Caves & Fords & rocks & things

This morning we got up fairly early so we could pack our car, that is vacate our cabin so we could go on our tours around Chillagoe and a cave. We were joined at breakfast by Brian and Caroline whom we had met the night before at dinner and then by several apostle birds who thought we might have something to offer them in the way of food. I naturally had my camera at the ready after all the experiences with wildlife we had been having! We headed off with Gary after brekkie to the Chillagoe Caves National Park which is very nearby and met Ranger Bob who took us on our tour of the Donna Cave. It was quite different to Jenolan caves we had seen earlier in our trip obviously being in an entirely different part of Australia and having formed from different rocks. There were quite a few areas that we had to walk with our heads down and backs slightly bent but it was not strenuous until we had to climb the several steps up out of the cave and back into the sunlight. As with most photography of difficult subjects we learn with experience and I found that if I changed my white balance setting to tungsten instead of auto it gave much truer colour. The formations as with Jenolan were spectacular and a wonder of nature especially when you hear how long it took for them to develop like that.
Next Gary picked us up for our tour with him around the area. We went to see where the marble is mined – yes marble! As you drive into Chillagoe you see huge blocks of marble just sitting in among the grass and trees. Chillagoe it turns out is full of marble and it is mined, cut and shipped off for sale from there. We saw how marble develops with big crystals by looking at broken pieces but it was just amazing to see the size of the pieces that were just sitting there in the bush looking so out of place. Then Gary took us to some spectacular scenery at what is known as the Ramparts because it looks just like a castle wall with ramparts from the distance. We climbed up and looked at the rocks and some aboriginal paintings that are there and the spectacular view from there also. Gary showed us a rock that is rhomboidal in formation and when you break it, it always in the same way or on the same angle so you can break two separate pieces and they will butt together nicely. We can’t remember what the rocks are called though – oops! Following this we saw the local golf course which amused Fin no end since it is just there in the bush with no green grass to speak of and very rough ground but the funniest part is that the greens if you can call them that are white because they are made with crushed marble! Next we saw a Bower bird’s bower with shells and pieces of coloured glass all accumulated at the entrance and then we went to the old copper smelter and Gary explained how they found copper in Chillagoe and hoped there was plenty more but there wasn’t and the smelter was out of action very quickly. We saw the big slag heap which is made up of the molten waste that hardened into a big solid heap; it looked really strange.
Last but not least we went to see Tommy Prior, a local character who has an amazing collection of vehicles mainly Fords but some real old classics that would be worth a mint. And not only that but he keeps many of them in good working order too! If you are a Ford enthusiast you couldn’t miss seeing this collection and having a chat with old Tom. Gary’s tour was a good selection of things to see with only a morning to see them in. He knows the area well and is happy to stop for snapshots too.
We had a cuppa back at the Cabins, had a quick look at the souvenir shop then got on our way to Atherton. On the way out from Chillagoe we were again struck by the amazing rock formations, the cows warning sign which is different to any we have seen before and then all along the road the termite mounds or ant hills, especially the little very cone shaped ones which seemed to be very prolific in one section which had very orange soil.
We stopped briefly at Mareeba to do some shopping and have lunch then got to Atherton by about 3pm. We got all our stuff into the cabin, tested the internet connection here – hooray it is free wireless broadband! - Then tried to get to Lake Eacham to meet Ian, Rita and the kids for a barbecue dinner. We couldn’t rely on the TomTom this time. He let us down badly since he didn’t’ have Lake Eacham or any way of finding it so we went to the information at Yungaburra and made it to the Lake by about 4.30pm. We had a lovely barbie with Ian, Rita, some friends of theirs and kids it is a beautiful spot with lots of bird life including bush turkeys, and honey eaters and one of the little girls came rushing out to tell us there was a python in the girls toilets. It turns out it was curled up between the corrugated iron roof and the beam. It didn’t move and, yes, I took a photo anyway. We followed Ian’s car back to their place for a cuppa since the roads are very dark and we couldn’t rely on Tom to get us there. It was great seeing them again and seeing the renovations they had done to their house since we were there three years ago. We managed to get back to our cabin using the TomTom this time and then the big task of catching up with three days of BLOG. So here it is!

Bean to Mareeba

Today we packed up the car as it was time for us to leave Daintree and head to Chillagoe in the Atherton Tablelands. The mobile phone coverage is nonexistent here in Chillagoe also which is why this didn’t get uploaded until we got to Atherton. This time the ferry trip was very different with only ours and about six other cars on the ferry so we had a better view of the river as we went across and it loaded and took off very quickly too. We stopped in Mossman to go to a shop and have a coffee, make some calls before we lost mobile reception etc then headed to Mareeba where we went to a coffee plantation called Jacques Coffee Plantation. There we saw a video, went on a tour of the plantation where we saw not only the crop growing but also the harvesting and processing equipment. James Jacques invented the machine harvester when he began coffee farming in Australia because he knew that it was very labour intensive otherwise and labour would not be as easy or cheap to come by here. The family had many setbacks in their quest to make a profitable business of coffee growing but through incredible perseverance they have managed to do so. At the end of the tour we had our ‘free’ coffee and coffee liqueur and bought some ground coffee and liqueur for home as well since we liked what we tasted.
Following this we posted our coffee & liqueur home at Mareeba because we really don’t want to be carting more stuff around Australia with us, then headed toward Chillagoe. That was a different drive than any we’ve had before – the road was fairly narrow and along the way we found cattle on the road several times with no warning signs preceding them like we had come across in other parts of the country. The cattle of course are the big Brahmans and they don’t seem the least bit fussed by passing cars, in fact other cars coming the other way roared past not seeming to care if a cow might suddenly decide to step out in front of them. Perhaps these were locals and know something we don’t know. The only road kill we saw seemed to be kangaroos, wallabies etc. The other interesting thing was all the anthills or termite mounds along the way. Sometimes there were heaps of really small ones in the land on both sides of the road and depending on the colour of the soil in that area they were orange or a lighter sandy or grey colour. We got the impression that there are a lot of termites around these parts. The scenery was quite remarkable as we got closer to Chillagoe with some amazing dark grey rock formations jutting up out from the green of the trees and other vegetation.
We found our accommodation straight away and went to book in only to find one of our hosts about to feed five little joeys of various species that had been orphaned when their mothers were killed on the roads. It turns out that as well as running a cabin style accommodation here, Caroline is a wildlife rescuer. She told me that we missed seeing a wedge tailed eagle a couple of weeks ago that had a broken leg. We were invited to join the other guests at 6.30pm for drinks before dinner at 7pm which we did. There were three other guests and it was a pleasant evening with delicious lamb roast cooked by Gary and lots of interesting conversation. Later on, Gary brought out two of the joeys for us to hold and they were just as cute as can be, trying to hide in their ‘pouches’ and even sucking on the fabric of the pouch like they would be suckling inside their mother’s pouch. Did we take photos? You betcha!
Tomorrow we are going on a tour of one of the caves and the general area with Gary before we head off to Atherton where we are having a barbecue dinner with Fin’s cousin, Ian and family

Walking sticks and sleeping dragons

What a great day! We started by going to the Daintree Entomology Museum which houses the largest private insect collection in Australia and is owned by Steve Lamond. It is indeed an impressive collection, of butterflies and beetles mainly, from all over the world. There are some spectacular specimens there that photos in books or on the internet just can’t do justice to. Some of the metallic wings are just so beautiful and a few of the butterflies have the kind that change colour when you look at them from different angles. Then there are the wings which, especially on the beetles, you would swear someone got out their model painting kit and painstakingly added the intricate patterns on. After spending quite some time marvelling over the display we went to look at the small collection of live butterflies in the shade house and finally at the stick insects outside on the plants in the garden. There were some Extatosoma tiaratum (McLeay’s Spectre) nymphs on guava plants and some Pandanus plants with what are commonly known as Peppermint stick insects since they spray a peppermint pheromone at would be attackers. We didn’t touch but looked down the lengths of leaves to see the light green nymphs and the darker, bluish green adults. Fantastic!
Leaving the bugs behind we headed toward Cape Tribulation, stopping on the way at Thornton Beach Cafe for a quick bite of lunch. I was a tad cold because I thought it was going to be a lovely sunny day, judging by the sun before we left, and wore my shorts but there was a sea breeze and it was quite overcast. Next we went to the Dubiji Boardwalk through the forest and mangroves that comes out at Myall beach. It was far better for birdlife than the Daintree Discovery Centre which, although it has impressive canopy tower etc, has a lot of noisy tourists which obviously make the wildlife wary and hard to spot. We saw so many birds among the forest surrounding either side of the walkway but what I was also excited about was that there were plenty of Pandanus plants along the way and now that we knew how to find the Peppermint stick insects, we found quite a few among plants that we could see had been chewed upon. It was so cool to find them in the wild like that even though all we could do is look and not touch. The boardwalk ends at the beach or you can go straight back to the picnic area and car park. We had a quick look at the beach then continued on our way to Cape Tribulation. It turned out to be not too far along where the lookout was but we didn’t realize that and ended up on dirt road for quite a while until the car in front of us which wasn’t four-wheel drive, stopped, then started to back up. It is then that we noticed the sign saying Four-Wheel Drive Vehicles Only Ahead We bravely went past the car in front around the corner to find a wider area with some road workers trucks then a creek. It was then that we realized this was the way to Point Cook and we must have missed the Cape Tribulation Lookout. We went back, found it and parked, only to find that the Lookout is closed for repair work until October! Ah well – we took a walk down to the beach anyway then drove back to our cabin.

That night we had booked a Night walk tour with dinner at the Wilderness Centre nearby beforehand. The guide would be starting the tour at the Wilderness centre, which provides accommodation as well as the restaurant. We had a very nice meal ending in just nice time for the tour. We were all given a large torch and I took my camera hoping to get some record of the experience even if it was really grainy. Mick, our tour guide, was absolutely amazing! He knows so much about what is out there in the rainforest and has sharp eyes that see tiny clues to an animal when he is scanning his torch around and then focuses on that spot to show us. We saw, by my count, twenty-four creatures during the two hour walk starting with a bandicoot running along the path at the start of our walk and ending in a young sleeping dragon lizard hanging on the trunk of a tree holding on by only its front legs with its back legs dangling. It must have had a hard day! I spotted two stick insects which Mick said were nymphs of the “giant stick insect” which would be the “Titan” or Acrophylla titan for those interested in its correct name. I also found two small crickets with very long antennae on a leaf and we saw a bumpy looking weevil on a tree growing bracket fungi. There were two saw-shelled turtles swimming in the creek and we found another out of the water on the rocks that Mick said would be coming out to lay eggs. There were several birds perched on vines or branches with their heads tucked under their wings and two tree frogs also perched precariously on vines way up high but they were quite big with whitish bellies and easy to see if you knew they were there of course! Mick spotted them; I guess he just knows what he is looking for. We saw a striped possum way up high among the canopy as well but too far away to get a photo and about three white-tailed rats but I missed seeing them each time, they move fast but Fin got to see one.

It was a busy, tiring but interesting and enjoyable day we decided as we went back to Epiphyte for a cuppa before collapsing into bed.

Information on visiting the Daintree,Cape Tribulation area can be found here.

Daintree & Cow Bay - no mobile phones!

Today we took the short drive to the Daintree area which is for the most part along a coast road with some lovely views of sandy beaches, some rocky shores and a crystal clear blue ocean. Unfortunately for the first part of this I took a photo only to discover I had no SD card in the camera. I had left it in the computer the night before intending to delete the photos on it before I put it back in the camera. D’oh! After a little while we were able to stop and I retrieved said card and placed it back where it was most useful; in my camera. I took a few photos at our loo stop at Mossman because it is such a pretty one. They have painted the public conveniences with rainforest related images and it has three large trees in front of it that are just full of epiphytes! Ribbon fern I believe they are, and they just cover all the branches. It also had a really new playground with shade sails over it so it makes an ideal stop for a family with young children. I took some photos of the ferry crossing across the Daintree River also. It is a vehicle crossing which is worked by cables and basically, you just drive your car onto the ferry and sit there for five minutes or so until it is across the other side then drive off and continue on your journey at the other side. We stopped first at a lookout that had a spectacular view of the Daintree River going into the sea and Snapper Island. Photos of course!
Our next stop was the Daintree Discovery Centre where they have a boardwalk and a viewing tower in the rainforest itself so you can wander through and look at all the plants and, if you are lucky, wildlife without damaging it or it damaging you. It costs $25 to enter and for $5 you can have an audio interpretive guide that has special numbered places – Audio Stations - along the way where you can punch the number into the guide and listen to an explanation of the area you are looking at. An Interpretive guide book is also supplied that gives slightly different information and pictures to help in identifying the various plants and animals. The experience is divided into four independent tours – Aerial Walkway, Canopy Tower, Cassowary Circuit and Bush Tucker Trail and there are numbers at various stations along the way to help you find information in either the guide book or with the audio guide. It works quite well but you probably need to go more than once if you really want to learn a lot and cover every aspect of the experience. I believe you can have your book stamped and go back for the next five days without having to pay for entry again. It was very interesting and very tiring. The best bit was seeing the Ulysses butterfly flap its way through the forest on at least four occasions, in fact one time one met up with another and then they both disappeared among the dense trees again. Lots more photos!! I didn’t get any of the Ulysses despite my best efforts; they move very quickly.

Next we needed to get to Epiphyte B&B in Cow Bay where we are staying for the next two nights. It was easy to find and we were greeted by the amiable and helpful Ernie. He showed us to our abode; the Golden Orchid Retreat which is just divine. We are away from the main house and have spectacular views all around. Ernie helped us to work out some things to do for the next day and night and booked them for us, as well as booking our restaurant for tonight. The wildlife here seems abundant with a cassowary being sighted by guests over the last few days. There are geckos around our cabin apparently and there are so many birds and insects from a very quick wander around the extensive grounds that we did. It will be a lovely stay here!

No mobile phones here so I put this up via dial-up on the land-line here. Have to wait till we have mobile internet again folks!

Skyrail - what a view!

Today we put the car in for a service then got a taxi to the Skyrail terminal. We just beat a busload of Asian tourists onto the gondolas at 9.30am but they caught up with us at the first stop where you get off for a look at the forest with the option of a Ranger guided tour. The tour is worth doing because the Ranger explains a lot about the plants in a rainforest such as this and their fight for available light. It’s also good to know which plants are dangerous when you plan on spending a bit of time exploring the rainforest up here. There are the kauri pines, huge Superb Palms, Staghorn Ferns, Basket Ferns and other epiphytes on the trees, Strangler Figs that eventually cover the tree and kill it with their huge aerial roots and also some dangerous plants. For instance there is the Lawyer vine or Wait-a-while that has very nasty hooks that can make a nasty mess of you if you get caught on them. The Ranger told us a friend of his got caught on the face while riding his mountain bike and ended up in hospital having several stitches. There is also one which I can’t remember the name of with heart shaped leaves that have tiny spines which go one way but if you get them into your skin they cause a nasty, painful reaction that recurs for months or years when it contacts water. The aborigines know how to harvest the berries without getting stung by the leaves of course. The views as you can imagine are spectacular from the gondola and I didn’t get nervous or worried about falling until we were over the water and I wanted to take a photo of the other side but it seemed that we were leaning more that way and I just couldn’t bring myself to go over there. I felt like I would cause the gondola to rock and fall. Well, it’s very high!! At the second stop there are spectacular views of Barron Gorge and Barron Falls where the river drops 280 metres to the coastal plains and we saw the train on its way up the mountain also.
When we got to Kuranda we took a walk along the main street and checked out the cafes for lunch. We settled on one, had lunch including a refreshing orange, mango and pineapple juice for me and a mango smoothy for Fin and then headed to Birdworld. We went to the Butterfly Sanctuary last time we were in Kuranda so decided to check out Birdworld on Fin’s cousin, Sharyn’s recommendations. Birdworld was great! It was much better than the flight aviary we went to in Childers. The birds were very used to people and photo opportunities were everywhere! There were both native and exotic species there so we got up close and personal with South American Macaws as well as Red-tailed Black Cockatoos. They were all magnificently colured and marked birds and the time went very quickly in there. We had to be at the train station by 1.45pm to catch the train back to Freshwater Station since the trip back was leaving Kuranda at 2pm and supposed to take 1-1/2 hours. This would give us plenty of time to catch a taxi back to Subaru to pick up the car. Apart from a taxi being difficult to get, we got back without any drama and were thrilled to see not only was the car serviced but the several kilos of mud had been washed off it and it had also been vacuumed! So, our nice clean, serviced car is ready to go to Daintree tomorrow.

Frosty Mango & Giant Gumboot

Today we took our time leaving Townsville knowing we didn't have a really long drive ahead of us. It had rained overnight and the noise of the tin roof was a bit disturbing so neither of us slept very well. There was a lot of traffic on the Bruce Highway going in both directions - to and from Cairns. We came across a place that the Cane Farm Tour people had recommended called, Frosty Mango. It is a Cafe/Ice-creamery that sells all kinds of delicious smoothies, ice-creams etc as well as other food and coffees. I had a cone with strawberry and mango 'ice-cream' although it didn't have any dairy in it and Fin had a mango smoothie. We both thoroughly enjoyed our morning tea and headed back on the road with a bag of dried mango pieces to munch on also. Fin made the comment that we had let a lot of the traffic go now and the road wasn’t as busy but we caught up to it all later when to our amazement we came across the same long, wide load we had seen twice before many kilometres away. Well, we didn’t know that is what we came across but just found ourselves stuck behind a long row of cars when we got to the top of a steep incline. Going down was very, very slow and in fact Fin used the manual gears in the car instead of just riding the brake the whole time. Eventually there was a chance for the police to pull the big load over to the side and direct the traffic around it and that is when we realized that it was the same one! I got shot of it this time.

Later we decided to stop for lunch at a town called Tully. We pulled off the main road and found ourselves heading toward a town with a sugar mill on one side of the road and a park on the other with a great big gumboot with a large green tree frog ‘climbing’ up the side. It is called the Golden Gumboot and it is 7.9 metres tall which represents the rainfall in Tully in July 1950, an Australian record so the sign underneath told us. It also said, Tully – “A pretty wet place.” And it must have been when it was bucketed with rain during Cyclone Larry eighteen months ago too.
We drove into the park and got out our lunch things. The first thing we noticed was the large spreading trees with little orb shaped nests made with dried grass and holes in the side hanging from the ends of some of the branches. These nests were obviously not still in use but there were so m any in such a small area that we could only imagine what it must have been like when they were busily visited by parent birds feeding their nestlings. I don’t know what sort of bird they belong to although I think some finches construct nests in this way; maybe someone else has an idea. Following this we noticed all the ferny plants - epiphytes, that were growing all over the three large trees in the park. They were prolific! Obviously they had found an ideal host in those trees. The trees, by the way, were devoid of their own leaves being of some deciduous variety but again I have no idea what. All the plant life up here is so different to what we have in Victoria and I can only guess at what some of them are. There was a little cane track nearby and a cute little engine went up it with some cane trucks in tow. They look so like toy trains, we still love seeing them!

We headed off after taking relevant photos and enjoyed the rest of the drive through more cane fields but also many banana plantations also. The mountains came rising up in front of us as we got closer to Cairns and one in particular looks very much like a pyramid. I took a photo and then we saw a sign along the road saying, Walsh’s Pyramid so I guess others thought the same. We got to Cairns by 3.30pm, settled our stuff in then went out to find the Subaru dealer since the car is going to have a service while we are here. That was a challenge because we have found that Tom doesn’t cope well with street address numbers, especially on long stretches of road like highways so he sent us in the wrong direction but we eventually found it the old fashioned way – by looking! Next we went to the Skyrail Terminal to find out about it for our trip tomorrow while the car is being serviced. Once that was organized we felt a lot happier and could look for a place to have dinner. “Always thinking about your stomach?” Well, we have to don’t we?
I am looking forward to going over the rainforest on the Skyrail. We didn’t do it last time we were up here but promised ourselves we would this time. Should be fun!