When we got back on dry land after our dive trip we took a couple of days to rest and recover ourselves - doing 11 dives in only 3 days is really tiring, especially because your body absorbs so much extra nitrogen when you breathe compressed air underwater. We had a long lie in on the first day back, and then finished all of the remaining admin that we had to do in Australia like reconfirming our flights for next week and closing my bank account (I got $6.24 back so that paid for lunch!). After we'd finished all of that we walked down to the Esplanade to walk along the waterfront, having a look at the huge saltwater lagoon and then walking along the boardwalk, which had some nice views of the mudflats and along the coast. The next day was even more relaxed, as we spent a lot of time reading at the hostel and then went to get some lunch at the shopping centre, where I had a salted caramel latte which is perhaps the nicest coffee I've ever had. Today we went on a day trip into the Atherton Tablelands, which is the area inland from Cairns. It is made up of farming land and ancient rainforest, and is about 700m above sea level so it was a bit cooler than down on the coast. We started off heading south from Cairns, and our guide did a quick detour into the suburbs of Cairns so that we could go wildlife spotting - and within around 5 mninutes we saw loads of birds and then agile wallabies, which was a great indicator for how the rest of the day would go. We then carried on to our first stop at Babinda Boulders, where we went for a walk along the creek to Devils Pool. It was a really pretty area, and the water looked really calm, but our guide had told us that lots of people have died going swimming in that area so we stayed dry for the time being and then relaxed while having our morning tea. From there we then drove on to our first proper swimming stop at Josephine Falls. We had a guided walk through the rainforest to get to the falls, and our guide gave us loads of information about different plants and animals that you can find in the rainforest. we then went to a lookout to get a view of the falls, before heading down to the pool at the bottom to go swimming. The water was apparently 19 degrees, but it felt much colder! However there was a natural waterslide running over the rocks which we had a go at - the slide was quite fun, but it was really slipperly climbing up the rocks to get to the top, so I only had 1 go while Joel had another go later on. Once we'd dried off it was back in the bus to head to our next stop, Millaa Millaa Falls. These are exactly what you would imagine if you thought of a waterfall, with crystal clear watr falling into a pool surrounded by rainforest - it was really pretty here! We even saw a little turtle sunbathing on a log in the creek running away from the falls. By this time everyone was getting pretty hungry, so we drove to the little town of Malanda to stock up on food and then went to the Malanda Environmental Centre to eat our lunch. We had a look inside the centre which had loads of information about the rainforest and the animals that live there (including tree kangaroos, which unfortunately we didn't see any of). We also went for a short walk into the rainforest to look at the river, where we saw around 30 fresh water turtles, and we also had a look at Malanda Falls which were pretty but not as impressive as the other waterfalls we had seen. Next up was the part of the day I had most been looking forward to - Platypus spotting! We stopped off in the town of Yungaburra, where they have built a hide so that people don't scare the platypuses away. After about 10 minutes of looking Joel spotted one a little way upstream (I saw it too), so we were really happy! Our guide said that we were really lucky to spot one, because the area had been badly flooded only a few weeks ago and they had seen hardly any platypuses since the floods! We stuck around for another 10 minutes or so and think we spotted some bubbles and waves from it swimming, but nobody was 100% sure. Next up we went to look at the Curtain Fig Tree, which is a massive strangling fig that had once been wrapped around another tree before it was suffocated and half fell over - it was absolutely huge! After we had walked around the short boardwalk, we drove on to our final stop - Lake Eachem. This is a lake that is in a former volcanic crater, it is about 65 metres deep in the middle and the water is crystal clear. We walked a little way around the edge and then went in for a swim, luckily the water was a fair bit warmer than at the waterfalls which was good. We spent around an hour there relaxing by the shore, before heading back to Cairns via a very steep windy mountain road that had some great views of the Misty Mountains - we even saw a wild pig on the way home.