Australia 2008 – Mareeba
Within driving distance of Cairns is forest, desert and things between. The mountain range that runs along the coast protects the inland areas from the rain that keeps the coast so green and wet. We went for a loop drive that took us over the mountains, along the Danbulla Forest Drive, around Lake Tinaroo, through the hip town of Mareeba, the tourist town of Kuranda, and back.
The forest over the mountains is quite different from that along the coast. It is less hot and humid and has a “Less Dangerous” feel to it. It is too far inland for crocodiles to be an issue and we didn’t see any crazy spiders.
One of the first stops was the Cathedral Fig. The photo above shows only a small part of the tree in its centre where Matthew and Ria were able to climb it.
After leaving the Danbulla Forest Drive we got back on the highway heading north toward Mareeba. I noticed a sign on the side of the road pointing to Granite Gorge and remembered reading about it on a flyer in Cairns. We took the exit and followed the markers out into the middle of Australia. Well, not “in” the middle, but toward the middle, and by that I mean further west, which, if we were to continue in that direction, might lead to the middle. It felt like the middle until we got there.
Once we arrived and realized that the place actually existed, it turned out to be very nice. It is an oasis in the middle of nowhere littered with huge granite boulders and rock-wallabies. The wallabies were everywhere and curious/hungry.
They are cute too.
I have determined through rigorous scientific experiments that rock-wallabies do not, in fact, eat cameras. They showed no interest in the camera when it was presented as food, though they did enjoy the food pellets we provided.
Some were more aggressive at getting food than others. This mother and joey were actually rather friendly as long as we were feeding her, I think she was more upset about the food going away.
Matthew got some scratches when the wallabies attempted to climb him.
There is a stream that runs through the gorge with a dam at one end forming a pool that is recommended for swimming. There didn’t appear to be any crocs in the water…
There were some turtles in the water with mossy heads that quite liked wallaby food.
Ria was the only one stupid brave enough to go in the water. The rest of us are afraid of water bottles in Australia due to what might be hiding in them, but the deep pools of water in the middle of nowhere? Just jump in!
After leaving Granite Gorge we drove through and had lunch in the town of Mareeba. It is just what you might expect in rural Australia. The cafe doubled as an antique store. I use the word antique loosely to describe anything that you might find in a flee market or garage sale.
Beyond that was more road and flat landscape back to Cairns through tourist trap of Kuranda which, unfortunately, was mostly closed when we went looking for dinner.
The photo above was from our trip to Kuranda a day earlier. We took a gondola ride over the mountain and the train pictured above back to Cairns. The railway was build a hundred years earlier along a very precipitous route through a narrow canyon with 15 tunnels from Cairns to Kuranda. Curiously, none of the modern ways of getting there involve that route at all. The nearest road route to Cairns has no bridges or tunnels.