Atherton, Qld August 6th 2013

When you leave Undara and head east, you effectively leave any semblance of the outback. You start to climb a bit, up past Mt Garnett, and then it starts to get serious with lots of climbing and twisting and turning up through rainforest until you get to Ravenshoe.

On the way through, we stopped at Innot Springs, supposed to be a hot spring fed creek to splash about in. What you have is a caravan park that has sucked the creek dry to feed its six(yes 6) swimming pools with varying degrees of hot water. For only $10 a head you can get a day pass, or you can dig a hole in the creek bed and sit in that. We saw some people sitting in mud puddles near the bridge, so we took the third option: drove straight on and dreamt about Mataranka and Katherine springs.

We stopped at Ravenshoe for a cuppa and a bit of a look around. We found a fabulous olde worlde milk bar / café which had fantastic coffee and even better jam drops, fresh out of the oven. They were so good we bought 2 more to go! Sadly, the steam engine for the historic train is out of action as it has blown a boiler pipe. The railway is partly funded by people buying a Signature Sleeper – a railway sleeper engraved with their name which is then put under the line near the station.

Back on the road, there was more climbing and turning, this time with the added attraction of lots and lots of roadworks and lollipop people. Took an age to do the 45km but we finally reached Atherton and secured our very pleasant spot in the Big4.

First agenda item was to restock the food supplies. We went to the big IGA, walked in picked up a pack of rotten, fur-coated strawberries right from under the ‘200% fresh guarantee’ sign, and walked right back out.

No matter, we found Woolies and got our fill there. At dusk we took a walk around the Platypus Park, and much to our surprise we saw a platypus and a water monitor; must take a camera and go during daylight hours. Cool. Judy took some snaps of some random red crested robin thing, the place is lousy with birds. Some say that there are 400+ species here. We wont be trying to collect the full set!

Red-browed Finch. Atherton, Qld