North Queensland: Atherton Tables II

After Cairns, we left the coast for a little while and went inside, around the Atherton Tables again, to walk around lakes, see nice falls,

not huge falls, but nice ones, as always in the middle of eucalyptus and ferns.

At the end of the day, awesome views along the banana plantations, a stop to buy some,

and then incredible sunset in the smoke of the burning sugar cane plants (a priori they burn them during winter to kill insects). Eventually we met with two cassowaries, first in the garden of a house then on a beach. They don’t look really friendly and seem to have very sharp claws so you don’t want to get too close, but it was great fun seeing them!

North Queensland: outer reef

From Cairns, we went for another boat trip to go snorkeling on the outer reef. Another great day in the water, more multitude of colorful fishes and coral, all great, except that a whole day on a boat or snorkeling is harsh for people subject to sea sickness ;-)

North Queensland: Low Isles

After the rainforest, the reef. Hélène had already chosen her island: Low Isles, so here we went on the first day of perfect weather there, since a couple of weeks, said the captain. Lucky us!

And even luckier when equipped with fin, mask and snorkel we started to explore the reef around the island, were amazed by the number of fishes with so many different colors (same thing with the coral), found Nemo and a turtle and then swam with another one :-) Someone said perfect day? :-D

North Queensland: Mossman and Cape Tribulation

After A LOT of kilometers in the bush, and after our great encounters with roos, it was now time to hit the coast, which we reached through the Atherton Tablelands. When eventually the ocean appeared behind a turn, it was a pretty nice feeling.

But instead of going straight to the beach, we went to the wet forest and had our first swim there in the middle of the jungle. A bit chilly but not that bad, and as it was warm and humid outside, it was nice to dive into fresh water.

The following day we crossed the Daintree river and were then in Cape Tribulation. More walks in the rainforest: impressive roots, impressive climbing plants, and impressive ferns!

And finally: impressively awesome beaches. But crocodile and jellyfish signs everywhere remind you that “Australia harbors more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else” (Bill Bryson) Did not see any of those though! (Truth is: the probability of meeting a jellyfish in winter is rather low :-))