Cairns

If two people ride together and they have a different style of riding, it is best to adjust to the
more relaxed style of riding. We are doing trips of 300 to max 400 km per day
as that is comfortable for Gert and is ok by me.The advantage is that it allows late starts, plenty of stops and early finishing.Our plan to ride to Cairns was knocked on the head as, even if we would do 500 km a day, it would take 7 days to get there and back plus, say 4 days in and around Cairns, leaving us with little time to do other things - and, let’s face it, I have been doing the one way 1750 km trip in the past in 1.5 days because there is not much to see along the highway once you are 150 km past Brisbane to 150 km before Cairns, unless you do many side trips along the way.

So,on the plane we went for the two hour flight north to the tropics.Brother Frans collected us from the terminal and within 20 minutes we were relaxing on the back verandah of Frans and sister in law Wilma’s house with a nice homemade cappuccino.
The name Cairns is synonymous with Great Barrier Reef which is a “must visit” destination. After arranging a hire car we made a booking for a day on the reef and set out planning trips around Cairns taking in many of the interesting sites. Over a period of three days we went firstly north towards Cape Tribulation but only got as far as the Daintree River Ferry crossing as the frequent coffee and photographic stops put us behind and it would be a rush to catch the last ferry back.

The beaches and rivers can be dangerous in that part of the world. Beside Crocodiles, which are found along the entire coast as far south as 200 km north of Brisbane, there is the dangerous box jellyfish which could kill a child or weak person easily. Their long poisonous tentacles would give you a similar feeling as a razorblade cutting your skin. Nearly all beaches have so-called "Stinger nets" which are supposed to create a safe swimming area - but this is not always guaranteed.
The following day we drove 75 km south of Cairns towards Innisfail from where the mountain road leads to the Atherton Tablelands, but before getting there, we took a left to Bramston beach - a place I had never been before, and was a great place to relax with hardly any tourists. Bramston Beach is a nice beach and has an interesting creek which had all the markings of a place where the possibility of spotting a crocodile would be high. Unfortunately, we had no such luck, so we continued on our way to Innisfail and turned right onto the Palmerston Highway which is cut right through the rainforest and leads to an 800 meter high plateau and the small town of Millaa Millaa where we headed for its famous waterfall.It was a bit busy at the falls as in the carpark there were two buses which had just offloaded their groups of tourists. Never mind, there are plenty of these places where ************e goes.
Twenty km down the road is the town of Malanda which acts as the hub for the local milk industry. Malanda prides itself for operating the longest milk run in the world as they supply Weipa (800 km north) Mackay (700 km south) and Darwin (2600 km North West). Malanda Cheese is sold in all major supermarkets in Australia. Anyway we didn’t come for that. On the edge of the town there is a waterfall and a creek. The creek has been widened and now has the shape of a swimming pool. The waterfall supplies the pool with a continuous
stream of cool fresh water. Gert took all but 60 seconds to get in and swim to the waterfall.


Next stops were Lake Eacham and Lake Barrine. Before we got to Lake Eacham we detoured to visit the Nerada tea plantation. After driving past endless tea growing areas we ended up at the Nerada Tea processing plant where you can do a self-guided tour of the factory
.A series of posters shows which machine does what and the process of drying, cutting, sorting and packaging is explained.The tablelands are very green and fertile, the soil is volcanic which is evident by the presence of two crater lakes which are now filled with cool water and provide another reason for a swim for anyone who wishes to do so. The lakes are circular and between 700 meters and 1.2 km meters across and both about 65 meters deep; no creeks flow into them, they only get their water from the rainfall during the wet season.


A day later Frans joined us for a second day tour of another part of this extraordinarily beautiful piece of Queensland. We headed for the town of Mareeba. This used to be THE tobacco growing district of Australia but now has changed into a major mango growing area and several coffee plantations are now in existence as well.

Signs along the road lead us to a coffee plantation which can be visited and which also had a very nice coffee shop where we enjoyed - what else? - nice coffee and cakes to start the day. After that we went off to visit the nearby Mareeba Gorge where we were greeted by tame rock wallabies which will eat straight out of your hand providing you give them the right food. Pity we ended up absolutely drenched by a passing rainstorm and had to cut our visit short as the granite boulders became very slippery.


Nearby is Davies Creek which is reached via a 10 km dirt road, a walking track and some climbing over large rocks. What awaits is a beautiful swimming hole on the edge of a waterfall - you can actually look over the falls more than a hundred meters down.
The following day was our day on the Barrier Reef. I need to make a separate page for that because it was very, very good!


Want to see how beautiful North Queensland is? be amazed.

http://blog.queensland.com/2015/10/19/t op-10-waterfalls-north-queensland/?utm_ source=outbrain&utm_medium=link& ;utm_campaign=tnq_alwayson