14/11/2011
Travelled south to Mossman before turning inland and over the range to Mount Molloy then on to Mareeba. Here we followed the signs for Mareeba Granite Gorge Nature Park, eventually finding it at the end of a dirt track miles from anywhere. The park is an odd sort of a place, very posh reception, all polished wood but serving no purpose other than a counter with a woman behind it selling wildlife food at extortionate prices. The toilets and showers are O K, basic, and the camp kitchen is a shambles. A nature park it definitely is, many species of birds( some in aviaries) and Rock Wallabies for fun. We have visited many places in this and previous trips to Australia where they have claimed to have Rock Wallabies, but we have never seen one, until now, they are everywhere. You can hand feed them with a bag of special grub costing a very special $24 bag. We didn’t. Fortunately a bus load of Asians turned up on a whistle-stop day trip tour of Australia, and bought loads of roo grub. We waited until they had gone ( about 3 minutes) then conned the wallabies into thinking we also had food and got some great photos. It was all a bit like a chinky take-away! The Granite Gorge has a river running through it with a couple of swimming holes which of course we had to try out. We shared our swim with lots of fish and turtles but no humans and definitely no crocs, too far inland. As it got darker and we sat having our sundowners the wallabies left their rocks and skipped up into the park as bold as brass. No beer for them but they did enjoy a little apple.
15/11/2011
Granite Gorge C P has to go down as one of the strangest places we have stayed at. Even the other campers were rather odd. Not that there were many but they were nearly all foreign, European mainly. We left behind one very confused cockatoo, who as we left, was being taught to say “ How are you?” in Dutch when he could already say it in perfect “Strine”. Trouble was the Dutchman sounded like Manuel from Faulty Towers. The poor bird may never speak again.
We have had a leisurely drive through the Atherton Tableland stopping for a lunch and a swim and our now favourite Lake Eacham before driving on to another place we enjoy, Herberton. We will stay here a couple of nights as we love the peace and quiet and the bird life. Jane has already made good friends with a flock of Rainbow Lorikeets managing to get a couple of them to take bird seed from hand.
The evenings are so much cooler up here, night time temps sometimes dropping to 17C but generally around 19C, from 31C during the day.
16/11/2011
There isn’t much doubt about us now being acclimatised to Northern Queensland tropical conditions as we certainly felt the chill of being up here at altitude. Whilst we didn’t exactly fight over the duvet last night we definitely spent all night under it, whereas we haven’t needed it lately.
A couple of towns we haven’t visited here in the Tablelands were on our hit-list for today. Firstly we made our way through some really nice countryside over the highest road in Queensland to the highest town in Queensland, Ravenshoe. This another typical country town, the centre of the farming community, mostly dairy and beef cattle up here. They grow a lot of spuds here as well and also some mango orchards but not many. Just out of the town is Millstream National Park, with yet another waterfall, this one claiming to be the widest falls in Australia, though we didn’t think so, very picturesque all the same. About another 40K’s west and out of the agricultural tablelands, is Mount Garnett, and just before there, the oddly named village of Innot Hot Springs. We reckoned it should have been called Innit Hot because it was! As I found out when I stupidly put my toes in it. The hot spring comes out of the ground and flows into a cold water stream, which isn’t flowing at the moment, so not much cold water to compensate. Result was just short of boiling water with no warning signs to say.
Mount Garnett is an outback town, with not much to commend it, except some magnificent flame trees in full bloom. They are later than those at the coast but neither seem to flower for very long. A bit like our ornamental cherry in the UK, once they get to look their best along comes the wind and blows it all away.
Back at Herberton we were greeted by our good mates the Rainbow Lorrikeets who had brought along another very colourful bird, the Pale Headed Eastern Rosella, Jane has yet to hand feed this one.
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