Thursday
Wouldn't you know it, it's raining today and a little cool. Over the last few days I've washed all the clothes and Martin bought in the bags from the car with our winter clothes. We've sorted what will go in the camper and what in the car but now we have to get them into the camper without getting wet.

The camper is parked out the front and another car has parked right in front of us. Martin has pulled up alongside the camper while we transfer food and clothes and then we have to drag the camper out on an angle so we can hitch it back to the Patrol. By the time we are finished we are both drenched and I have to go back to reception to check out - dripping all over the floor.

We head back up to Mareeba - a winding steep climb - and arrive after about 80 min. We stop at Mareeba to restock the food and also have a pie. Once done we head off again through Atherton and stopping briefly at Ravenshoe. We've decided to take The Ducks advice and stay tonight at Undarra Resort. We'll do the tour of the he lava tubes tomorrow morning then head off further west.

We arrive at Undarra around 3.30pm and check in. The first tour at 8am is fully booked so we're on the 10.30 tour. We book in for dinner at the restaurant and find that we can book everything to our site number and then pay the total when we check out - fantastic.

We set up camp and the site is long enough that we don't have to unhitch the van (as long as we leave the shower/toilet down). We head over to the bar at 5pm and have a few drinks around the campfire. We meet people from Gawler (SA), Grafton, Wangi (NSW) and Germany. All travelling In different directions we exchange stories of our travels and take in suggested places to see and recommend some.

Dinner is ordered (chicken schnitzel and sausages) and once arrived we share both meals. The sausages are from Georgetown (QLD) and are delicious so we decide to stop tomorrow and pick some up. I also have dessert of a chocolate lava cake (how appropriate).

We talk around the fire a bit longer and I realise there are 2 types of travellers tonight - the travel snob and the twitchers. The travel snob will, no matter what the story being told by another traveller, have been to a place where it' bigger, better or similar but different and occasionally all three. The twitchers aren't content to bird watch but must regale the audience with minute details of their sitings. It's even worse with a couple of twitchers in a group because it's even almost impossible to change the topic. Martin and I head back to camp for an early night. Although the tour isn't till 10.30 we have to vacate the site before we leave and park In the day parking.