Two sea days down, nothing exciting to report except rough seas on the first day where most of the first time cruisers were green and literally hanging onto the columns in the buffet. I had a little episode early, but then was fine the rest of the day – which was spent hanging out, watching movies – Argo, highly recommended – and just generally slacking off.
We’re ready for Cairns! Although we’ve no clue what we are going to do. We have a car rented, but really haven’t decided where we want to go. We’ve been to Daintree and the rainforest up that way, as well as the Atherton Tablelands and a bit of the outback when we were here on our first visit. We don’t want to do the touristy Kuranda, and we’re going to the Reef from Airlie Beach in a couple days – so we are clueless. We get off the ship first thing and head to the TI for info – and come away with enough paper to fill the car – and we’re still no further along in our planning.
As we are walking across town to pick up our car, we pass a little park with huge trees and birds that are “screaming” at us (again!). These birds! Seriously – they are scary – and we as we listen to the screeching, we remember there was a bird that used to keep us awake when we stayed in Yorkies Knob years ago!
As we pick up the car, the agent there tells us to go south toward Mission Beach and gives us a ton more information on that area. Ok – what the heck! We hop in our little I20 – the car of choice for rental agencies in Australia – and off we go. It’s really easy – left out of Avis, first left and the roundabout and straight down the Bruce highway. Of course Alicetta doesn’t agree with those directions and keeps trying to make us turn off the highway. Stop it! We just ignore her and continue on straight down the road.
While Ed drives, I sort through the paper crap we’ve picked up. Tons of it will go into the recycling bin, but some of it is very helpful, such as a couple of “Great Tropical Drive” maps we scored at the TI. One of the maps has the Waterfall Circuit on it, which is in the direction we are heading. That’s the plan then!
It’s actually a nice drive, through miles and miles of sugar cane fields that stretch as far as the eye can see – all the way to the base of the mountains. The road is a 2 lane flat top affair that easily meanders through the fields and across this narrow gauge train track that we assume is used for the sugar trains. Our first stop are the Josephine Falls on the edge of Wooroonooran National Park. We turn off the main road and navigate down a narrow black top with railroad tracks criss-crossing every few kilometers. We see our first banana orchards here! Ah, fresh bananas! Hopefully the ship has loaded them on here since they didn’t have any the first day of the cruise!
Up in the park, we head out to the falls. It’s an easy walk on mostly packed trails. Three great viewing spots – the lower pools (where you could actually swim if you wanted )…
…where of course I promptly become a mountain goat and jump on a rock while Ed smartly stays on the viewing platform!
Then it is on to the upper pools….
…with Team ELAs of course!
…then off the our next destination, Innisfail, where we will pick up a picnic lunch and head west onto the Palmerston Highway for the bulk of the waterfalls.
Lunch in hand (an apple, cheese, pepperoni and ham slices), we start the trek through the bottom of the Wooroonooran Park, through the Misty Mountains. There are some great look outs over the Johnstone River…
..and we choose one of the picnic areas on the river for lunch.
Unfortunately, biting black flies also chose this place for lunch (us!) – so we scurried back to the car and ate our lunch peacefully in the confines of the I20.
The scenery changes from mountainous valleys to farmland over rolling hills as we approach the Millaa Millaa waterfall circuit – a quick 15 km circuit that brings you to three beautiful waterfalls. Since we are coming from the south, first up are the Ellinjaa Falls. It’s a steep, stair-stepped climb down (and up! huff, puff!) but worth it for the spectacular drop of the water and the relative coolness of the rainforest (humid as all, but cooler than being in the sun).
Next around are the Zillie falls, a little less spectacular, but still amazing watching the water come off the stream and drop straight down into the pools below.
Our last stop are the Millaa Millaa Falls, where you can actually drive right up to them and sit in your car to watch. We of course park on the upper lot and walk down (and back up) to see them! You can also swim here and some hardy soles are actually in the water under the waterfall. Braver than me, I’m afraid!
As we are leaving, heading into the town of Millaa Millaa, the clouds that have been gathering and darkening all morning make good on their threat, the skies opened up and it poured Roos and Wallabies! LOL. Thank heavens we were in the car and not at the waterfalls! Great timing!
We stayed in the car and continued to drive up north, through Yungaburra, a cute little town (they all are cute little towns – all very western US looking (well, maybe western US looking 60 years ago—no Walmarts or Home Depots or CVS) with retail establishments gracing main streets with diagonal parking). As we pass through Yungaburra, we realize we did this route 5 years ago on our first visit! We pass the exit to the huge Curtain Fig tree (where we took tons of pix on our first visit) and head into Atherton – another cute town – which was where, on our first trip, we stopped for cappuccinos before veering off into the outback. This time, we just drove through, our plans to make the circuit and spend some time in Cairns proper.
As we clear Atherton, before we hit Tolga, the road becomes a leafy canopy of rainforest – quite different from the open rolling farmlands we’ve been watching the last hour or so. The town of Tolga appears, as well as great little roadside shops – one of which, The Humpy, is too enticing to pass by! We stop and shop through tons and tons of roasted local nuts – quite a few of which we can sample – and of course buy! We end up with chili lime peanuts and a cup of hot ranch roasted macadamias! Oh, hot nuts! Absolutely fantastic. We gobbled the macadamias down sitting in the parking lot! The peanuts we saved for later on the ship when we got “peckish”.
Onward we press – up to Mareeba where we stop for supplies and I find Tyrrell’s wine! Yay! A bottle of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc go into my backpack! Ed picks up a six of beer for the cabin and we head on out again – now up into the mountains on the Kennedy Highway, watching for Tree Kangaroos! There are signs on the highway indicating they are in the area! Would love to see those! We watch huge termite mounds blur past us between Mareeba and Kuranda, stopping at the viewpoint overlooking the Cairns valley. Beautiful – even with the clouds rolling in!
It’s only a short time back into town now – we head down to sea level and pass the turn off to Yorkies Knob, which we remember from before, and roll into Cairns proper, drop the car and head into town to explore.
As we are walking down the street, we hear the screeching birds again – and look up into the trees. Oh man – it’s not birds – its bats! Thousands of them! Screeching and screaming and flying around – and they HUGE! Not like those little bats we had in Richmond, oh no, these are monsters! Ick!
We successfully maneuver our way past the bats and bat guano, and wander the Esplanade looking for some place to have a drink. There are tons of restaurants, but no real pubs for us to just hang. Until we stumble upon Rattle and Hum – a great pub that is just the place to hang out. Pool tables, tvs, a younger crowd – just fun – and a great logo!
Pub style – as is virtually everything in this country! I order our drinks from the bartender, then we hang out just watching the action – even though it's only about 4pm! We love this place! It’s just a shame the shirts are so darn pricey, or we would have had one for each of us!
Back to the ship we go, relaxing on the balcony before heading up to the gym, the lounge and dinner. As we are hanging out on the balcony, we notice a rainbow! Ok – this is a first – we actually can see the beginning and end of the rainbow!!! We want the boat where the rainbow ends…must be magical, huh? Totally awesome!
Fabulous ending, to a fabulous day in Cairns. Tomorrow – well, we’ll see what trouble we can scare up!
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