After a good nights sleep and breakfast, we headed off just before 9am. Today we were driving to the Atherton Tablelands which is about an hour southwest of Cairns. It was cloudy again, about 21C and some light drizzle - so not a tropical paradise.
We took the Gillies Highway from Gordonvale. This road should have been sponsored by Subaru and Dunlop as it was a tight winding road going up and down a tall hill. Steve was dreaming of his WRX.
First stop was meant to be the Cathedral Fig Tree but unfortunately it was closed due to track damage, so we stopped off at Lake Barrine. Lake Barrine is a small lake (circ. 5km) and had a famous tearooms. As it was cold, we headed into the tearooms for a Devonshire tea but with the best coffee we have had so far.
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| Lake Barrine and tearooms |
There was also a short walk by the lake to 2 Kauri trees, both approx 45m tall.
Now that our bellies were full, we headed off to the Curtain Fig Tree which was just past Yungaburra. This tree was really spectacular.
The next stop was Gallo Dairyland which sounds spectacular but truely wasn't! We did buy some Misty Mountain Cheese which was very tasty, otherwise it wasn't worth a visit.
We then drove to Atherton to have a picnic lunch by an awesome mountain bike track. Thankfully the sun had come out and it was starting to be nice and warm. There is a "famous"attraction in Atherton called The Crystal Caves which is really just a rock and gem shop with a manmade cave at the rear of the shop. We didn't pay to have a look at the cave but we did look at the shop. There were lots of great crystals and rocks but Julian was only interested in the fossilised shark teeth. So on day 3 of the holiday, Julian spent his remaining pocket money on one.
Next up was our main reason for visiting the tablelands - waterfalls. First up was the Hypipamee Crater and Dinner Falls. This was a pretty spectacular crater and Rohan had a great time yelling "echo" and the sound bouncing back to him.
We took the not so short route to Dinner Falls.
There was even a bush turkey in the carpark when we returned.
By now Julian was starting to get into bushwalking and waterfalls - he even said that he was enjoying himself. The next waterfall was the one that Peter Andre used in his Mysterious Girl video clip - Millaa Millaa falls. Unfortunately the dial on the new camera was on "Toy" special effect, so we ended up with these special photos.
Just a little bit down the road was Zillie Falls. It looked like a nice drop off from the top and the track looked just a little bit muddy. In the end the track wasn't better than a goat track and it was exceptionally muddy. Everyone loved it. The view of the waterfall from the bottom was worth the walk.
After an extended clean up in the carpark, we went to Ellinjaa falls only about 1km further down the road. I think this was the nicest of the day.
On the way home was Malanda falls which was just a little bit different - a swimming pool below a waterfall. It might have been nice on a hot day.
I was a bit of a long trek home and would you believe that the 2 cars in front of us were from South Australia and Tasmania! Also the winding road is not much fun when you are stuck in a convoy of cars behind a truck. As soon as we got back, we ordered Chinese takeaway from a restaurant up the street - Golden Boat Restaurant. It was the best chinese food we have had outside of China! Not a grain of rice was left on the plate.
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