Airlie Beach to Cairns

After the excitement of the Whitsundays, the next two days can only be described as long and boring! There is not a massive amount of things to do on this stretch of coast, so we drove about 600kms each day for two days to try and get as far as possible as quickly as we could. The roads were pretty empty, we would only see another car occasionally, and towns were few and far between!

We decided to head up towards the Atherton Tablelands, as we had heard this was really nice from a few people. We picked a campsite that was right in the middle of all the waterfalls so we were well placed for the next day. The only problem with this was that in effect we were in the middle of nowhere, and it was pretty rustic!! As soon as we pulled up I knew there was potential for nasty encounters of the wildlife kind, and after about ten minutes the only other people staying on the site told us that they had snakes (of the poisonous kind) under their van that morning. By then I was quite freaked out, everything was very overgrown, so there were no clear paths to the showers without going through long grass. Naturally I demanded that Tim would come with me and stand guard whilst I was showering. I was proved right when on the way back to the camper, we encountered the largest, ugliest toad I have ever seen.

Nasty Suprise- Cane Toad

We knew this was a cane toad, and the book said they were posionous, but helpfully did not explain in what sense they were posionous - did they bite, spray you with venom etc etc?! After taking a few pics from a safe distance, we beat a hasty retreat to the camper, and stayed there for the rest of the night!

Millstream falls

The next day we went on the Millaa Millaa Waterfall Circuit, this is a group of 3 waterfalls which are all within about 10kms of each other. All very nice, and even nicer because there was no-one else there! We then went to see some other waterfalls and a large crater (much more exciting than previous craters) which was pretty large and filled with kermit coloured sludge.. mmm nice!

Zillie Falls

Millaa Millaa Falls

Crater, Mt Hypipamee

From there we headed to Lake Tinaroo, which was beautiful, really peaceful and a lovely camping site with a nice pool too. We resisted the urge to stay two nights, as we were running out of time.

Granite Gorge - Rock Wallaby

The next day took us to Mareeba where we went to Granite Gorge to feed the rock wallabies - I recognised it from when Matty went there. Very cool - we just had to shake the bags of food, one brave one came at first but was soon followed by about 10 of them. They were really really cute - see pictures and very gentle - they would hold onto your hand while taking the food.

Granite Gorge - Tim feeding the rock Wallaby

Tim was surrounded at one point and they started climbing all over him, which was all quite funny. Funnier still when one left a little present on his leg - well I thought so anyway!!

Granite Gorge - Rock Wallaby with joey

After the wallaby feeding we then drove to Port Douglas, stopping for an iced coffee at Kuranda on the way, via what must have been the bendiest road in the trip so far!! Port Douglas was really nice, and had a 4 mile beach, which again, was deserted.

Port Douglas - 4 mile beach

We had a swim in the pool and a BBQ for dinner. We started to feeling slightly blue that the Australian leg of adventure was coming to a close and that the following day we would have to hand back our home for the last three weeks (the camper van). The following morning was fairly stressful as we packed all our gear back into the rucksacks and cleaned the van up.

We headed into Port Douglas itself to look around the local market. Em was tempted to buy a chopping board and I was thinking about buying a wide brimmed Australian stylie hat - fortunately we both resisted the urge!!

From there we drove slightly further North to Mossman Gorge. We thought it would just be a scenic drive but when we got there you could walk alongside the river and people were swimming. Despite being short on time, we ran back to the van, grabbed our swimming gear and went for a quick dip. The water was pretty cold and the current takes you downstream quite quickly, it was great to cool off though.

Mossman Gorge - swimmers

Time was started to run really short as we had to drop the camper back by 3.30pm. We wound our way back down the Captain Cook Highway, found our accommodation for the night (The Travellers Oasis), dumped our stuff off and then dropped the camper back :-(.

Cairns - Travellers Oasis

The hostel was really good and we were given various vouchers for cheap eats in Cairns (bonus)! We strolled around in the evening, Cairns does not have its own beach so they have built a lagoon along the esplande which is really cool - it even has a sandy bottom!! Sorry readers but we forgot to take any pictures - it looked superb at night. By this time our tummies were starting to rumble so we ate at a place called the Woolshed - two meals and two beers for 25 bucks, the best thing was, I had a char grilled T-bone steak which was absolutely delicious! Post dinner we checked out a local night market and ending up treating ourselves to a massage.

The following day was an administration day, very boring! We spent a lot of time on the internet updating the blog and uploading photos - I hope you lot are enjoying the updates as its pretty labour intensive!! For our last night we had a deluxe double room, which meant we had a tv, dvd player, fridge and balcony!! This felt like heaven, so we decided to make the most of it and borrowed a dvd from the hostel, cooked a pizza and relaxed! Next morning we were up early to fly out of Cairns to Auckland - via Sydney! We have really enjoyed Australia, bit worried NZ will feel cold after this.

written by

Tim and Em on March 9, 2010 from Cairns, Australia

from the travel blog: Round half the world!

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Enjoyed the blog from Cairns- great photos. If you see any more Toads a ruler alongside is helpful for the photo. It may have been tiny! Also getting close is a good way of seeing just how poisonous it is. Hope NZ is not too cold - at least it is a toad free zone although there are birds that eat the rubber on your windscreens. Take care.

written by David Barrett on March 17, 2010

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