4. - 11. November

We left Cairns quite late – we had to wait for a dry tent and got the minutes right... as it started to rain after we finished packing – and drove via Kuranda, Mareeba to Chillagoe. In Chillagoe we visited some limestone caves – one by a guided tour and two self guided which were all interesting and completely different. The guided tour was called “Donna Cave” and offered several cave formations; the Madonna, different stalactites and stalagmites, false floors, cave corals... we even saw some micro-bats and cave cockroaches but none pythons. The self-guided caves were more self-exploring caves as you had to crawl into them and watch your head. Unfortunately these caves didn't show any (nice/special/remarkable) cave formation just quite tricky pass-ways. We also had a look at some Aborigines paintings and the Balancing Rocks.

Our next stop was Mareeba, the 'coffee capital' of Australia. We stayed at the Granite Gorge Nature Park, had a swim in the creek, did the walk around the granite boulder stones, petted some rock wallabies (and had to watch that they're not steeling our dinner). In Mareeba we visited “the Coffee Works” a museum and a coffee roaster. They had around 2000 different coffee machines on display (some might be around 400 years old).

We stayed at the Rocky Creek Memorial Park, a free camp area where you could stay for a maximum of 72 hours which we did although it was not planned but the park was convenient located. We drove around the Lake Tinaroo which got created for irrigation purposes – the Baron river is damed. The drive around the lake was good – we stopped at all possible camp sites within the National Park. They all looked different, had all some water-views but not really accessible for swimming... Further on the Lakes Drive we stopped at the Mobo Creek Crater. This was a nice walk through the forest along a creek which flows into a lake which is surrounded by basalt rocks. The scientist are not sure if there was a volcano crater or if something else has caused this formation. In this area you find several fig trees as well and two are of special look; Cathedral Fig Tree and Curtain Fig Tree.

The Cathedral Tree is around 50m high and covers an area of 2000m2 and the branches are in perfect distance from each other. The Curtain Fig Tree got its name from the roots which are going down like a curtain. This formation happens if a Fig tree collapses onto another tree which gives him support so the roots of the Fig Tree can go vertical to the ground.

Then we looked at the two maars existing here – we even swam in one which is called Lake Eacham. You can swim in the Lake Barrine as well but it's more used for boat cruises. The water was not as cold as expected but still deep. We also watched the turtles which live in the lake – they are special as they could breath through their belly and can stay much longer under water.

Then we visited Herberton, the oldest town in the tablelands. They did some tin mining and could still try your luck and find some tin in the creeks.

After that we drove to Mt. Hypipamee NP to have a look at the crater and the dinner waterfall. Every time we stop at a crater we're surprised as they don't look like the ones on Hawaii or in the Eifel. This Crater is covered with water but it doesn't drop vertical – it drops in an angle but it's not fully explored yet. They know that the water level starts at 50m below the  crater-rim, goes down around 60m and then it curves around and drops further 50m but what happens after that nobody knows yet. There might be a connection to the creek but the water level hasn't changed so it's unlikely. The Dinner Falls look really good and we came up with several explanation why they're called Dinner Falls: there are 4 different falls starting with a cascade and then 3 real falls so dinner is served in 3 courses or the fall were discovered at around dinner time and the guys were hungry. We walked the falls upstream and tested the water as every fall formed a little pool. Unfortunately we didn't swim as it was a little bit to chilly and rainy.

Our final stop was the Malanda Falls and we hoped to have a swim there but the pool didn't look natural – it was more like a swimming pool just filled by a waterfall. But the highlight of the day was still around the corner. When we were ready to leave we saw something climbing up a tree – it was a tree kangaroo. We got quickly the camera and started to take pictures before the crowd was getting too big. It turned out to be a lucky day as tree kangaroos are rare and we saw two (the mother and the joey) close by. Several locals stopped and said it was the first time for them to see them as close as this – just 3m up in the tree. And we finally we've seen Platypus in the wild. Ok, it was actually on a fish farm but they were still in their natural habitat (slow flowing creek) and just appearing for 7 seconds. It was lucky we had the guide with us as otherwise we would have looked for something completely different. But now it has started to rain like it will never stop – this means our first night not in a tent. So we stopped at a motel but it was fully booked [it seemed a lot of people suddenly discovered the comfort of a solid roof]. So we left the Atherton Tablelands and stayed in Innisfall.