Undara / Atherton Qld 30-31 July 2019

Undara / Atherton Qld  30-31 July 2019

A couple of travel days for us. Last time we came up here we did the Charters Towers to Atherton 580 km step in one day and frankly it was too much. So this time we stopped at the Undara Lodge (390km) where the Lava tubes are, but only for the night. I will have to say that they are very pleased with themselves, having closed the reception / shop right at the front door, and transferring those operations inside into the bar. I suppose it saves on employment costs but is hopelessly unprofessional. Who wants to compete with drinkers and  book-in over the bar? Anyhow, we had a swim, read a book in the sun, had a drink at the fire pit and retired for the evening.

Today we completed the journey up to Atherton (190km) easily enough, even if we got stuck behind a caravan of caravans doing 75kph, for something like 40km. The trouble is that the road is quite undulating and winding and overtaking is not much of an option. After 20km we pulled into Ravenshoe for a walk about and a nice coffee. The most noticeable thing is that there is now about six coffee shops compared to the 2 or 3 that were there last time we went through.

We then took the less travelled route through Ravenshoe up toward Atherton and made it into the park in a leisurely and relaxed mood.

Went for a walk this afternoon, trying to get fit for Parkrun on Saturday. Took a few snaps of the train in the siding, but got tangled up with the resident 'crank' who wanted to know what I was doing and why and did I know that I really should make a donation to the Save-the-train fund. I would have won the Nobel prize for Tact and Diplomacy as he kept going on and on. In the end he unlocked the carriage I was interested in and let me take a few snaps, all the while banging on about a donation...

Stone Curlews. Atherton Qld 

One time railway line, slowly being restored, sleeper by sleeper, bridge by bridge. Atherton Qld

Meanwhile a rather pleasant walking path next to it. Atherton Qld

Carriages being restored and repurposed. That first red one houses a model train layout that is planned to be  coin in the slot operated. What a great idea. Atherton Qld

Coin operated train set. Atherton Qld

Coin operated train set. Atherton Qld
They even have a replica of the steam engine that will work their line once it becomes a reality. Only need another $12 million or so to fix the bridges and line.

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

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

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