A few days on the road again

  24/10/2011
  It’s been a day of uncommon sightings today, starting with an enormous monitor lizard about one metre long. Not many minutes drive from Clifton Beach is Lake Placid,  a lake and caravan park where we met Phil and Julie in 2009.We thought it would be nice to go and have a look at the lake which is fed by the Barron River. The place was deserted except for this huge lizard and us. Managed to get a couple of photos as it climbed a tree.
 From there we drove down the Cook Highway to Babinda, the “umbrella town” named for obvious reasons. We visited the Babinda Boulders, a spectacular river gorge with  pools for us to swim in. This is rainforest and the humidity is very high which means lots of insects, the flies were pesky but the butterflies were amazing, so much colour. While we were having lunch (Aussie Style) ( one hand on your lunch, the other batting flies away)  we couldn’t believe that a cassowary came wandering though the car park making a beeline for our picnic table. Jane was off like a long dog whilst I chanced my arm getting a few pictures. Cassowaries are a large, flightless birds and quite rare. We have only ever seen 2 before, but we know they can be very dangerous, one swipe of his foot and you are disembowelled!
  We drove a little further to the tiny  caravan park at Bramston Beach, no power, but a very nice position, practically on the beach. We took our chairs and sat on the sand where we had our sundowners til it was time for supper.

 25/10/2011
  We have named today waterfall day, as we have managed to go and look at 3, plus some rapids and missed out around 3 or 4 more.
 After a super night at Bramston Beach, very quiet, with only the sound of the surf, we took a leisurely drive to the Art Deco town of Innisfail. Here we spent a short time wandering and looking at the unusual building facades. Today and tomorrow we are exploring the Atherton Tablelands again as there is such a lot to see.
 Our first stop was at Henrietta creek, a dense patch of rain forest, with a path leading to the creek, where Jane managed to latch onto a leech, or the other way round. It fastened onto her toe and when we finally got it off we couldn’t get her toe to stop bleeding. I thought it was really funny! Further up the road we stopped to look at, first the Ellinja Falls, then the Zilla Falls, followed by the Dinner falls. All on different rivers and all spectacular after the heavy rain last week. The countryside around here is stunning, very green and lush and we are staying on a very nice campsite in the small town of Herberton. We are quite high up here and it is less humid than the rainforest. Jane is now over her blood transmission and is feeding the local bird life. To date we have, sulphur crested cockatoos, a couple of kookaburras, rainbow lorikeets, a butcher bird, some very fat guinea fowl and lots of other birds I can’t name, cos I can’t be arsed to look them up in the book. Yet another wonderful place here in Far Northern Queensland.