We left Cairns behind us yesterday morning after breakfast with Lynsey and Marcus (and picking up a parking ticket from an over zealous traffic warden) and headed south along the coastal road once again en route to Wallaman Falls National Park. The drive from Cairns offers some amazing scenery from rugged mountainsides and rainforests on one side of the road, to spectacular coastal views across the beaches and out towards the ocean on the other.

After a couple of hours we came to the turn off the main road for Wallaman Falls and after about fifty kilometres of driving along unsealed roads and playing dodgems with roaming cattle from the nearby farms, we came to the campsite deep within the National Park. There were only a few other people already there so we picked a nice sheltered spot to set up our tent before going for a short walk around the perimeter of the camping ground to see what was about. The area is pretty remote and as we had expected there's no hot water, no showers and only compost toilets, but we weren't worried as we had picked up a portable shower along with a new four-man tent back in Cairns. Nightfall came pretty quickly and there was soon an eerie silence in the park compared to the noise that we had become used to up in Cairns.

We awoke this morning to find that we were the only people left in the camping area as everyone else had cleared out at a ridiculously early hour. Once we had got ourselves ready, we headed off on foot in the direction of the waterfalls to see what all the fuss was about and to tackle one of the bigger walking trails in the area. However, after half an hour or so we arrived at the falls to find that the walks were closed for 'essential maintenance' so we headed to the lookouts across the gorge instead. There were quite a few people about and we were quite surprised just how popular the area was, but when we reached the lookout positions we could see why.

Wallaman Falls is the biggest single drop waterfall in Australia and quite a spectacle. The noise that was produced was deafening and we could see dozens of small rainbows flickering amongst the water as it fell down the 278 metres to the pools below. The water was crashing down with such a force that the splash back looked like a small waterfall going up the side of the rock for a few metres. The water that collected at the bottom then flowed into a stream that continued on as far as we could see as it snaked its way along the valley floor.

After spending a while taking in the sights and sounds and reading up on all the information that was posted about, we walked back to the campsite to see about getting our shower working. Our new 'shower' is basically a big plastic bag that we can hook up onto a tree branch or similar that we fill with water, which has clear plastic on one side to allow the sun to heat up the water and a tube with a watering can nozzle on it! It even has a warning that if left in the sun for too long the water will burn!! The only problem we had with this today was the small issue of sunlight, as by the time we had got back to our tent the sun had decided to go to sleep behind some clouds for the rest of the day.

With little chance of getting ourselves clean we headed on to the rock pools at the back of the camping ground to splash around for a while before the light started to disappear on us and we had to get ourselves back into our tent and away from the mozzies.

Tomorrow morning we are packing up and moving on again - heading a little further south to another national park at Jourama Falls and, hopefully, even more amazing sights.