This fertile plateau above Cairns sits at an elevation of about 1000 metres (3200 feet) so temperatures are more pleasant here. It also gets about 1000mm (40 in) of rain a year. I think it must all be falling while we are here. We had two one-week stints in the town of Atherton at the Woodlands Big4 CP, the first when we couldn’t extend our stay in PD and the second on the way west. Surely my favorite CP so far as we were parked in a private area of shady trees with only the occasional tent camper joining us in our little piece of heaven. We weren’t inclined to dine outdoors as the evenings were actually too cool and, as I said, rainy for short but regular intervals. Needless to say, the rain made for some abundantly flowing waterfalls, one of the signature features of the Tablelands. There was a Supa IGA grocery about a kilometre from us and it became our favorite FNQ supermarket with its plethora of local fruit and veg as well as local dairy products, including milk, yogurt, and cheese from 3 well known dairies. Our favorite is Mungalli Creek Dairy, a family run bio-dynamic establishment that produces simply the best ricotta cheese and Davidson plum yogurt in the world (IMHO, of course).
We made a 2nd visit to Kuranda to check out Barron Falls and discovered the “Kuranda Original Rainforest Markets” which we missed the day we did the train and skyrail. A charming collection of colorfully canopied stalls selling the usual crafts and trinkets but this one had a special flair that appealed to us. AND it had one helluva food stall called Falafellicious, manned by a delightful Israeli guy.
Then of course we did the waterfall crawl, a drive that wended its way throughout the ancient volcanic craters exhibited as low-lying bumps in the terrain. There were several falls that were quite spectacular for one reason or another and I’ve thrown in a few pics of these so you be the judge.
The birdlife at Nyleta Wetand, Hasties Swamp National Park, was astonishing one morning when we walked in the rain to check this out. There are 231 species that hang out here and on this particular morning there must have been thousands of Plumed Whistling Ducks nestled together. My iPhone photos were too pathetic to publish here but we hope we don’t forget the sight of all these birds.
Last but not least, we experienced two thrilling wildlife sightings here, creatures that most Aussies never see in the wild in a lifetime. More on those in the photos below.