Australia  The East Bit   Day 18   Atherton Tablelands Qld 23 July 2016

We had a fabulous day today, the sky was blue and the sun was shining.  🙂

We skirted around the Atherton Tablelands on our way into Innisfail and it felt wrong not to be visiting.   A few days ago Glenys suggested we should go, glad we did.   

We left early this morning, just before 8am, had 90+km to get to the Yungaburra market, we have never travelled that far to go to a market.   This one operates on the 4^th Saturday of every month, around a hundred stalls, really enjoyed it and we bought a bread board, I just can’t help myself where they are concerned!

After wandering around the market and enjoying the buskers we headed over to the CWA house and enjoyed some scones and a cuppa, was lovely sat outside under a tree.

There was plenty of Ingress to be had in Yungaburra, great town, was lovely wandering around it playing our game.   The town reminded me a bit of Berry on the NSW south coast.

Afterwards we headed off to Lake Barrine, a lake in an old volcanic crater.  There was an 80 year old tea house overlooking the lake, which had a great view of the rainforest which went down to the lake.   There were ducks, turtles, fish and blue sky, we had a nice lunch and soaked up the view.   Afterwards we walked to see the 1000 yr old Kauri trees that were nearby, there were two of them with a 6 metre girth, couldn’t manage a hug with the protective rail around them, but did manage to get my fingertips to one of them.    Not every day you get to touch something over a 1000 years old.

Next we went to see the Cathedral fig tree, I think it is the most awesome tree I have seen.   It has a 72m girth, evidently it would need 40+ people joining hands to encircle the tree.  (we are having trouble loading pictures on our webpage, hopefully be fixed soon and I will post some pictures of it)   We stood inside the tree, was a spiritual moment.   They estimate it to be over 500 yrs old.

On the way up in the morning we stopped off to see the Curtain fig tree, it was worth seeing too, but not quite in the same league as the Cathedral fig.

On the way home we stopped at the Malanda falls and Millaa Millaa falls, both were beautiful.   Last stop was the Mungalli Creek Dairy, which was a few km off the main road.   The views along the road were stunning, I love dairy country, always so lush, green and hilly.    We were going to buy some cheese, but being the end of the day, there wasn’t much left.

We stopped at a roadside stall on the way back to the caravan and bought some fruit. Got back around 4.30pm.    Such a great day, loved every minute.

Tomorrow we head to Mission Beach for 3 days, you can’t book ahead at the CP we want to stay at so we will get there early,  fingers crossed.    I think it is less than 100km, so not far to go.   Has been a great stay at Innisfail, we only came because a lady at the information centre at Karumba suggested it was nice.   Glad we did.  🙂