Tablelands, Day 1
Despite having constant access to the internet since being at Veronica's (and a flat surface on which to place my laptop - that's right, I no longer take anything for granted), I have been slacking on updating this thing, mostly since I've been out nearly every day and too tired to write or edit pictures in the evening. If I don't catch up soon, though, I never will, so off we go!
On Tuesday, December 2nd, I headed out west of Cairns to an area called the ATherton Tablelands. Being higher in elevation and away from the coast, it is usually a few degrees cooler and much less humid. It is home to a large portion of the Wet Tropics Rainforest World Heritage Site, as well as many waterfalls and swimming holes. I decided to make the waterfalls the focal point of my visit, as I found a map with over fifteen of them marked and knew I would get in some good hiking that way.
The first two I went to were along the Kennedy Highway, which Kuranda (the village I visited earlier in the week) is on. After emerging from the windy road through the rainforest, I found myself on a only moderately curvy, wider road and eventually saw the turnoff for Davies Creek Waterfalls. What happened after that was a remarkable moment that I had read about but not yet experienced. I turned off onto the unsealed (gravel) road and within two kilometers, I felt like I was in the middle of the outback. The road was made of red dirt, the bush had turned scrubby, and the hum of the cicadas was audible from inside the car.
The 300m trail down to the waterfalls was dry and deserted.
It was strange to hear the sound of water nearby, but there it was..
I saw this tree that looked like a dinosaur's foot on the way back up.
The grasslands next to the road were dotted with these monstrous termite mounds.
There were many smaller ones that were "in the making" as well.
These ones were built into the sides of a dry channel.
My next waterfall destination was on Emerald Creek. I turned off the main highway, but then accidentally went waaay past the turnoff to the waterfalls. I ended up climbing the road quite high, and eventually realized I must be on the wrong road when the road forked, with a sign indicating that these were the roads to two mountains. I turned around and headed back down, passing an eco-tour 4-wheel drive whose patrons all looked at me strangely, likely wondering why a Toyota Ascent was on this rough road (suffice to say I was going very slowly the whole way!).
I finally made it to the deserted car park for the waterfalls, and sighed in disappointment when I saw the sign: "Waterfalls: 1.7km". With no one aware of my location and no one else around, I wasn't willing to risk hiking that distance by myself. Just as I was throwing the car into reverse, though, another car pulled up and four people in their early 20's piled out. "Are you hiking to the falls?" I asked. "Yeah, do you wanna come?" they asked. So off we went and had some interesting conversation. The trail was similar to the Davies Creek Falls one, and once again it was odd to see the water emerging from the buffed sandstone cliffs.
Emerald Creek Falls.
We had a swim in the pool just beyond the falls.
Then I was on the road again. I stopped in Mareeba, which is just off the main road and produces 90% of the coffee in Australia. I finally remembered to take a picture of this train sign -- they are all over the place, especially up here becuase there are so many sugar cane trains. I find the diagram amusing because it reminds me of a Monopoly train and I have a strong desire to point and exclaim, "Choo choo!" when I see it.
I drove through the Tablelands' main township, Atherton, and continued about 10km outside of it to the cute village of Yungabarra, where I checked in at a hostel recommended by my guidebook. In addition to having stone floors, wood plank walls, and a general mountain lodge feel, the staff were very friendly and offered free excursions to the local creek for platypus viewing every night. I arrived just in time to join in. Unfortunately I happened to be part of the largest group the girl had taken out in recent times, and as platypi are very shy little creatures, any movement or loud talking will scare them away. The group split up and some of them saw one upstream... and then of course everyone else rushed over there and probably scared it away. I opted to stay where I was, but didn't see one until it was time to leave and we walked by where we had come from! He just popped up for a second (they bring vegetation up from the mud and have to surface to swallow it). Even though I had been told the ones up north here were much smaller than their southern cousins, I was surprised to see this little guy, whose body length was only about 15cm including his tail. So cute! No picture because it was dusky and I wanted to just enjoy the moment.
Here's a picture of the creek we were at.
See the grass hanging from the tree in the foreground?
That's how high the water level will be in another month!
We were watching these air bubbles in hopes that they were made by a platypus and not a turtle.
Later in the evening, a few people from the hostel went out on a guided night canoeing and spotlighting excursion (spotlighting is where you use a high-powered flashlight or "torch" to look for nocturnal animals in trees, etc). It would have been fun, but I was trying to save money after the chunk I dropped on skydiving, so I asked if I could just follow them out to the nearby lake and stargaze, since I haven't been in a place dark enough to do this yet, and that way someone would know where I was. After they pushed off, I sat on the shore of the lake stargazing (I had never thought about this before, but the constellations are completely different down here), and listening to the sounds of the night animals until I was suitably freaked out.
I haven't quite figured out star photography enough to share anything with you, so here's a picture of the moon.
I drove back into Yungabarra and found this cute shop begging to have its picture taken.
Back at the hostel, I was chatting with some people in the common room when we heard a very loud, "worrrrrrk". One girl thought there must be a frog toy on the shelf, but when we picked up the small digeridoo sitting there and shined a light down it, there was a REAL frog inside of it. The girl didn't believe us until she saw its throat moving.
We only had a white-light flashlight, so the image I got looks very strange.
It was later identifed as a Green Tree Frog and the hostel staff said that he had been
there for some time! (in fact, he used to live in the big digeridoo but people kept blowing on it)
The little froggie's home.
Jed, the hostel's adopted dog.
We found some neat insects outside in the BBQ area.
This is an immature cicada, the aforementioned creature that makes all that noise in the bush.
This is a Rhinoceros Beetle.
Prepare yourself for the onslaught of waterfalls!
On Tuesday, December 2nd, I headed out west of Cairns to an area called the ATherton Tablelands. Being higher in elevation and away from the coast, it is usually a few degrees cooler and much less humid. It is home to a large portion of the Wet Tropics Rainforest World Heritage Site, as well as many waterfalls and swimming holes. I decided to make the waterfalls the focal point of my visit, as I found a map with over fifteen of them marked and knew I would get in some good hiking that way.
The first two I went to were along the Kennedy Highway, which Kuranda (the village I visited earlier in the week) is on. After emerging from the windy road through the rainforest, I found myself on a only moderately curvy, wider road and eventually saw the turnoff for Davies Creek Waterfalls. What happened after that was a remarkable moment that I had read about but not yet experienced. I turned off onto the unsealed (gravel) road and within two kilometers, I felt like I was in the middle of the outback. The road was made of red dirt, the bush had turned scrubby, and the hum of the cicadas was audible from inside the car.
The 300m trail down to the waterfalls was dry and deserted.
It was strange to hear the sound of water nearby, but there it was..
I saw this tree that looked like a dinosaur's foot on the way back up.
The grasslands next to the road were dotted with these monstrous termite mounds.
There were many smaller ones that were "in the making" as well.
These ones were built into the sides of a dry channel.
My next waterfall destination was on Emerald Creek. I turned off the main highway, but then accidentally went waaay past the turnoff to the waterfalls. I ended up climbing the road quite high, and eventually realized I must be on the wrong road when the road forked, with a sign indicating that these were the roads to two mountains. I turned around and headed back down, passing an eco-tour 4-wheel drive whose patrons all looked at me strangely, likely wondering why a Toyota Ascent was on this rough road (suffice to say I was going very slowly the whole way!).
I finally made it to the deserted car park for the waterfalls, and sighed in disappointment when I saw the sign: "Waterfalls: 1.7km". With no one aware of my location and no one else around, I wasn't willing to risk hiking that distance by myself. Just as I was throwing the car into reverse, though, another car pulled up and four people in their early 20's piled out. "Are you hiking to the falls?" I asked. "Yeah, do you wanna come?" they asked. So off we went and had some interesting conversation. The trail was similar to the Davies Creek Falls one, and once again it was odd to see the water emerging from the buffed sandstone cliffs.
Emerald Creek Falls.
We had a swim in the pool just beyond the falls.
Then I was on the road again. I stopped in Mareeba, which is just off the main road and produces 90% of the coffee in Australia. I finally remembered to take a picture of this train sign -- they are all over the place, especially up here becuase there are so many sugar cane trains. I find the diagram amusing because it reminds me of a Monopoly train and I have a strong desire to point and exclaim, "Choo choo!" when I see it.
I drove through the Tablelands' main township, Atherton, and continued about 10km outside of it to the cute village of Yungabarra, where I checked in at a hostel recommended by my guidebook. In addition to having stone floors, wood plank walls, and a general mountain lodge feel, the staff were very friendly and offered free excursions to the local creek for platypus viewing every night. I arrived just in time to join in. Unfortunately I happened to be part of the largest group the girl had taken out in recent times, and as platypi are very shy little creatures, any movement or loud talking will scare them away. The group split up and some of them saw one upstream... and then of course everyone else rushed over there and probably scared it away. I opted to stay where I was, but didn't see one until it was time to leave and we walked by where we had come from! He just popped up for a second (they bring vegetation up from the mud and have to surface to swallow it). Even though I had been told the ones up north here were much smaller than their southern cousins, I was surprised to see this little guy, whose body length was only about 15cm including his tail. So cute! No picture because it was dusky and I wanted to just enjoy the moment.
Here's a picture of the creek we were at.
See the grass hanging from the tree in the foreground?
That's how high the water level will be in another month!
We were watching these air bubbles in hopes that they were made by a platypus and not a turtle.
Later in the evening, a few people from the hostel went out on a guided night canoeing and spotlighting excursion (spotlighting is where you use a high-powered flashlight or "torch" to look for nocturnal animals in trees, etc). It would have been fun, but I was trying to save money after the chunk I dropped on skydiving, so I asked if I could just follow them out to the nearby lake and stargaze, since I haven't been in a place dark enough to do this yet, and that way someone would know where I was. After they pushed off, I sat on the shore of the lake stargazing (I had never thought about this before, but the constellations are completely different down here), and listening to the sounds of the night animals until I was suitably freaked out.
I haven't quite figured out star photography enough to share anything with you, so here's a picture of the moon.
I drove back into Yungabarra and found this cute shop begging to have its picture taken.
Back at the hostel, I was chatting with some people in the common room when we heard a very loud, "worrrrrrk". One girl thought there must be a frog toy on the shelf, but when we picked up the small digeridoo sitting there and shined a light down it, there was a REAL frog inside of it. The girl didn't believe us until she saw its throat moving.
We only had a white-light flashlight, so the image I got looks very strange.
It was later identifed as a Green Tree Frog and the hostel staff said that he had been
there for some time! (in fact, he used to live in the big digeridoo but people kept blowing on it)
The little froggie's home.
Jed, the hostel's adopted dog.
We found some neat insects outside in the BBQ area.
This is an immature cicada, the aforementioned creature that makes all that noise in the bush.
This is a Rhinoceros Beetle.
Prepare yourself for the onslaught of waterfalls!