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Another late sleep in this morning. Dylan didn't wake until 7, which meant the rest of us were awake at 7:05, but that's still quite a good achievement. He's happy to sit in bed and play the ipad once he knows we're all awake, so the rest of us get to lie in, even though we're not asleep. The park in Innisfail is right alongside the Bruce Highway, and with all their foliage having been stripped out by the cyclone, the road noise is fairly intrusive and made it hard to get to sleep last night. That could be the reason behind the late start, but that's ok, I'm sure we'll survive...
We headed back into the Tablelands today, but the southern end of them, to do some more rainforest walks and waterfall tours. The country out there is absolutely beautiful, and reminds us of the south coast of NSW, when you get away from the coast a bit. It's all rolling green hills, but not gentle hills. These are deep valleys with steep walls, and hills of all different sizes and angles. In the deepest valleys, where the sides are too steep for farming, remnant rainforest has been left uncleared, and it creates a spectacular contrast to the grass and pastures and fruit farms. The hills and valleys were formed by lava flows millions of years ago, which flowed out of six separate volcanoes, and filled the valleys with rivers of molten rock. In the years since, erosion has weathered the layers of rock, and it's now rich, fertile soil, that supports a huge dairy industry, plus oceans of sugarcane, bananas and tropical fruit plantations. The soil is also the reason why the rainforest is so spectacularly lush and vibrant. As we drove through the country, we noticed that lots of the sugarcane fields were being harvested, and the cane trains were doing the rounds transferring the freshly cut cane to the sugar mill. It was interesting to watch how it all worked, and has made us inquisitive about doing a sugar mill tour... The highway we were on is the Palmerstone Highway, out of Innisfail, and it took us to a little country town called Millaa Millaa. A gorgeous, quaint little town, with all the history in the world, and a heritage of logging, dairy and sugarcane farming. Not much there, but one of those little, out of the way places that really leave an impression...
Our first stop and walk was the Millaa Millaa Falls, along the Waterfall Circuit. These falls were discovered a century and a half ago, when the area was being chartered for roads and settlements. They became a huge tourist draw along the road, and a popular stop between major townships in the early days, and it's easy to see why. They're very accessible, and very impressive, and they have a really good swimming hole at the bottom. It was too cold though, even for the boys to try swimming there. About 8km further along the same circuit, we found Zillie Falls. We were only allowed to access the top of these falls, as the gorge was too steep, so we didn't stay too long. It's always the view from the bottom that's most impressive. The final waterfall along the tourist circuit was Ellinjaa Falls. This was a steep winding track to the base of the falls, but even getting out of the car in the carpark, you could hear the roar of the water, and we knew it would be a good show. It was. The water tumbled over a rocky wall of jumbled rocks, from the volcanic lava flow, into a nice large swimming hole at the base, and then flowed out over a rocky river bed, and along a crystal clear river to disappear into the rainforest. It's postcard stuff, and a photographers delight, but unfortunately, the sun was in the wrong position, and the photos all look dark and gloomy from the shadows. It's amazing scenery, and mother nature at her best, and well and truly worth the effort of going down to have a look.
We continued driving around the tablelands, enjoying the scenery and the epic views. We took small country roads and little scenic drives as we came across them, and just enjoyed the drive. The boys sat in the back with their electronics, and everyone enjoyed the morning...
We have noticed that the weather has begun to get cooler, particularly early mornings and evenings. In the rainforest, under the tree canopy, we need to keep a jumper on until we warm up from walking a bit, but it's still clear sunshine and blue skies. There was a scattering of clouds around this morning, but they cleared away fairly quickly. We came back to Innisfail for lunch, and had a walk around town and spent some time along the waterfront. Innisfail is an ok town. It's full of art deco buildings, if that's your thing, but probably it's biggest problem is that it's too close to Cairns. Nobody's going to stop and spend time here, when the tourist capital of the far north is only an hour down the road. We wouldn't have, other than we wanted to explore the tablelands more, and see Paronella Park, and didn't want to overstay our welcome in Cairns. We thought Innisfail would be the best solution, and it's fine, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, except that Cairns is just up the road, and it's a much more attractive proposition. Innisfail is like a poor cousin to Cairns. We came back to the park in the early afternoon, and the boys have had a swim in the pool while Jo lazed around in the sun. I, of course, had work to do in the caravan, and couldn't participate in the laziness, but that's ok, that's my lot in life...
I'm not whingeing, really, I'm not...
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