24 - Australia

It rained throughout the night....the first time that's happened here!  I felt sorry for the 10 or so folks camping in tents on the same grounds....I hope they were well prepared because it probably rained well over an inch during the night!

Across the river from the lodge is a herd of cows - really cool ones with a "hump".  Unfortunately, this morning none of the bulls were present.  We had seen them earlier and they have a very pronounced hump on their back.  I believe they are Brahman cattle.

I used the communal kitchen this morning to make us a nice breakfast!  Good fun!

We're headed southbound now to make a loop of the Atherton Tablelands.  It's a fertile plateau just inland on the East Coast of Australia.  It is at an altitude similar to Asheville and has a similar feel although more tropical.


We only drove about 100 miles today - misty and rainy for the most part.

We drove down a 10 mile gravel road to a waterfall and hike.   Lovely waterfall but a very twisty road up a very steep hill!!

It doesn't really show in this photo, but there is a thousand foot sheer dropoff behind us!  A group of rock climbers with their helmets and gear asked me to take a group photo of them - and they obliged by taking one of us!

Lovely little stream above the waterfall.

Hard to believe that's at 4000'  elevation and not in a mangrove swamp somewhere at sea level.

A "swimming hole" further upstream.  No takers on this cloudy rainy day.

We spotted this kangaroo or wallaby - still don't know how to tell the difference.  She had a joey with her (in the grass, not visible).

By mid-day it was really raining pretty steady....so we opted to forego a couple of other hikes.  It just isn't that much fun walking in the rain!

We did go see the Curtain Fig tree.  It was just a short boardwalk, so the poring rain didn't bother us all that much.  This thing is probably 4 stories high!  The strangled "host" tree is long rotted away.

And the last thing for the day was to try to see some platypus again.  There was a walk nearby that says they regularly see platypus.  It's a small stream - and you can see the dens in the mudbanks.

We did actually see a small platypus swimming by on top fo the water for about 2 seconds....then he submerged.  They are notoriously shy.....but it was neat to see one even briefly.

We walked over a cool little suspension bridge....and decided we'd had enough for the day.  When we got to our roadside motel, the innkeeper said that this was the first rain they'd had in months, so they were very happy to see it!