Innisfail and Atherton Tablelands
From Paronella Park I made my way back towards the Bruce Highway and on to Innisfail. First stop was the Australian Sugar Heritage Centre, which is basically a sugar museum.
Driving through Innisfail it was clear that it wasn't a tourist town, but was key in supporting the farming and cane production in the area. What struck me as I drove through town was how much the architecture was similar to that in Ballarat.
From here I drove to the coast for a quick look...
HERE's a few more photos from Innisfail and surrounding area.
The next stop on the tour was the Atherton Tablelands, a big loop driving inland from Innisfail and then returning to Cairns. Shortly after turning off the Bruce Highway I started the long climb into the mountains and onto the plateau that is the Tablelands. On the way I came across a small picnic area called Genevieve Creek. It was high enough into the mountains that it was surrounded by lush, thick rainforest, and the creek was free of crocs and had a great swimming hole. It also had a great little secluded campground, and was one of the first places I'd passed through that felt truly "tropical" - the heat and humidity probably helped this assesment. I was faced with one of those nasty decisions - I'd love to camp here, but it was very early in the day and I'd lose about 3/4 of a day's sightseeing. As it turns out, I should probably have stopped here, as Lake Tinnaroo wasn't quite what I'd expected (more on that later).
I also ran into the same British couple that I'd seen on both Fraser Island and also feeding the birds at Airlie Beach. I did my best to assure them that I wasn't stalking them, then proceeded to ask what their plans were - which probably made it seem like I WAS stalking them!
As I kept driving I was blown away by the beauty of the area - rolling, lush green hills (they obviously get a lot of rain), pockets of rainforest, and on the day I was there a few storms rolling through that made for great photo opps...
I had also noticed the odd field here or there with a low very square hedgy looking bush. As it turns out this was tea, and the Nerda Tea Company grow and process their own tea in the region. I dropped into the Nera Tea Visitors centre, and although there was no tour (or at least not the day I was there) there was lots of info on the walls to read, and I had a great chat with one of the attendants (turns out it was only her 2nd day, and she ended up being from Ballarat). She mentioned they had a local Tree Kangaroo and that he'd been around in the morning. We went out the back and sure enough he was still there - way up high in the trees. I was pretty excited because I love Tree Kangaroos (I photograph them a lot at Melbourne Zoo), but this was the first one I'd seen in the wild.
I continued on to the town of Atherton, and to a place called the Crystal Caves. It's a shop in town that has a "cavern" under the shop showing lots of crystals and geodes. Unfortunately I was too late for the last tour, so it was back into the van and onto Tolga and towards Lake Tinnaroo. The lake had been given a HUGE wrap by a fellow traveller that I ran into down in Victoria, so I thought it would be a great place to camp. On the way there I noticed that all the camping was "pre-booked" only, meaning you supposedly couldn't use the little registration envelops to pay for the spot, that are at a lot of camp sites. The information station and sign indicating "pre-booked" only was a fair way out of town, however my phone was showing good reception. You could book and pay for the sites via Internet or Phone - sadly, I chose the phone. It was possibly THE worst phone/booking process I've EVER been through. Although I could here the receptionist very well, she kept saying she could hardly hear me and I had I regressed to shouting out every-single-letter of what I was trying to say Peers - "that's P for Peter, E for egg, another E for egg" sorry was that "E"? I was getting angier by the minute. I'm pretty sure it was her headset that was the problem, because I could not only hear her very clearly, I could also hear at least 2 other call centre staff taking camping bookings in the call centre. I finally finished the booking and continued up the road. I knew it was going to turn into a gravel road, but I wasn't expecting it to be quite to rough. It got to the point where things were starting to get thrown around in the back of the van (including my laptop) which made me even angier.
I finally got to the Playtypus Creek Campground, only to discover that a) there are registration envelops on site, and I probably could have paid that way and b) my site was near the lake, but was also very exposed and it was extremely windy and c) it wasn't that great a spot after all (especially compared to Genevieve Creek's rainforest).
Although I'd booked 2 nights (in case it was "great") I vowed I'd only stay one night and try to get to Cairns a bit quicker. The only saving grace for the location was that because it was up in the mountains, it cooled down quite a bit at night and was actually quite comfortable for sleeping.
This shot makes it look better than it was...
The next morning I drove back into Atherton to check out the Crystal Cave. Turns out it's a man made fibreglass construction made to look like a cave! But none the less, it was quite interesting with a large array of gems, crystals and geodes on display from all around the world - the owner's lifes work. Before entering the exhibit you have to put on a construction/mining helmet with a light on the top. The light is not really that necessary (more for effect), but due to some very low area the helmet certainly IS necessary. The pride of the collection is the largest amethyst geode in the world, and it certainly was impressive and sparkly...
The next stop after Atherton was The Peanut Place - a shop on the side of the road that sells all sorts of different types of peanuts (grown in the area). My two favourites were Lime & Ginger Peanuts and Curry Peanuts - yum.
One of the few "planned" stops for the day was to be the Distillery - the only one in North Queensland. However as I drove up to the entrance I noticed it was closed, and there was a sign indicating it was closed for a Private Function for Melbourne Cup - NOT HAPPY.
Anyway, no time to hang around, so it was onwards. Quick stop at a timber and wood-working shop/cafe/workshop where there were some magnificent pieces by various artists.
Next stop was Coffee Works. They buy beans from local growers, as well as international growers and roast/mix them themselves. They have tastings set up for all varieties of their coffees, as well as tea and CHOCOLATE. For a small price you get to taste them all, as well as see the coffee museum with audio guide. Sadly my lack of smell didn't let me fully appreciate the tastings but I still got a "rough idea" of the coffees and also a great hit from the Lime & Chilli Chocolate. I got about half way through the museum when I realised the Melbourne Cup was nearly due to start, and my sister was singing in the choir that would feature on the TV before the race. I popped back out to the van, and madly set up the TV receiver for the laptop only to find that I couldn't get a signal. I tried various positions for the antenna in vein (much to the amusement of anyone watching in the carpark), but no luck. I then had the brialliant idea of trying to stream it live on the iPad. I did find a few web sites that claimed they were streaming the coverage, but alas they were all so busy that I couldn't get on. I had a quick chat with the Parents (who had taped the race), and afterwards headed back inside to finish the audio tour of the museum.
After the Coffee Museum, it was time to head towards Cairns, via the Kuranda Pass - a very steep hilly section of road that within 10 - 20 kms takes you off the Atherton plain (approx 450m in elevation) down to sea level. It also didn't help that there were road works along the way.
The first stop in Cairns was the Tourist Info / Tour Booking place (I'm sure there are plenty but I found a biggish one that I was happy with). I'd already grabbed a few brochures on reef tours, so had a pretty good idea of what I wanted. I chatted with the attendant and after getting a map and sorting out which would be a good caravan park for me, it was time to book the tours. I mentioned a couple I'd seen, and what I thought were the pros and cons of each, and she quickly mentioned that it looked like "I'd done my homework". This made her job a bit easier, and we were very quickly able to narrow down a couple of options. I also mentioned that I wanted to "test out" my underwater camera gear before doing the main reef trip. So I decided to do two trips, with a day inbetween as a break. The first was a cruise out to Green Island, with some snorkelling off the beach, and the second was a trip to the outer reef with Reef Magic and some more adventureous snorkelling. More about that in the next post...
After booking the tours, I drove out to the carvan park and checked in. Although I would have been happy with a powered site, I thought it would be nice to stretch out a bit and make sure all my gear was ready, given that the snorkelling trips would be one of the major highlights of the trip. As it turns out they had one lodge left - I just seem to be very lucky that way. I initially booked it for one night, but after seeing it, went back and booked it for an additional 3 nights !!!
HERE'S a few more shots of the Atherton Tablelands area.