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We are heading into outback QLD today so its time to write about FNQ. We arrived at the Atherton Tablelands from the west, scrubby sparse country until it climbs into the Tablelands, and within an hour the landscape changed into lush, dairy country. They told us at Undara Lava Tubes that the volcanic soil is really fertile when it is mixed with water; there isn’t enough rainfall west of the Great Dividing Range for this to make a difference, but up in the Tablelands, it is said that if you plant a pin it will grow into a crowbar. They pretty much grow all the good stuff up there, coffee, chocolate (at CoffeeWorks in Mareeba you could taste as much of all this as you wanted), avocados, mangos, bananas and lots of sugar.
We visited a sugar cane farm (that has diversified into chocolate J) and learnt lots about the growing, harvesting and production of sugar (on average, Australians eat 3kg of chcoclate each per year, Americans eat 8kg and the Swiss eat 10kg). We have done lots of bushwalks through beautiful ancient rainforest, generally in thongs – since WA we are experts in just winging bushwalks, not the Scout code of always being prepared however no harm has become us yet. Apparently in the Daintree it’s not the animals that we need to watch out for (the usual spiders and snakes), it’s the plants that are vicious – the Stinging Tree that causes years of pain upon touching the leaves, or the ‘Wait a While’ vine, called this as you have to ‘wait a while’ while you untangle yourself from the barbs. The best moment for Dave was seeing a real platypus, until then we had suspected that they were a myth.
We camped at Cape Trib Camping, right where the rainforest meets the sea, and ziplined through the canopy the following morning. What an incredibly fun way to see the Daintree. The coast is so stunning but not swimming is allowed due to the number of saltwater crocs – their numbers were once so low they were on the point of extinction, however laws passed in the 1970’s stopped their hunting and now numbers are so high (70,000 or so) that they are posing real danger to humans again. A video on their movements and management was really interesting.
Port Douglas was fun, Elizabeth kissed a cane toad in an attempt to make it hop faster in the Cane Toad Races at the pub… It didn’t win but we all had lots of fun! And then Cairns – the Caravan Park was probably the highlight for the kids because it had pretty much everything they could ever want – water slides, water park, other children, movie nights, basketball, 2 jumping pillows, games room, a huge pool… So we spent a bit of down time here.
We then set sail for an overnight snorkelling trip on the Great Barrier Reef, which proved to be both a highlight and a lowlight. The snorkelling was beautiful, we were even lucky enough to see a Sea Turtle, Giant Clams, 1 metre long Parrot Fish and so many others in warm, clear waters. BUT the reality of getting to the Outer Reef led to some sea sickness, and the space limitations onboard led to some crankiness also. At the end of the day we still smile and laugh at the videos and photos so I guess the overall feeling is positive!
We are on our way to outback QLD now, Hughenden and Winton to see dinosaur tracks, Longreach to see the Qantas museum, Rubyvale to fossick for gemstones. To get to the Atherton Tablelands we also passed though outback QLD – Camooweal, Lawn Hill NP, Normanton near the Gulf of Carpentaria and Mt Surprise (surprise, its flat) where we checked out the Undara Lava Tubes, but I’ll talk about them when we do our next iMovie of the Outback. Which includes Jonathon taking part in a whip cracking show with the fastest whip cracker in the world!