Tuesday 21^st October

This morning we did a couple of hours walk on the Rose Gums estate to the creek and a swimming hole where Iain had a swim.

The weather was definitely better than yesterday although still quite cloudy. After an early lunch we went back to Malanda where I had a very welcome massage for an hour and Iain revisited the Visitor Centre and did a couple of short walks.

We then drove to Millaa Millaa and then took a scenic narrow road (the Old Palmerston highway) visiting Papina Falls and then Little Millstream Falls in Ravenshoe. We then had a longer walk to see the impressive Millstream Falls, reputedly the widest single drop waterfall in Australia. We then drove north to walk around the crater and Dinner Falls. The crater is a good example of a diatreme and quite spectacular.

We then drove back via a dirt road around Bromfield Swamp to Malanda and home.

Monday 20^th October

Another misty, moisty day with quite a bit of rain. I got to familiarise myself with driving the monster car today – which wasn’t so bad. We drove into Malanda where I managed to make a massage appointment for tomorrow (my neck and shoulders are missing my regular remedial massage!) and Iain got a haircut. We then drove down to Millaa Millaa where we drove around the waterfall road – about 40Km with 3 lovely waterfalls you can walk to. We stopped at a café and had something to eat and then continued back up to Malanda, as it was still very cloudy and rainy on the top. We visited the Gallo’s Dairy, sampling and buying some lovely cheese, and then drove around Lake Tinaroo.

This is a large and very beautiful lake and the road, mainly dirt, winds its way through the forest and is very scenic. We did a couple of short walks and a slightly longer one around the Mobo Creek crater (an old Maar volcano) which was well worth the effort walking down and then all the way up again!

Iain lit the stove again and I cooked some beautiful steak on the Barbie – we are in the middle of dairy and cattle country so the meat is very good. While I was cooking a large Hercules moth flew by but I am quite surprised (and relieved) by the lack of snakes, spiders and insects.

Sunday 19^th October

After a lie in and breakfast (self catered from the complimentary breakfast basket that had been left for us) we went for a two hour walk on the property through the rainforest on a marked trail to the ‘Hidden waterfall’ – very beautiful but we didn’t really see any wildlife to speak of. We were lucky with the weather as we did get a bit of sun and the best of the day. We then drove to Malanda, where we shopped for the next two days at the Spar and then visited Malanda Falls and the Visitor’s centre, which had a really impressive interactive display. We also visited the Curtain Fig Tree which is the most impressive specimen of a strangler fig we’ve ever seen!

The weather is very cloudy with occasional showers and not as warm as we’ve been used to. The scenery reminds us of Swiss alpine meadows with Lake District type hills in the background – very beautiful – but then you notice the palms and other tropical trees and realise it is definitely not Switzerland!

We then came home, Iain lit the wood burning stove while I made an early dinner and we both had an early night – it’s hard work all this travelling!

Saturday 18^th October

After an excellent and very substantial breakfast we spent the morning relaxing before driving for a couple of hours to the Atherton Tablelands. The scenery was quite unlike what we have seen before in Australia – lush, green hills and a very windy road over the mountains. We stopped at Lake Barrine for a cup of tea which was very pleasant. We are staying in a beautiful wood cabin in the middle of the rainforest – very well appointed and comfortable – it even has a spa bath! We discovered that the restaurant here is BYO for alcohol so we drove down to our nearest town, Malanda, (about 20 mins drive) and bought some wine at the bottle shop. We then enjoyed the spa bath and wandered up the road to the restaurant for an excellent dinner – with torches and being quite wary about snakes as they apparently have quite a few around here! We were deafened for about 15 minutes by the noise of the Hercules moths which, about 20 minutes after sun down, make the loudest and most incredible sound with their back legs(like crickets) to try and attract females. The wichetty grub becomes a beetle that then becomes an enormous Hercules moth with a wing span of 7-10 inches.