Enough of this rain - Palm Cove here we come

About 20 kms North of Cairns is Palm Cove. We found a cheap van park right in what appears to be a resort strip. The esplanade is bordered by calm waters with coral sand on one side and low rise yuppie hotels the other, with masses of coconut, palm and massive melaleucas trees both sides.

Our view…

…and in the morning.

Meeting the locals including this man who looks like his pet, a Black Cockatoo.

More of the wet stuff - Lake Tinaroo

Lake Tinaroo not surprisingly was at capacity. The spillway was mesmerising as it flowed over the wall creating patterns.

Believe it or not this is one of the public roads in Tinaroo – town planners must have thought we all drive peddle cars.

Parasites

No not the kids. To be fair we have added parasites to our wildlife bingo.

Leech count: B - 3 including one in the corner of his mouth (they must not have ears or he would talked it to death) ; K – 2.

Tick count: B – 1 ; Z – 1. (required surgery by Dr B BAppSci (Comp) - where's the restart button)

FIG’n Big Fig

When I leave my toys out Dad says “Clean up this big fig’n mess” and Mum says “Stop swearing Daddy”, but now I see the Curtain and Cathedral figs are named after curse words.

Water Falls, Wind Farms and Crater Lakes

We established our camp at Malanda in the Atherton Tablelands and watched the rain douse our our camp fire and unfortunately the rain was relentless over the coming days. We had eagerly anticipated seeing a Tree Kangaroo (wildlife bingo game) but apparently they have all drowned in this miserable RAINforest weather. Lots of water, lots of waterfalls ;-). Two such examples, Dinner Falls and Millstream Falls (Australia’s widest).

What would improve the weather – wind! Off to Windy Hill we drove and found 20 odd wind turbines to park under. The name Windy Hill should be amended to Rainy Cloudy Windy Hill and as long as they’re at it, paint the turbines something other than cloud colour ;-)

Finally Mt Hypipamee (hooray!) National Park - after carrying Zavier some 1km through the mountain we got to the crater lake. 60 metres sheer rock cliff down to a Shrek green lake. On the walk (carry) back to the car park we passed some back packers with basketball sized rocks to drop into the lake, if only we'd thought of that I wouldn't have had to carry Zavier back to the car!

Paronella Park

This is a beautiful garden built by a Spanish man (Jose Paronella) who came to Australia with big dreams. He worked cutting cane by hand before being able to buy his own farm.  He accumulated his wealth by buying small run down cane farms and improving them before selling them. He then used this wealth to fulfil his dreams and the gardens reflect this.

The gardens have been established on the Mena Creek with the waterfall a key feature. Amongst the gardens are a variety of historic buildings/castles including a residence, ballroom and amphitheatre and countless paths and staircases all clad by a variety of moss.

Inspiration for our garden – now how do I build a waterfall this big?

Tully Gorge – white water rafting without the raft!

Wow – this was a really beautiful valley of banana plantations and cane fields that eventually were squeezed out by the surrounding mountains leaving only a narrow band for the river to race through.

Didn’t see the rafters but did see some large local butterflies such as the Ulysses. K and Z did their best to plug the torrent by throwing rocks into the water.