Monday August 3rd 2015

The awning was saturated with dew so we packed up slowly and we were driving out one end of the campground as the ranger drove in the other - so ou paths never met.

Mal did stop at the swimming hole for one last snap, but the light was completely wrong and it was a crappy shot.

We drove through the little village of Junbun which is an all aboriginal settlement - it brought home to Mal the different ways a person can weigh up the situation - on one hand here are a group who has been given the opportunity to move from a hunter gatherer economy into a complex market economy OR it could be argued these people had their land stolen by the British and now the modern market economy has to pay perpetual support / compensation for the theft which cannot be reversed.

We saw lots of sacred kingfishers on the power lines as we drove out through the farming lands to the highway. A short run up to South Mission Beach where we found Doug and Merle Finlayson in their winter retreat. We haven't seen them since last year so we had a fair bit to catch up with.

We had lunch at Paronella, saw some ulyesses butterflies, turtles in the stream below Mena Falls and then drove into Innisfail to get some togs for Sue because she had forgotten to bring a pair.

We ducked out to Col's place to check it was all OK and then booked a couple of nights at Henreeta Creek camp ground up the Palmerston Highway.

Tuesday 4th August

The Wompoo Dove was calling from the forest, the twitter and whistle of his friends and competitors filled out the morning song.

We pottered around slowly but eventually we had backpacks loaded and tripods to hand and we wet off for the walk to Nandroya Falls about 2.4k away.

The sky was free of clouds and yet the path was shady and not hot.

The forest gets 2000mm of rain in a dry year and up to 10,000mm of rain in an extreme wet - the waterfalls were testimony to this fact, the water clear and sparkling in the narrow shafts of light which danced across the forest floor.

We came to Silver Falls first which is very picturesque and there we met again a fellow photog from Innisfail who had come up for the walk.

We are always slow so we were the last to arrive at the falls, others had passed us on the way down and were well on their way back before we arrived.

The falls are magnificent - the river richoshades down a convoluted shute before plunging a good 30 or 40 meters to a large pool below, sweeps to it's left, over some rapids which divide the watercourse into several streams before once again they spill over a curved rock form which spans the river bed and is concave - so one could hide behind the curtain of water if one whished to -

We had morning tea before taking the longer route back - which follows down stream for several km's, where unique pool after pool is revealed - it is a wonder land.

We arrived back at camp for a late afternoon tea and cooked our evening meal on a picnic table in our campsite.

We love the hot shower facilities we have in Vicki - we really have a compact mobile 5 star eco resort -

..and Joseph said to his women in waiting, "weave me a coat from the grown and blown colours from God " - and as they say the rest is history.