The Tablelands

Wednesday 2 May, Toomulla Beach


We left Bowen after breakfast, heading towards Townsville in bright sunny weather. There were several road works where we had to stop and wait, but by midday we reached Townsville. We drove into the centre, then found a big almost empty parking area near the Entertainment Centre. We unhitched and opened the van, had a quick lunch and coffee, then closed and left the van there and drove back into town for a bit of sight-seeing. We re-visited the sites we already saw in 1991 with our children: the Strand, a beautiful park and promenade along the coast, and up the Castle Hill to enjoy the views of the whole city and surrounding region. It was a bit colder up there and very windy, but the panorama is magnificent. 

Townsville from Castle Hill

Then we came down and walked around the centre, mostly Flinders Street and Square. It was a bit disappointing: the main section of the street is freshly rebuilt, the previous pedestrian mall was reconverted to vehicular traffic with some traffic calming and "environmental adaptation", but most of the shops along the two sides were closed and abandoned. At the tourist info centre they said it is slowly coming back to life after the roadworks. Let's hope...
We found our caravan safe and intact, hitched up again and continued our way Northbound, but only for another 50 km. Our Camp-6 guidebook showed a number of free campsites along the coast, we selected on of them, Toomulla Beach. It is a nice park just behind the beach, with few basic facilities - but many sand flies or midgets as one onther camper called them. Another little disappointment was that while there should be mobile reception here according to the guidebook, it is so weak that we could not make much use of it. Anyway, this place is good enough for this one night stay despite its shortcomings. It is worth more than it costs...  


Thursday 3 May, Paronella Park


Another beautiful sunny, clear and hot day. We drove to Ingham after breakfast, and stopped at the Tyto Wetland Centre, and nicely arranged local tourist info centre that we took full advantage of. We collected a lot of maps and brochures about the area, then left the van in the parking and went up to the Wallaman Falls, the largest single drop falls in Australia, close to 300 metres. It was a 50 km side trip up to 540 m height and back, but it was worth it. A marvellous place indeed, especially in such a clear sunny day. 

Wallaman Falls

Mission Beach

We had lunch and coffee back at the Wetland centre park, watching the water lilies and birdlife in the wetland. Then we continued North, and visited Mission Beach, another nostalgic side trip to a place we visited 21 years ago with our children. It was less impressive than the first time, maye just because we got used to these features over time. We took some photos, then headed back to the main road.










In the evening we stopped at Paronella Park, noted in our guidebook as "the no. 1 must-see site in Queensland" - we could not miss that. It is a "castle" and park built by a Spaniard, Jose Paronella in the 1930s, modelled on Catalonian castles. We have arrived just in time for the ninght guided tour, which led us through the park to see some of the flora and fauna in the dark by torch light - bats, glowing mushrooms, etc. and some of the castle buildings and waterfalls lit by reflectors. The whole thing is a bit "tacky", not really for our taste, but an interesting experience. We are stayin for the night in their caravan park, and will have another tour in the morning to hear about the history of the park and their owners.


Friday 4 May, Millaa Millaa 

The Castle in Paronella Park

Paronella Park

On the morning tour of the Paronella Park, we heard about the history of Jose Paronella and his family, how the park and "castle" was built and used in the 1930s, and the various natural and man-made disasters that affected the park. Jose was a baker by trade, but he was a 'visionary' and he designed and built most of the facilities in the park, including a hydro-electric power plant under the main waterfall. The buildings - or, rather, the ruins, as most of the buildings are in a derelict state - look a bit like a movie set, but the park, the vegetation and the waterfalls and other natural features are very nice, they worth a visit.

In the canopy at MaMu 

Then we headed up to the Atherton Tablelands on the Palmerston Highway. We stopped at the Mamu Rainforest Canopy Walk site a bit further up. From the elevated walkways and the observation tower we had nice views of the rainforest canopy from above, the valleys of the South Johnstone River, and Mount Bartle Frere, the highest mountain in Queensland.












Continuing Westward, we did a 15-km circuit to visit 3 waterfalls: Elinjaa, Zillie and Millaa Millaa Falls. All 3 were interesting, but Millaa Millaa is the tallest and most popular with its shallow rocky pool. Plenty of overseas tourists, mostly German. 

Millaa Millaa Falls

We stopped for the night at the caravan park in Millaa Millaa, just beside the mobile phone communication tower, so good internet connection, and a lot of work done in the evening.


Saturday 5 May, Malanda


We left Millaa Millaa around 9.30am and drove up to the aptly named Millaa Millaa lookout for a view of the surrounding mountains and valleys. The sky was overcast, and the air quite chilly 19 degrees, a big change compared with the previous days. Continuing Northbound we stopped 22 kms further at the caravn park of the next small town, Malanda. There are many attractions to see in this area and we have plenty of time, so it was easier to book into the park, set up and leave the van and do an easy round trip for the day. 

Coffee Break at Lake Barrine

After a bit of quick shopping in the town centre, we visited the two volcanic crater lakes, Lake Eacham and Lake Barrine. We had a picnic lunch at Lake Eacham, watching a few people swimming and bathing in the quiet water of the lake. The water was cristal clear, many small fish waiting at the edge for some food scraps. I was tempted for a swim, but the water and the air was a bit cold for my liking, so a gave it a miss. At Lake Barrine we had coffee at the Tea house then a short walk to the huge twin kauri trees. They are an amazing sight, true giants of the forest, about a thousand years old. 

The Curtain Fig

Next, we saw two other giant trees, the Cathedral Fig Tree, then the Curtain Fig Tree, said to be the most famous tree of Queensland. They were just as amazing as the kauris, although maybe just half as old. 


In between the two fig trees, we drove along Lake Tinaroo at Yungaburra. This is a huge artificial lake behind the dam on the Barron River. There was a lot of activity on such a Saturday afternoon, boats, swimmers, water skiing, partying on the shore. 


By this time the sky cleared to a sunny warm afternoon. We headed back to Malanda, for a quiet and relaxing evening (no mobile coverage in the park...).






Sunday 6 May, Malanda


This morning we decided to stay here for one more night and make another day tour without the caravan. It was a busy day, we "worked" a lot. The weather was partly cloudy, partly sunny but very cool, only around 20-22 degrees. First we went to Atherton, drove around the town centre, then visited an old Chinese Temple, where a heritage festival was going on. We also saw a line-up of old but well restored and still functioning old cars, some for as early as the 1920s, hand-made in England. It seems it is a popular pass-time for people also up here.

The next stop was at the Herberton Historic Village. It is a private outdoor museum of all country town life from the early 20th century, and some even older, from the end of the 1800s. We were pleasantly surprised by the wealth and quality of displays, not just the buildings but all the artifacts, tools, machinery, clothes, photos, armoury, an excellent depiction of life from that period. It was not cheap, but it was worth every cent of it. It took us almost 2 hours to get through all that. 






We then drove South to the Mount Hypipamee, a volcanic crater created by exploding underground gases a few million years ago. First we had lunch and coffee at the picnic area, then walked to the viewing platform, and were happy to confirm it is just as amazing as it was 21 years ago when we were here first. On the way back we passed through the Dinner Falls - nice but we are getting too accustomed to waterfall views... And we had a few more on the program for today...

We headed South-West, past Ravenshoe - the highest town in Queensland, at the altitude of 930 metres, which explains the cool temperature and quickly changing weather conditions up here on the Tablelands. Just before Ravenshoe we passed a Wind Farm, with 20 huge wind turbines towering above the landscape, a very impressive sight.  

Millstream Falls

Our next destination, Millstream Falls, was another "largest", in this case, the widest single waterfall in Australia. Nonetheless, it is worth a look. So much so, that we went to see the "Little Millstream Falls" as well, a couple of km's closer to Ravenshoe - that was also a beautiful, and very different view. 


Our last attraction for the day was Tully Gorge lookout. It took us about an hour to get there, as first we lost our way and went in a dead end, then on the right way it was a 25 km drive through thick forest and a very narrow winding one-lan road to get there, but we got ther in time before sunset to get a nice view of the 300 m deep gorge - unfortunately the waterfall is not flowing any more as the water is dammed and used in the hydro-electric plant, but the view is still good enough for a visit.
On the way home we were treated to a spectacular nightfall with interesting cloud formations in the orange sunset light so close above us we felt we could reach them by hand. It was a fitting finish to this very successful day.


Monday 7 May, Cairns


We left Malanda after breakfast, and drove to Cairns. On the way we stopped a the Jaques Coffee Plantation, to have a look at how coffe is grown and tasted the local product. Then in Kuranda, we had a nostalgic tour around the town and railway station. The town has changed a lot since we were here 21 years ago, the centre is very nicely developed and maintained. Quite a lot of tourists around, mostly Asians, but also French and German. 
We went down to the Barron Falls, just a few km-s from Kuranda. It was a bit difficult to park with the caravan in that tight car park so we only spent a few minutes there, but we had a quick view of the falls. Not a huge volume, but a decent flow of water, much more than in July 1991, when it was dried out. 

Barron Falls

We came down to Cairns by lunchtime, booked into a caravan park, had lunch and a bit of rest. It's 30 degrees here, a big change after the 20 degrees up in the Tablelands. Now we'll stay here for a few days, have a rest and enjoy the attractions.


Our itinerary can be seen at the following Google Map:
http://g.co/maps/wcwv8
(Note that to see the route after Bowen, you need to move down to the bottom of the right panel, and click next page!)


Bowen-ben nagyon szép helyen laktunk, ott maradtunk 2 napig, jó volt kicsit lazítani, pihenni. Másnap Townsville-ben álltunk meg, leraktuk a lakókocsit egy parkoóban, és autóval jártuk körül a várost, meg felmentünk a Castle Hill-re a kilátás kedvéért. Este megint szabad kempingeztünk a Toomulla Beach-en, szép hely volt, de nagyon összecsípkedtek a homoki legyek, azóta is szenvedünk tőle, főleg Kati, engem nem annyira zavar. Másnap Ingham-ból tettünk egy kerülőt a Wallaman vízeséshez, majd 300 m-es, megérte a kitérőt. Utána meglátogattuk Mission Beach-et, ez is része a nosztalgia-túránknak, 1991-ben ott is jártunk a gyerekekkel. Az estét egy Paronella Park nevű helyen töltöttük. Ez egy José Paronella nevű spanyol pasas kreációja az 1920-as évekből, egy castiliai mintájú "kastély" és kert, kicsit giccses, erősen romos, de nagyon romantikus és a növényzet és a park nagyon szép. Este is és másnap reggel volt vezetés, ahol elmondták az egész történetet.
Innen felkanyarodtunk az Atherton Tableland-ra, ami egy 8-900 m magas fennsík Cairns és a partvidék fölött. A magasság nagyon megérződik a klímáján is, reggelenként 12-13 fok volt a lakókocsinkban, jól fel kellett öltözni éjszakára, és napközben sem ment 20-22 fok fölé, de az idő továbbra is szép volt, bár sokszor felhős. Három napot voltunk fönt, sok vízesést, vulkáni kráter-tavakat meg fantasztikus óriás fikusz- és kauri-fákat láttunk. No meg egy meglepően gazdag, jól összehozott és rengeteg régi tárgyakkal-szerszámokkal-ruhákkal, háztartási eszközökkell feltöltött skanzen-t (Herberton Historic Village), ami szintén nagyon érdekes volt.
Hétfőn indultunk tovább, lejöttünk Cairns-be. Útközben meglátogattuk Kuranda városkát, ami nagy turisztikai központtá nőtte ki magát az elmőlt húsz év alatt, de nagyon szépen, kulturáltan van megcsinálva. Megnéztük mellette a Barron vízesést is, amiben 91-ben egy csepp víz nem volt (júlisuban, a száraz évszak közepén), most sem volt sok, az az is valami.
Most egy pár napig itt maradunk Cairns-ben, kicsit pihenünk, és kihasználjuk az itteni lehetőségeket - holnap megyünk a korallzátonyokra! 

Az útvonalunk a következő Google Map-on látható:
http://g.co/maps/wcwv8
(A Bowen utáni szakaszokhoz le kell menni a jobboldali panel aljára, és a következő oldalakra kattintani!!)