very small township we moved on to The Lynd Oasis which is only a road house with accommodation and over priced camping facilities.  It used to be the outstation of the Lyndhurst Station which is now considerably smaller and off loaded the outstation where we will spend the night despite the ridiculous price as the next logical stopping point is several more hours driving away, and beyond the daily limit we set for ourselves.

7^th September 2011

We headed towards Ravenshoe but turn off a bit before we got there to go to Mount Surprise which was recommended to us by a couple at Bivouac Junction and proved to correct.  There are 3 caravan parks and we chose the one by the BP garage which has plenty of shade and is relatively cheap but nice. 

The township is small but offers quite a lot of tourist interest opportunities such as Topaz fossicking tours, train ride to Forsayth via Einasleigh which we will do in the car as it is cheaper and can possibly take in Cobbold and Copperfield Gorges and then return via Georgetown and the Savannah way.  It is also quite close to the Undara Lava Tubes which is to be tomorrow’s excursion.  The road here was better than the other side of The Lynd but had some single lane strips with a few more call points, but once again we had no problems

8^th September2011

As planned we did the 2.5hr tour of the Undara Lava Tubes rather than the expensive 8hr tour but will do the volcanic crater rim at a late date as the temperature has risen quite rapidly.  The rim is included in the 8hr tour but you can do it on your own, which we will do earlier in the day soon. 

The tour, whichever length or price you wish to pay, is worth it but involves quite a few steps.  The second tube we went into still has water in it from the heavy rains at the beginning of the year, so only those that wished to wade along the duckboards in water up to their knees ventured the extra 100 metres to the end platform.  Due to it being totally dark in there they don’t have any idea of what they may have seen with a torch until they check their cameras later. 

On the way home we stopped at Elizabeth creek, and also at the town entrance for a few photos.