Day 34 - Road trip to the Atherton Tablelands

We were down town and outside Europcar at 08:00 to pick up our over-priced Hyundai Getz rental that would be our best friend for the next 2 days. We got sorted and did all the checks etc before setting of on today’s road trip.

First on the list was another Big Thing we thought we’d try and find on the way out of town… and we did; the Big Marlin (fish) was ripe for the photo shoot, just in the car park of a big shopping centre. We stopped here and Corrie was unleashed with her camera, and set not to stop snapping until the day was out.

Second on the list was, arguably Danny’s favourite bit of the trip, Gillie’s Highway; a series of non-stop chicanes and corners winding their way up a hillside. In 19km there are over 200 bends! Quite high up this crazy road was Heales Lookout where we pulled over to take in the great views of the land.

After managing to keep breakfast down we came to a sign for the Cathedral Fig tree and thought we’d go and check it out. This tree was massive; standing at roughly 48 metres tall with a girth of 44 metres it’s said to have been around for almost 500 years. The fig trees basically start from a seedling landing on, then growing on another tree until it entangles and suffocates the other tree. This tree then rots away leaving just the fig and creates a huge hollowed out tree basically. You could walk into the tree’s cavity but only Danny did this as there was a huge spider (no idea if it was poisonous or not – but huge) lurking there. After a few snaps we moved on.

Our next stop was Lake Barrine; a nice volcanic lake where you could go on walks etc but we only stayed for 15 or so minutes as we had a busy schedule to stick to… and we’re a bit fed up of walking for miles at the minute.

We then moved on to stop five, Lake Eacham, where we stayed a while longer turtle spotting; we spotted one of the bottom breathers (so called as they can breathe oxygen through their bums similar to how fish breathe with gills!) There were people sunbathing and swimming here but, again, we didn’t want to spend the whole day doing that and so we moved on.

Stop six – Malanda Falls; a place where there’s supposed to be thirteen or so waterfalls to see, though we only found one of them and weren’t very impressed with it really. We moved on.

We then had lunch at a very good café with stunning views before heading to stop seven on our list: Millaa Millaa Falls. This was a great waterfall with a large pool of water underneath which looked like a pretty awesome place to swim in. We didn’t end up swimming here but it was a very close call as it was such a nice location to do it. Many people with long hair try and recreate a photo from an old Herbal Essences advert shot here where the woman flips her hair back and creates a spray of water... As we didn't get in the water, corrie didn't do this. It was also the location of a XXXX advert too.

Stop eight was just down the road and was Zillie Falls; another waterfall but this was a bit of a let-down as you couldn’t walk to the bottom of the falls, just view it from a balcony.

Nine was Ellinjaa Falls and this wasn’t a let-down because you could walk down to the bottom and Danny decided to teeter out to a log here to pose for a picture or two.

We then found a lookout point (Millaa Millaa Lookout) which became stop ten. This was quite high up and so offered really lovely views of all around us. We stopped here a bit to admire these views and faff around with Corrie’s miniature tripod and Danny’s camera to try and get a nice shot of us both.

Then it was on to number eleven on our list of stops: Millstream Falls, which is supposedly the widest single-drop waterfalls in Australia. These were quite nice too but again we didn’t linger as we had much more to do!

Stop twelve became twelve and thirteen rolled into one as the two things we wanted to see were so close to each other. The first being The Crater; a huge crater formed as gas from a nearby volcano had blasted through the Earth’s surface and, over time, filled with water. This was a pretty impressive sight and we gawped at this for a while whilst clinging onto the railings just incase!

Thirteen was just around the corner and this was Dinner Falls; again a nice waterfall but this time we did get in for a swim. A swim was just what was need to cool us down after the heat of the day, and Danny was advised, by a local, to stand underneath the falls as the water is very clean here and it would be very refreshing. It certainly was refreshing according to Danny’s expression and also very intense; he describesd the feel of the water as though someone were pounding on your shoulders… but in a good way! After a while here we dried ourselves off and continued up the road.

We bypassed a couple of stops as they weren’t what they appeared to be and seemed to be well below our expectations. Soon after though we came to stop fourteen: the Big Peanut! This is located outside a certain kind of shop… yes, a peanut shop. As it was after 17:00 the guy working there closed his shutters at the sight of us two pulling up so we couldn’t purchase any nuts. We did take a pic of the main attraction before leaving though so that was the main thing!

We had one final stop before heading back and that was the Curtain Fig Tree; again a fig tree of impressive size but this one gave the appearance of a curtain of roots due to the tree it had attached to falling and the fig growing its roots into the ground at a slant over many years.

We then made the trip home back through Danny’s new favourite road, before gathering our things for another bbq (after seeing the tremendous queue outside the place where we get free evening meals.) This was a very nice bbq, better now due to the ketchup and butter we’d purchased and a few extra bits of meat from the reduced section!

Then it was time for an early night before the fun and games begin again tomorrow.