#normaton

Space Marines

Dear fellow travellers,

even though it’s pretty late Katja and I wish you a healthy, happy and successful year 2016.

Again, it’s been a long time since you last heard from us. We’re in Sydney at the moment and will keep travelling Australia’s east coast northbound from tomorrow on. To catch up on the remaining reports I’ll try to keep it a bit shorter. That way I hope to write closer to the present.

As already pronounced we’ll write about our last Easter holiday. Even though we only had four days off, we used that time intensively to discover more of Australia and of course to relax.

We left Lorraine Station northbound on 03 April. Our destination were the Atherton Tablelands (#athertontablelands) in Northeast Queensland (#queensland). We intended to take our time there to explore the landscape instead of rushing to Cairns and then only have two days there. On our way northwards we went east just before the little town Normanton (#normanton) and drove through Croydon. Here we fueled up and bought a late lunch at the “Gulf Gate Roadhouse”. My question, when it had last rained here, was answered with the deadpan counter question: “Rain, what’s that?” In the further conversation it turned out that the rivers and dams were dry here as well and everyone was hoping for rain. After Croydon we got to Georgetown (#georgetown). We decided to camp in the local caravan park as it was dusk already. We continued our journey eastbound on the next morning and drove across almost totally dry river beds on single lane bridges. The partly single lane “Gulf Developmental Road” turned out to be tricky when oncoming traffic (e.g. road trains) didn’t slow down causing little rocks from the roadside to be thrown against the Maverick’s wind screen. Luckily we proceeded quickly without a damaged wind screen, drove through Mount Surprise (#mountsurprise) and went for a little hike near the “Undara Lava Tubes” (#undaraexperience). This is a volcanic nature reserve. It is said that millions of years ago the lava of the Undara Vulcan burned caves and tunnels into the ground and rock. These caves and tunnels can now be seen by guided tours. Since we didn’t have much time we limited our visit to a little hike through the national park. On our tour we came across an old messy kangaroo (see photos). You’ll read more information on the Undara Lavatubes in the next but one report. For everyone travelling Australia at the moment we want to let you know, that it is definitely worth seeing! Finally in the grass-green Atherton Tablelands, we enjoyed the hilly landscape covered in fog, lush meadows as well as a little bit of rain after we had spent many months in dust, heat and sun. New in the picture were little dairy farms that used the same Holstein-cattle breed like we do in Germany. That way we felt a little bit like back at home. Since we travelled on Easter but hadn’t booked accommodation ahead the hunt for somewhere to stay that offered a little bit more comfort than the Maverick was a tough one. Most times every place was booked out or didn’t have what we were looking for. Finally, we got hold of the last room at the “Malanda Lodge” in Malanda (#malanda). We spent our next days with exploring the surrounding water falls like the Milla-Milla Fall (#millamilla) or just strolled through the little towns of the Tablelands. Our short holiday was over way too early and we started our 11 hour drive back. On our way back we stopped at a saddlery and a beautiful look out. Time was flying and we drove until late at night – making wallabies and the Maverick’s bull bar suffer – to be ready for work again at Lorraine Station the next morning. In the next report we’ll give you a little update on our last time we worked together at Lorraine Station (since Katja flew back home in May) before writing about Cairns and the northern part of Australia’s east coast (#australia).