Undara Qld Just 21st 2024

 Undara Qld Just 21st 2024

Three hundred and eighty five kilometres north of Charters Towers, is Undara, or to be more precede the Discovery Parks Undara Lava Tubes caravan park.

Of the 385km, there is a huge free camp about 30km north of CT, a town called Glendale that I missed this time because I blinked, a Spring Creek with a patch of dirt for caravan, and The Lynd, a lonely roadhouse. I still have no idea why its called the Lynd, and it doesn’t appear on the map, but its 260km north of CT and is the only fuel (only anything actually) between CT and Mount Garnet, some 140km further up the road. We have stopped here every time we’ve been up here, might as well fill up the tank, grab a coffee, a sandwich and use the facilities. Facilities? They are closed and padlocked and carry a big sign hat says “For the use of Roadhouse customers only”. But you’re welcome to wander way out and down the back and use one of the toilets in the two dongas left open for that purpose, and you don't have to be a customer. The lady who had been there on our previous visits was now gone and replaced by some young persons. 

Anyway, suitably refreshed and relieved, we finished the trip off and arrived in Undara in good time. Basically were are here todo nothing except read and enjoy the bush setting. We tested the bar’s produce of Bush Sunset and Grant Burge wine and found both to be excellent. So good we went back the second day and had a double of each. 

We did get off our lazy backsides and do the shortest walk, to The Bluff, but Judy found it a bit hard on her calf muscles and knees and back. The view from he top over the caravan park is ok, you can even see a extinct volcano in the distance.

Undara Lodge from the top of The Bluff.  Undara, Qld

A dead volcano.

Judy sampling a Bush Sunrise. Undara, Qld

Undara Qld 30 July 2017

Yesterday we travelled from Charters Towers up to Undara via the Gregory Development road, that is a road with a strip of tar about a truck wide and gravel on either side. When another vehicle is approaching, the smaller one gets off the bitumen and they pass safely. We saw this large truck coming, i got of as far as i could, right up to the edge of the 1m gully, and waited for  the truck to react. We weren't right off but we had no where to go. Finally he saw us and hit the brakes, leaving us with the disconcerting sight of his second carriage swerving right across the road. Fortunately the driver got it all back together and blasted past leaving us unscathed. We stopped at a tiny dot on the map called The Lynd, a neat and tidy but tiny roadhouse, for lunch before moving on to Undara.

Undara is home to the, rightfully, world famous lava tubes. Basically a huge stream of molten rock following a watercourse or valley, that has cooled and set on the outside while the inside has kept moving. Here is the interpretive boards placed by Queensland Government:

Lava tubes. Undara Qld

Lava tubes. Undara Qld

Lava tubes. Undara Qld

Lava tubes. Undara Qld

Lava tubes. Undara Qld

Lava tubes. Undara Qld

To take pictures is somewaht difficult: there is the brightest of white sunlight and the pitch black of the shadows, and there is the size of the thing. Basically you are trying to take a picture of a whole.

Anyhow here's a couple of snaps :

The Archway. You are looking at the top, or roof, of a lava tube. Underneath is  something like 20 metres deep and wide. The lava flowed down this way, cooling on the bottom and sides first, then the top, trapping the heat in and due top the gradient, the river of lava kept on flowing. When the volcano stopped erupting, the lava literally ran oiut leaving a hollow. Next time an eruption occured, another tube may well be formed over the top of this one. They say there are at least 10, but then it did take 8 million years before the volcanos went to sleep.

From inside the tube. In this case its closed at one end and open at the other. They only get to be open when the roof collapses.

Inside the largest lava tube cave in the world. A picture cannot describe how big this hole is, but something like 60 metres tall, 30 metres long and 100 metres deep. It has bats. The thing hanging down is a tree root from way up above. The tree roots will eventually crack the rocks and the roof will collapse. Not any time soon though.

Micro Bats, mega caves. Undara Lava Tubes. Undara Qld

There are a bunch of bush walks to choose from for your afternoon's entertainment. We took the hike up to The Bluff and took some snaps of the Resort and the countryside.

Undara Qld

Kalkani crater, one of the many dormant volcanos that gave rise to the  lava tubes. Undara Qld

Sitting here in the shade of 'Central Station', enjoying an ice-cream, Judy remarks that its just like looking out from a lava tube. And it is! Undara Qld

One of the many carriages, this one is a dining room. Undara Qld

Undara 2

Day two

Undara’s claim to fame has to be the lava tubes. What’s a lava tube? When lava pours out of a volcano and runs out across the countryside in one solid stream, gouging a deep bed, it cools a bit at the outside edges. These cooled bits set and basically build a wall up either side of the stream and eventually a roof as well. Now this I found hard to believe, but the lava pouring out of Undara volcano, a shield volcano, ran in one stream for some 130km across the land to the west. Even harder to believe is that when the volcano stopped spewing, the lava kept going along its way, leaving an empty tube behind.  In lots of places these roofs have collapsed leaving gaps where you can climb down into the tubes and go and explore. Which is what we did on the two-hour ‘Archway’ tour. These tubes are pretty big, maybe 40m across and 20m high. There are tree roots coming down from the ceiling and bats hanging about all over the place. To the unknowing eye, they just look like caves. But once you’ve had the formations such as the wall slips pointed out, the story of their formation becomes a bit easier to believe. You can see this 130km tunnel from space, as shown in the satellite of the area. This is made possible because of the different type of vegetation that grows in the collapsed sections. It’s what is known as remnant rainforest, and that on the savannah surrounding the tubes is sparse woodland.

Lava tube, Undara, Qld

Speaking of the surrounding area, there are heaps of volcanos to be seen, in any direction one looks. You just have to know what to look for. One of them is the Kalkani volcano, well, its crater anyhow. You drive out to it, walk up the 600m path to the rim and then walk around the rim, about 1500m. The sign claims it’s only a 50m climb, but it looks and feels a lot more ‘n that. It’s interesting to look into the crater but the view over the countryside is pretty spectacular, especially after you’ve read all the signs pointing out all the bumps that were one-time volcanos. For your interest, Undara was a shield volcano, where lava just oozes out under a crust, Kilkani is a scoria volcano, where lave is just spewed straight up into the air, sometimes for kilometres, and then there are the explosive volcanos, like Etna and Vesuvius, which none of ‘ours’ are.

Crater of Kalkani volcano. Undara, Qld