Our Trip to the Atherton Tablelands

Another week another adventure, this time we rented a car for two days in the Atherton Tablelands (the mountainy area west of Cairns).  For Alex the drive alone made his day, he was at the helm of a manual car on a road with (literally) 287 hairpin turns.  I get motion sick so I was markedly less enthused about the journey but endured as I was excited to check out all the Tablelands had to offer. 

Coffee Works was our first stop.  We enjoyed a quick cup of coffee and bought three bags of delicious chocolate that we’d heard so much about (which Alex proceeded to eat en masse over the next 36 hours) and continued on our way.  Our next destination was the Curtain Fig Tree.  Yep, this was on our map as a hot spot and it was actually pretty cool.  Strangler figs start as a small vine on a larger tree then drop aerial roots and, over the course of years, eventually overtake the host tree and continue growing.  This particular tree is hundreds of years old and the product of the host tree falling over before the strangler fig had established its roots so it overtook the original tree and the tree it fell into.  As you can see from how small Alex is in the photo, it’s massive!

From there we headed to Lake Eachem, a lake in an old volcanic crater up in the mountains.  On our way, we stopped by Humpy Nut World (another map-listed hot spot that was in fact just a fruit stand) for a few photo ops.  Alex, hopped up on chocolate, clearly enjoyed himself here…

 

 

It was sunny and hot in Cairns when we left and we didn’t factor for the mountain weather and so we didn’t bring the right gear for a day outdoors in the Tablelands.  It started drizzling when we reached the lake so we hopped out quickly and snapped this beautiful panorama before jumping back in the car.  

By the time we reached the Cathedral Fig tree, it was full-on raining, I was shivering (despite changing into a long-sleeved shirt) and had lost interest.  But we had come this far so we trekked on and, for our efforts, we got to see an even bigger, more glorious tree.  This one was so huge we were able to walk in between some of its roots.

 

 

Afterwards, rather than get a hotel and tough out the cold, wet weather, we decided to go back to Cairns and resume our efforts the next day (I think Alex only agreed so he could speed up and down the windy road a couple of extra times).  It was a good choice; we enjoyed a nice dinner and set out the next morning refreshed and more appropriately dressed (though the drive was another rough start for me).   Day two was pretty awesome and it started with a cheese plate and ice cold glass of milk at the Mungalli Dairy.  Set in the middle of nowhere down a one-lane road, the view from the Dairy was gorgeous and we took it all in as sat out on deck next to the pink cow princess.  It was quirky but a delicious and reminded me of a weekend in the country at home.

Next stop: Milaa Milaa Falls and, amazingly, for the first time in Australia, we actually got to see a waterfall!  The waterfall was ‘made famous’ in a video by an English singer I had never heard of, Peter Andre, because he shot a video there in the early 90s and is a big tourist attraction.  It was really beautiful but too cold to get in the water so we just took in the scenery and watched a couple of guys swim out to the falls then continued on our way.

Mamu, a rainforest canopy walk on the side of a mountain, was up next and it proved to be a fun, scenic stop.   I wussed out at climbing up the 37m observation tower, halfway up my fear of heights overcame my desire to get any better views, but Alex went to the top and took this pretty photo. 

My favorite stop of the trip was Paronella Park.  It was the dream of a Spanish immigrant in the 1930s to build a Spanish castle amidst the beauty of rural Australia – and he did.  He worked for over a decade creating his wealth before returning to Europe to retrieve his fiancé, only to find out she had married in his absence.  Unfazed, he married her younger sister then came back to Australia and built his empire on a beautiful piece of property he purchased with a waterfall.  He was very entrepreneurial and used the waterfall to provide hydro electric power to his property, making it one of the only in the area with electricity at the time so on the weekends he turned their ballroom into a movie theatre.  He also bottled the water (after discovering it was very mineral rich), grew mushrooms for sale on the property and ran a successful sporting complex on the lower grounds.  But that was decades ago and after his death the property went to ruins.  In the early 90s, the park’s current owners rediscovered the almost lost park and revitalized it.  Today, it’s just a tourist attraction but it’s lush, full of beauty and awe-inspiring (and amazing that these buildings are over eighty years old!). 

 

 

 

Here is us in front of the waterfall at Paronella Park (Alex called my hair in this photo crazy but I don't think it's that bad - and not sure what he's talking about anyway because WHAT is he looking at?!  The tour guide took like five photos and I couldn't figure out why until I realized Alex is looking over his shoulder in ALL of them) and a huge eel in the water that swam up while we were feeding the fish.

 

 

Our last stop was Etty Bay, where we were told we’d be ‘guaranteed’ to see a cassowary in the wild.  Why would we want to see a huge, killer bird in nature, you ask?  Well WE didn’t, Alex did though so we found our way there just before sunset.  Sadly (or not so sadly, depending on who you ask), we didn’t see any cassowarys but we did get to see this awesome ‘Batman’ sunset and enjoy a nice walk on the beach before heading back to Cairns.

Flower Power - our visit to the Cairns Botanic Gardens

Last week Alex & I donned our walking shoes (well Alex did anyway) and headed north of our place to check out Cairns’ Botanic Gardens.  Cairns is a pretty small city so our expectations were low but it was beautiful with tons of tropical flowers.  My Grandma has the greenest thumb of anyone I know and her garden blossoms with an endless number of flowers every summer but none like this, so please bear with me while I post all these pretty flower photos for her to check out (since she’s now reading the blog!). 

This flower looked like it was made out of tissue paper

Not sure what this was but I thought it was pretty

Another one I just thought was cool

Jack in the pulpit

Jade vine - one of only three green flowers in nature

Pitcher plants - so perfect they seemed fake

Venus fly traps!

Even the trees were blooming...

Then there was this weird thing.  Is it even a flower?

After wandering around the Gardens for a while, we continued our jaunt on the nearby hiking trails that Alex had scoped out the week before.  He’d warned me before we left that it was rugged but I shrugged it off and dressed casually in my top siders.  That was a seriously bad decision as my feet were killing me shortly after the hike started and, over an hour later, we were still walking with no end in sight… 

Alex’s work at the car wash has honed his fitness and he’s in peak physical condition.  Sadly my time at the bar has had more of the opposite effect, so I was lagging behind, winded, feet hurting and wishing I had never agreed to hike the harder trail after we’d already walked a few miles that day.  You get the sad picture, right?  Well then you can imagine my excitement when we got to a point where I knew we were almost to the end.  I was ecstatic and caught a sudden second wind and began running down the stairs towards the start of the trail with Alex casually meandering behind me.  At the last stair, right before I was about to put my foot down, I noticed the long brown snake slithering on the path.  I screamed bloody murder, turned on my heel and high stepped it all the way back to the top where Alex was standing, half looking at me in horror wondering what was wrong, half laughing hysterically because I’m pretty sure my eyes were as big as saucers and I don’t think he’d ever seen me move so fast.  I want to share, as an aside, that Alex & I took a First Aid course here and we spent a long time on pressure immobilization techniques for snake bites (and something I’ve never even heard of in any previous FA course back home), because, as the instructor was so kind to point out, Australia has eight of the ten deadliest snakes in the world and all of them can be found where we’re staying – so you know I was imagining the worst as I nearly stepped on the snake.  Alex is still making fun of me for that day but I think my reaction was pretty standard (he’d have screamed like a girl too he just doesn’t want to admit it)!

On our way down the ‘mountain’, we got this nice view of Cairns then headed back home.  Isn't it pretty with the water, green space & mountains in the background? 

We Saw A Whale!

Two weeks ago (wow, how has it already been that long?!) Alex & I went scuba diving off the ribbon reefs north of Port Douglas and it was a day full of breathtaking, new experiences.  On our way out to the reef we spotted a whale and the boat stopped while we all gaped in awe for what seemed like an hour (but was, in reality, probably only like 15 minutes).  Whales are, apparently, very curious about humans so it swam right near the boat, bobbing in and out of the water and singing for us to hear.  It was hard to capture on camera (since we mostly just saw its back breaching the surface) but hopefully you can at least get a sense of the enchantment from these few shots.

The diving was also great; we were led by an instructor on all three dives so we found all the cool spots right away and were able to maximize our time underwater.  We swam through coral caves and saw all the usual underwater scenery; a sting ray, turtles a couple of reef sharks and an array of beautiful coral.  The best part of the day, dive-wise, was the drift dive, a dive first for both of us.  We jumped off the side of a moving boat six feet above the water with no air in our BCDs and immediately descended to depth where we were carried off by the current.  I didn’t fare so well with the negative entry but once down at the bottom I loved just floating along enjoying the scenery until we resurfaced forty minutes later at the boat.  Yay for another awesome day of diving the GBR!

Laugh of the Day

The 'mascot' for the bar I work at is an emu and, in addition to having it emblazoned on everything from the walls to our uniforms, we have a life size emu statue that sits out front.  Sadly, in recent weeks, there have been several attempts to steal it.  So, how did management respond?  Not by bolting it down or just leaving it inside (both reasonable options in my opinion), but with this...

I don't know about you but I find this absolutely hilarious (ridiculous, but hilarious)!

Mossman Gorge

After our morning at the Crocodile Farm, Alex & I cruised further up the coast for a relaxing lunch by the beach in Port Douglas then continued on to nearby Mossman Gorge, a popular swimming hole in the mountains.  It was another warm winter’s day in northern Queensland so there were already people taking a dip when we arrived despite the icy water temps.  We were content enjoying the beauty from the shore but I did venture out onto the rocks to snap this photo…

As you can see, the Gorge is absolutely stunning.  The mountain runoff is crystal clear and the huge rocks wash down during flash floods that occur whenever it rains, creating a scenic panorama up and down the river.  Sadly the main trail was closed (yep, we’re 0 for 3 on rivers/waterfalls in Australia), due to the only small bridge being found structurally unsound, so there wasn’t as much hiking as we’d originally expected.  Even with limited access, I was happy we went; nature’s splendor was on display at every turn and it was a nice relaxing afternoon.  Alex was disappointed we were not able to do the trails but he couldn’t argue with the beauty and serenity we experienced while there.