Undara (20-22nd Dec)

I was up very early to get my 7am coach to Undara. It was a mini bus with about nine occupants , seven of them were only there for a day trip - it's a five hour drive each way!!

The driver was really entertaining and informative, he gave us a detailed explanation of each area we travelled through. It was mainly different types of farming, as we drove further inland it changed from sugar cane, to bananas, then coffee, dairy and finally cattle.

I didn't realise how remote our destination was, within a couple of hours we were on single track roads with 55 metre road trains driving straight at us! (A road train is a huge lorry with three or four trailers on the back, they take up to a mile to stop - if you're in the way they won't swerve or brake)

On arrival at the resort I was given a map and shown to my tent (it was raised off the ground and semi permanent). After dropping off my bag I walked back through the resort, it is comprised of about 30 tents and also renovated victorian train carriages. There is also a bar/restaurant, shop, information centre and swimming pool.

Within 10 metres of leaving the tent I immediately stumbled across a group of Eastern Grey Kanagroos, they were everywhere...

I'd only just finished taking photos of the Kangaroos, when I heard a Kookaburra laughing in a tree. In the space of fifteen minutes I'd seen two of the most iconic Aussie animals in the wild.
I went over to the restaurant for lunch, after eating the people on the day trip were off for their tour. The 3 day people had the rest of the day to relax, our tours didn't start until tomorrow.

The park has many self guided walks with graded paths, by now it was well after 2pm and around 40C so I went on the shortest walk. I was out for around 45 minutes, it was really relaxing and felt like I was the only person around. Below are a few pics from the walk...



When I returned from my walk, I realised that after the day trippers had left, I was one of only five visitors staying at the resort! In the evening I dined at the restuarant and had a beautiful Kanagaroo steak. It's one of the healthiest meats you can eat, less than 2% fat - which means it can only be cooked rare or medium rare (it gets too tough if over cooked).

The next morning, breakfast was served out in the open in the woods. There was a huge spread of cereals, toast, fried meat, beans etc. One of the guides had one of her "kids" with her:

His name is Pepe, the reason being that he stunk when she found him - his mum was hit by a car and had been dead for a long time before he was rescued from her pouch.

After breakfast I met up with the rest of my group, two middle age ladies from Melbourne and a retired couple from Sheffield - they live just down the road from me!

Our guide drove us the short distance to the first cave. These caves were formed a couple of hundred thousand years ago from a volcanic erruption, they stretch for 160km and are the longest lava tubes in the world. Public access to the caves is normally through roof collapses, where boardwalks have been installed.

The area around Undara is very dry and prone to bush fires, there are some eucalypts growing but not much. Inside the roof collapses are small pockets of remenant rainforest, these can't survive a bush fire but the rocks from the cave protect them.

Just before we reached the first cave we saw a Mareeba Rock Wallaby, these guys are pretty small - only a couple of feet tall - and live predominantly on or around rocks.

Below are a couple of pictures of the caves, the rocks had some amazing patterns on them from mineral deposits. We went further into the caves, but it was pretty dark so the photos don't do it justice.

After our morning visit around the caves we returned for lunch. I had a few hours to myself, so I had a wander round the resort and took a dip in the pool.

I noticed yet another marsupial, they have a distinctive white stripe across their faces. My guide later told me the name of the species: Pretty Face Wallaby. Over the next couple of days I saw these guys everywhere, they were almost as common as the Eastern Grey Kanagroos. I never realised how many different varieties there were.

For the sunset tour we had a few more people - a family from Singapore and a backpacking couple (Pele from Sweden and Betina from France). We hadn't driven far when Steve (our guide) spotted a Dingo in the middle of the road, by the time I got my camera out he was on up a hill by the side of the road- if you click on the picture below to expand it you should see him.
We then parked at the base of a small hill to watch the sunset with champagne and fruit, once the sun was down we got to the main attraction of the tour.... If you are a bit squeemish, I recommend you don't scroll down much further (I'm not talking about the picture of me!)
The main attraction is the "bat cave". A huge cave where thousands of bats live, they all fly out at dusk to feed on insects. I was not prepared for how many bats there would be! The only way to describe it is to imagine a powerful fire hose with water streaming out, only the water is bats!

I've uploaded a couple of videos which I took, they really only show about 10% of our flying friends, because it was getting dark I could only film the ones against the sky.

Video 1
Video 2

We walked down some wooden stairs to get to the mouth of the cave. Steve asked us to all refrain from taking photos and stand in a line in facing the cave - the repeated flashes quickly stop the bats from flying out. On the count of three we all took photos until the bats stopped coming out.
Steve had an orange filter on his torch so he wouldn't scare the bats away, so we put our cameras away whilst he had a look around the rocks and trees. His torch was also helpful for spotting Brown Tree Snakes, we spotted three or four of them on the ground.

In a matter of seconds they were up in the trees and hanging from branches directly above our heads - a couple of them were only a foot or so above our heads! They were hanging down ready to pluck the bats out of the air.

We managed to see two kills, we were instructed not to take photos until Steve gave the shout - if we were too quick the snake would be surprised by the flash and drop the bat.

Below is a good shot of the snake injecting venom and constricting it's prey at the same time. The poison doesn't affect humans and their bite only feels like a kitten's bite (Steve has been bitten "loads of times")

This really was an amazing place, after the Whitsundays I thought my holiday had peaked too soon - how wrong I was!

I had the next morning to myself, I was planning to do another walk but by the time I'd made up my mind it was pushing 40C. So I decided to stay by the pool, after lunch we drove back to Cairns. We had another friendly and informative driver on the way back.

Kuranda (18-19th Dec)

After leaving Airlie Beach I caught the overnight Greyhound to Cairns. I arrived pretty early on Sunday morning and spent the day walking round the shops and along the esplanade.

The next morning I caught the bus to the Skyrail terminal. From there I took a ride on the 7.5km cable car system above the rainforest canopy to Kuranda. Here are a couple of shots from the journey.

There are two stations to stop off along the way, the first has a short 10 minute guided walk through a small section of the forest, the second station looks out over the Barron Falls. The Barron River is dammed and there hasn't been much rain yet, so the waterfalls weren't as spectacular as they could be - but a still a fantastic view.
When I arrived at Kuranda it was around 11am and Flintoff & Peitersen were batting trying to save the 3rd test. So I had a couple of drinks at an Irish bar and watched the cricket, had my lunch there and then had a walk around Kuranda. It's a small town mainly comprised of shop & markets selling local crafts, plus some small wildlife parks.

I'd informally arranged to try and meet up with Matt & Kari tomorrow, so I decided not to do any of the major attractions today and instead went on one of the rainforest walks.

I was surprised how deserted it was, Kuranda is packed with visitors but I only saw three local kids swimming in the river. I wouldn't say it was quiet though - the rainforest is teeming with life, although you can't see it you can definitely hear it (mainly the chirping of Cicadas and other insects).


The next day I spent the morning looking around the markets, it was early in the holiday so I didn't buy anything - just looking for present ideas for later on. I knew Matt & Kari wouldn't be arriving until around lunch so after I'd eaten I decided to give myself 30 minutes or so around the markets and if I didn't see them I would do my own thing.

It didn't take me long to spot them and we all agreed the best place to go was the Koala Gardens. They had a few other local animals at the gardens, the main highlights were hand feeding Wallabies and cuddling the Koalas. Below are a couple of shots taken by Matt.



We didn't have a lot of time before the last ride back on the Skyrail, so we took a short walk through the rainforest (luckily the one I didn't do yesterday).

M&K had a transfer back to Cairns included in their package, I was just getting the local bus. So we arranged to meet that evening for dinner near their hotel, it was a pretty decent meal at an English pub - so I obviously went for the curry!

We had an enjoyable, but short evening - I had to be up at 6am for my trip to Undara...