Tablelands

It was eventually time to leave Cairns and we had decided against travelling up to Darwin. Instead we were considering going into the outback and heading for Ayres Rock. To do this we had to start travelling South and our next destination was to be Townsville. Ian and Amy were also travelling South that day but instead of taking the highway down the coast they were detouring off into the Tableland region of Cairns. We had previously read about this region and it has around 14 National Parks all in this one area and decided it would be best to take the scenic route as well. Ian and Amy left a few hours before us as we had a few things left to organise before we could leave. After this we were all good to go and we felt that we were actually starting to travel in Australia.

The road there was all fully sealed, however as the name suggests it led up to the top of the mountain area and after about 90 minutes driving there was a look out point that I thought would be a good bit to stop and have a break as it had been a constant uphill drive. The scenery was fantastic and we took a couple of photos, which again have vanished. After a couple of minutes we heard this hissing sound and we turned around to see clouds of steam pouring from our van. Turns out we had a massive water leak and we were in the middle of nowhere. It could best be described as being in the Scottish Highland but on a much bigger scale. We had a look and thought we could see a leak from one of the hoses. Luckily we were carrying spare water and we were able to top it up after letting the engine cool down and drive on. We then came to the first lake and we pulled in here to check the van and it seemed ok so we had a quick look about and the place looked great although we didn't hang around long. As we drove off we got a little bit further before the engine temperature soared and we had to pull in and stop. Again we had to wait on it cooling and topped it up with water and managed to struggle on to the first town that had a garage. Luckily he had a look there and then and said it was just a loose connection. He tightened it up for us and checked it and didn't take any money.

The next stop on our way was Lake Eacham which is a massive, dormant, volcanic creek. It was fantastic here and the scenery and the lake looked amazing. I think we appreciated it even more after getting the van fixed and we were able to relax. As I mentioned before, the scenery was a little like the Scottish Highlands and this lake could easily have been a Loch in Scotland, but with sun!

After having a look about here it was time to move on to the next attraction. This was a waterfall circuit and is as it sounds, a road with several waterfalls on it. The first was Millaa Millaa falls and they were really nice. They must have been about 30 metres high and there was a swimming hole at the bottom of them but neither of us ventured in because it was getting cold and they were in the shade. We then moved on to the next falls, and these ones you had to walk along a trail through the rainforest which brought you out at the top. You got a good vantage point of the falls but there was no swimming hole at this one. The falls were still pretty good considering it was dry season and there wasn't much rain about.

We didn't manage to get to the last one as it was getting dark and cold, however we were still glad that we got to see some of this area as earlier that day we weren't sure if we would see any of it. There was no phone reception in the Tablelands so we couldn't get a hold of Ian and Amy, who we were supposed to be catching up with that day, but after getting back to the East coast we got a hold of them and met up with them in a rest stop in Tully that night.