Cairns Waterfalls & Tablelands

God, well what a few heteic days ive had since I last posted. Have done 2 tours over the last 2 days, went to the Tablelands National Park on Sat 29th and the Cape Tribulation on the Sun 30th....but first things first :)

Thursday 27th Me, Katie, Ben and Daryll (these are 2 London lads that came into the dorm on Tuesday, quality pair of lads!) Spent the entire day (post 12 noon) down at the pool in the hostel, sunbathing, messing about in the waterfall and just taking it easy, was sooooo hot! That about somes up Thursday. Before 12 I went to the post office with Katie, to post some of her clothes home...thats rite clothes :) shes shopping mad and cudnt life her bag, so wen it gets this heavy she sends some clothes home in the big boxs from the post office. Then we did some laundry, my first mite I add, everythin came out lurvly clean :)

Friday??? I cant actually remember at the minute but wen I do I'll re-edit the post. Friday nite we all got smashed as it was Katies lastnite before she left for Singapore, I think she was most pissed, she nearly drank a 2liter box of goon to herself. Its kinda wierd not having a girl in the dorm, the place seems empty, but we all swapped contact details.

Right back to the tours. Saturday got up at 6:45 got breaky, got everyone a cuppa, said goodbye to Katie :( and wished her goodluck, she had quite a sore head. We headed down for the pickup supposidly at 7:25, it turned up closerto 8:00, which was no problem, the guide Rachel was very apologetic, we got goin, had a few more peopleto pick up...and guess were the next pick up was from??? The Cairns Beach House, frightening flashbacks struck me!!! After we had picked everyone up, we were the onky lads, with 6 swedish and german birds :) We came to a town called Babinda, Badinda participates in this queenlads competition for the most amount of rainfall, they have this measurement stick and the side of this house and it goes up to 7meters, the whole town can become flooded rite out. The prize for the most rainfall is "The Gum Boot" this is a gold welly, they have it in prime place in the post office window. We carried onto the Babinda Boulders, these are massive granit rocks smoothed over thousands opf years, we learnt a little about aboriginal culture here, and how the stories that gets past on, maybe true or not, but they all have meanings i.e. a story cudnt tell someone wot not to eat and were to find edible food, other maybe were not to swim, because of dangerous currents.

After here we got back on the bus and went to Josephine Falls, this was a magnificent waterfall with about 3 tiers and pools below to it. The man that owned this land used to explore the teritory and when he found the waterfall he named it Josephine after his wife. Here we stopped for about an hour to swim in one of the lower rock pools, because the rocks are granit and very porous, they filter the water, and all of the water it drinkable, also over the year the rocks have become super smooth and were the water runs over them, they are super slippy and are used as rock slides, so much fun :) Me and Ben spent alot of time diving off the surronding rocks into the pool, we all lay on these massive rocks and doid some sunbathin before we left for Millaa Milla Falls were we to have lunch. Millaa means Water and when used twice, it means lots of water.

You have all seen Millaa Millaa falls, if you remember back to the days of Timotae Shampoo adverts on TV, this is the waterfall were they filme the advert were the woman flings her hair back over her head. The falls is rumoured to have a monster, the Millaa Millaa monster is infact a female Catfish and shes is protective over her young and has been noted to nibble at people feet who step too close for her liking, as the water is not clear you dnt know were she is. Me and Ben swam over to sit behind the waterfall, the rocks were super slimey and it was freezing, so we didnt stay long, swam back to the group, who didnt come in (sensible as it was very cold) oh and I lost my sunnies here aswell diving in, had a look for them, but didnt wana loose any toes so I let the monster have them :)

We headed off for the Curtain Fig Tree, a thousand or so years old, this is were one massive tree fell at 45 degrees onto a neighbouring tree, and fig began to grow up the trees, figs are epiphyte, this means they dont harm the tree, they just use it to get to the sun light, however in this case the fig strangled both trees so hard it killed them, but this has left the vines standing tall without the aid of any trees as they have decomposed leaving a curtain of figs, its amazing, so big!

After the Curtain Fig Tree we left for Lake Eacham, this is a massive volcanic crater lake, were all sorts of wildlife live, saw some turtles, fish and pelicans, I didnt do any swimming here even though it was warmer than the previous 2 sites, just cudnt be arsed to get wet again, so sunbathed and chatted with the swedes for abit.

On the way back we came along a range called the Gillies Range, this road was originally a single track dirt road, which stretches through the Gillies Range, back in the day there was a gate a the top and the bottom, which only open 3 hours each way once a day, so it was supposidly a real bumma waitin for 3hours if you missed it open, so a bright spark put a pub at the top and bottom gates for those who were waiting, however this didnt do the level of accidents any good. They no longer exist, it is a proper road with 162 corners.

It quite funny traveling on the bus with every1 because, everytime we stop and go and see something and get back on the bus, we all fall asleep in minutes.

Rachel the guide was really informative, I dont think there was one question she didnt know the answer to, apart from why the bruce highway was called the bruce highway, although the most plausable answer is they the guy that made it was called Bruce, as with all things Australian, most things are called for what they look like, Pyramid Mountain because its a Mountain in the shape of a Pyramid....I think you get the gist, its quite simple.