Wednesday 13th May Thursday 14th 2015 – fine clear skies warm.

A very early start today as we are going to drive up to Undara.  It is around 400+ kms north west of Charters Towers.  We are being mindful of our fly out date and not leaving ourselves short on our days in the Cairns region.













We arrived in Undara early afternoon around 2pm and had enough time to set up camp and then do the 3.30pm tour of the lava tubes.









All I can say, was that there was certainly some wow factor in the lava tubes.  We toured the Arch lava tube which has the board walks.  We had wanted to do a more adventurous tour, but there was nothing scheduled for another couple of days.  In saying that, we were certainly really happy with the more sedate boardwalk tour.



The Arch – both sides of this lava tube have collapsed forming this magnificent arch way.



This is the view back to the entrance of a lava tube – you can see the hand rails on the bottom right of the photo.  It is dark in the tubes so photos were not that interesting.  The guide has a torch to light the way and point out interesting things.

The tour starts at the reception area of Undara Resort and the savannah guide takes you in a bus into the national park and begins the tour information as soon as you leave Undara.  It includes lots of information on animals, plants etc as well as the actual lava tubes.

The resort facilities are excellent.  There is a pool and in the undercover area – free tea and coffee.  We booked a powered site and were very close to well appointed amenities. 

Thursday 14th May 2015 - fine clear warm then overcast and very cool in Millaa Millaa

We woke early this morning to take in a couple of walks before heading to Millaa Millaa.




The start of the walk and the information centre at Undara
We did the Bluff walk and completed another round circuit to head back to camp.


There are a lot of weeping bottle brush, but the flowers are lemon instead of the usual red, but then the bark is a type of paper bark.

Our weeping paperbark always had much smaller cream flowers.



Coming back into the resort, this carriage name gave us a laugh.  Really they should of put the name below the power cable as from most angles it still read shit eye.   The carriage name is shut eye

Below are some more photos from around the resort.




It is really nicely done with railway carriages.  We headed back to camp to have breakfast.  Time got away from us and in no time we realized that it was nearly 10am – check out is 10.30am – so we did a quick pack up and had completely finished by 10.35am –  just in time :) – not that they would worry.. 

Our next stop is the dormant volcano crater of Kalkani – they never say extinct, just in case it reactivates.  Well that’s good to know.














It is a nice slope walk from the base to the top and you walk around the rim.  Inside the crater there are lots of trees and it was hard to see the bowl shape and I wasn’t able to get a photo showing it.  The views of the crater would be best from the air –

This is a file photo of the crater.

The day use area is the cleared patch on the left hand side of the crater base.

above – a local having breakfast beside the track and  views from the top – top right – you can see the rim outline.



There were lots of seats and information boards all the way round.  Top right shows the width of the rim.



This board directs you to other existing volcanoes.  Below are photos of the first two from the left on the base of the board.  So, volcanoes do not look like you would expect them to.

Silent Hill

Ranganara Hill

Little did we know that cloud cover in the distance would be our very overcast and cold end to the day.



Lunch was in the well appointed day use area at the base of the crater.  A picnic table in the shade – a rarity.  We then headed off towards Mt Garnet, Ravenshoe and on to Millaa Millaa our camp tonight.



The dry savannah was left very quickly and it was amazing how the surrounding area changed once we started climbing higher.  We were seeing dairy cattle, tree ferns and lots of rainforest.  Gone are the beautiful clear skies of the west and replaced with the heavy rain clouds east of the range.  After 10 months of very very little rain, we can now bet on a few wet days ahead.

We turned off to take the scenic drive via Misty Mountains to Millaa Millaa.

Our first waterfall stop Pepina Falls











This is really weird to us, after so much time in the desert – the greenery and growth is overwhelming.  We can already hear numerous birds and looking forward to seeing the many varieties.  We also saw our first Brush Turkey by the side of the road.

 

Yes, we are in the tropical north – that’s for sure.   We have based our camp at Millaa Millaa for three nights to tour the southern area of the Atherton tableland.  We plan to move north to Mareeba (which will be warmer) as the next base to tour the northern section.  The plan is then to go to Cooktown by the bitumen and if the Bloomfield Track (Coastal Rd)  is open – take this road to Cairns.