Well we are here in Atherton and we totally love this place. So green, lovely hills and running clear streams and lots of waterfalls. The history here is also again amazing, particularly it’s Chinese heritage. We stayed 4 days at the Woodlands (Big 4) Caravan Park) in its rainforest setting. Such lovely birds and landscape of palms, bamboo and beautiful flowers.
We caught up on our banking, emails, post and grocery shopping before we made our plan of “attack”. We went to the Information Centre and picked up our usual array of brochures on what is to see in the local area. Let me tell you there is so much to see and do!
It was drizzling rain when we arrived and did so for the whole 4 days. We were not going to complain as it apparently has been raining for 3 weeks before we got here! This was the first rain that we had come in contact with.
We starte
d out on driving out to the Curtain Fig tree, reputed to be over 800 years old. It is in a lovely rainforest and it truly was a majestic sight. From there we drove through the lovely quaint township of Yungaburra, close to Lake Tingaroo. Full of quaint little coffee shops, antique dealers, craft shops and bakeries and butchery’s all professing to supply homemade fare. (We resisted!) We went on to Lake Barine.
What a gorgeous place this! This and Lake Eacham are both crater lakes formed many thousands of years ago. It is not developed except for a little teahouse that was built in the 1920’s. They also run Rainforest cruises around the perimeter of the lake which is only 3.5kms. You get a chance to see many birds and native wildlife up close without getting off the boat! We were so lucky as we were able to spot and photograph 3 very large amethyst pythons really up close.
Plenty of water birds as well as rainbow lorikeets, and the amazing coloured Blue Ulysses butterfly. (Little devils would not pose for a photo shoot though!) I have tried to catch them on the video but will see how they come out! It began raining again at the end of the cruise but it was still nice and warm. We called into also look at Lake Eacham which is smaller but a lovely swimming spot. Water is so clear we were counting the fish!
We drove on the long distance of 8kms to Malanda, another tiny village and stopped at the falls. Really misting rain but we took some photos and walked through the rainforest. Check out the beautiful fungi growing.
The following day we visited the Chinese museum and Hou Wang Temple. This is a very unique temple, the only one in Australia of tin and timber construction built in the late 1800’s for the large Chinese community. The Chinese came here in their hundreds for the Palmer goldfields gold rush but were ba
sically hounded off much of the land when the gold petered out. Being the industrial race they are they commenced maize growing as well as market gardening, supplying the district with their produce.
At the same venue in the morning was a wild bird sh
ow and it went for 1 ½ hours and really was worth seeing. I have never been this close to a Wedge tail eagle, a Spotted Quoll, 2 lovely owls, a barn owl and a Sooty Owl and a Brown Falcon. Very educational too.
As part of the requirements of the 4WD trip that we leave on next week, we had to get the car fully checked out by one of their authorized workshops. We had that completed with no problems found and now have our Certificate of Inspection!
Today we drove the 15kms to Walkamin, a small village 15kms towards Mareeba. It’s a lovely open park, plenty of room, oranges and mandarins hanging off the trees and we have been told to take what we like as they will fall off and rot otherwise! It’s a clean up day tomorrow, and we will start sorting out what clothes we need to take and start packing. As everything on the trip is supplied except tent and sleeping gear, including plates, knives, forks etc we will unpack the roof rack and a lot of the gear in the car and leave it here with the van. They are only charging us $2.00 per night to leave the van here whilst we are “roughing” it.
Oh this lifestyle really is the pits! They have a campfire here and great barbeque facilities so we are cooking over there tonight. Apparently there is also a darts and Bocci comp which we have been challenged to enter!
Oh the things we have to do……
Love to you all
Rob & Walter
We caught up on our banking, emails, post and grocery shopping before we made our plan of “attack”. We went to the Information Centre and picked up our usual array of brochures on what is to see in the local area. Let me tell you there is so much to see and do!
It was drizzling rain when we arrived and did so for the whole 4 days. We were not going to complain as it apparently has been raining for 3 weeks before we got here! This was the first rain that we had come in contact with.
We starte
d out on driving out to the Curtain Fig tree, reputed to be over 800 years old. It is in a lovely rainforest and it truly was a majestic sight. From there we drove through the lovely quaint township of Yungaburra, close to Lake Tingaroo. Full of quaint little coffee shops, antique dealers, craft shops and bakeries and butchery’s all professing to supply homemade fare. (We resisted!) We went on to Lake Barine.What a gorgeous place this! This and Lake Eacham are both crater lakes formed many thousands of years ago. It is not developed except for a little teahouse that was built in the 1920’s. They also run Rainforest cruises around the perimeter of the lake which is only 3.5kms. You get a chance to see many birds and native wildlife up close without getting off the boat! We were so lucky as we were able to spot and photograph 3 very large amethyst pythons really up close.
Plenty of water birds as well as rainbow lorikeets, and the amazing coloured Blue Ulysses butterfly. (Little devils would not pose for a photo shoot though!) I have tried to catch them on the video but will see how they come out! It began raining again at the end of the cruise but it was still nice and warm. We called into also look at Lake Eacham which is smaller but a lovely swimming spot. Water is so clear we were counting the fish!
We drove on the long distance of 8kms to Malanda, another tiny village and stopped at the falls. Really misting rain but we took some photos and walked through the rainforest. Check out the beautiful fungi growing.
The following day we visited the Chinese museum and Hou Wang Temple. This is a very unique temple, the only one in Australia of tin and timber construction built in the late 1800’s for the large Chinese community. The Chinese came here in their hundreds for the Palmer goldfields gold rush but were ba
sically hounded off much of the land when the gold petered out. Being the industrial race they are they commenced maize growing as well as market gardening, supplying the district with their produce.At the same venue in the morning was a wild bird sh
ow and it went for 1 ½ hours and really was worth seeing. I have never been this close to a Wedge tail eagle, a Spotted Quoll, 2 lovely owls, a barn owl and a Sooty Owl and a Brown Falcon. Very educational too.As part of the requirements of the 4WD trip that we leave on next week, we had to get the car fully checked out by one of their authorized workshops. We had that completed with no problems found and now have our Certificate of Inspection!
Today we drove the 15kms to Walkamin, a small village 15kms towards Mareeba. It’s a lovely open park, plenty of room, oranges and mandarins hanging off the trees and we have been told to take what we like as they will fall off and rot otherwise! It’s a clean up day tomorrow, and we will start sorting out what clothes we need to take and start packing. As everything on the trip is supplied except tent and sleeping gear, including plates, knives, forks etc we will unpack the roof rack and a lot of the gear in the car and leave it here with the van. They are only charging us $2.00 per night to leave the van here whilst we are “roughing” it.
Oh this lifestyle really is the pits! They have a campfire here and great barbeque facilities so we are cooking over there tonight. Apparently there is also a darts and Bocci comp which we have been challenged to enter!
Oh the things we have to do……
Love to you all
Rob & Walter
2 comments:
Hi You 2
Comming around a fair bit again...We hope you´l keep sending updates for long ..We enjoy reading it and are always with ya.. specialy when you travel places we were as well
Your Austrian pack of 4
Helga,Gunter, Corni and Tom
What an adventurous trip; salties ,heavy rainfall and dirt roads!We hope there is enough bush tugger around you!
Go ahead ,good luck and don`t forget us.
helmut&ingrid
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