Atherton Tablelands and Cairns

The drive up to the Tablelands was a steady uphill climb through some beautiful countryside in various shades of green. Our destination was the Barabadeen Scout campsite on the shores of Lake Tinaroo, a magnificent site but without power. We had just travelled from a site with no power so we were unsure as to how our batteries would hold up, particularly as the campsite is heavily treed with limited sun for our solar panels. We survived another 2 days before having to borrow a generator to top up the batteries. Lake Tinaroo

 

Tinaroo Dam
 

The first full day, Janice had to visit the dentist in Atherton and have her abscess drained and the first part of a root canal done and we looked around the area visiting Malanda Falls
 

and Curtain Fig
 

The next day we dropped down into Cairns. You don’t realise how high you are until you drive down off the mountains to the coastal city below. It takes 1 hour 15 minutes on a very winding road. There we met up with my son Tim and his partner Sia for lunch and went back to their place for a while before heading back up the mountain.
On Sunday we headed for Port Douglas
 

where we wandered around the local waterfront market and looked around the town before heading back along the coast to visit Palm Cove and rekindle our memories of a holiday there 5 years ago. It is still a very nice location and we thought we would like to stay there again some time. Palm Cove
 

The next day we went to Mareeba where we visited Coffee Works. It cost $12 to get in (pensioner rate) and for that you can sample dozens of different coffees and teas plus sample lots of different home made chocolates and look around the Coffee Museum. A great place. Coffee Works.
 

We then met up with Tim and Sia again and spent some time in the Crystal Cave viewing a wide variety of geodes filled with amethysts from South America which had Tim mesmerised. Tim and Sia then came back to our caravan for a look and we spent the rest of the afternoon on the shores of the lake with Tim checking out the pebbled shore looking for crystals. Us with Tim and Sia on the shores of Lake Tinaroo.
 

We had intended to stay at Lake Tinaroo for two more nights but discovered that the camp was to be invaded by 70 children on Tuesday so we decided to depart early that morning and start our journey south heading for Milla Milla.