31 October – 3 November

On leaving we turned to Mc Kinlay to have get a Crocodiles Dundee Burger. The pub was open but we couldn't see any staff around so we couldn't check if they offer such a burger or not. We had our lunch at the roadhouse next door – I call this burger now “Crocodile Dundee Burger”. Unfortunately we spent around an hour at the roadhouse, suddenly there were three of four trucks turning up, so we didn't reach our planned first stop. But this is not a big problem so we were just staying in Julia Creek. At the moment a new rush of German tourist must have arrived – our fellow campers in Mt. Isa and Julia Creek are German...

The next stop was in Richmond to get the tyre checked again as it was still losing air during the night. The guy fixed it from the inside. We thought that there was another hole but apparently not. Richmond has an artificial lake. You can actually swim in the lake but it was already covered by several kids so we didn't go for a swim and drove to Hughenden instead. We decided to stay at the caravan park as it offered a 33m swimming pool – it's the local pool but we had 24/7 access. We visited the local museum, drove to Mt. Walker, did the 4WD Basalt by Way and headed to the Porcupine Gorge National Park. Mt. Walker is the closest local mountain which offers 6 different lookouts so you have nearly a 360degree view – we enjoyed the views twice – during the day and for the sunset. The 4WD Basalt by Way is a dirt road created for tourist so they can see a lot of the surrounding. We were lucky that the road was open as the map indicated it should have been closed – but just two gates were closed. We left them as we found them – closed of course after we had passed. Originally we planned to stay in the National Park as camping and swimming was allowed but were happy not to as you had to walk a long way to the swimming hole. The swimming area was in the gorge which was around 1km downhill and no shower facilities. The gorge itself was good – you could see several layers of stones, different fishes swimming around. The gorge should drop around 150m but it was not visible at the camp-site much better to see at the lookout probably 10km away. T he road was interesting as well as it was marked with some historical and curious sites like graves of a mailman and unknown persons, bottle trees, whistling bore, matchbox creek [a wagon-load of matches exploded at the creek].

Then it was time to leave Hughenden and travelling in direction Cairns via the Undarra Volcanic National Park which is around 300km away from Hughenden (mainly dirt road). The most challenging part was the road-works on the sealed section. We booked one Lava Tubes tour as you can't visit the National Park on your own – only by guided tours. The Lava Tubes were formed million years ago when the Undarra Volcano erupted. There have to the right circumstances that Lava Tubes can be formed; falling altitude, existing Basalt rocks, constant flow of Lava. It's believed that the Undarra Volcano erupted for around 25 years – just spewing Lava at such a grade that it could flow “downstream”, cool down on the surface and kept the Lava inside flowing so the Tubes could be formed. You say Tubes although it's just one long tube but separated by several roof-collapses. In these roof-collapses you find habitat islands/ refugees like a special kind of rainforest which can only survive as the Basalt stones create a border against the bush-fires necessary for the survival of the other trees. The Tubes themselves are a refugee for micro-bats which was our dilemma. We booked a 4 tubes tour but could only access three as one was closed due to breeding bats. But nobody told us – otherwise we would have just booked the tour of 2 Lava Tubes. Then we walked on volcano rim and headed to the Atherton Tablelands. We stopped at the Millstream Falls, the widest waterfall in QLD. Then we drove to Cairns where we stayed two nights and returned into the Tablelands to escape the heavy rain forecasted for Cairns.