We were so excited to pick up our rental car and see more than the main highway and train tacks have showed us. Again our final destination is only 4 hours down the coast but we drove in land for a little over an hour to our first spot Yungaburra for exploration. The drive was so cool, we drove through farms of sugar cane with large mountains in the background and over a pass with huge tropical forests all around, we loved the drive, neither of us have spent time in this type of tropical environment, it is hard to put into words but the landscape has a certain draw to it even though the inhabitants scares the bejebers out of me. We climbed for about 40mins over a mountain that gave us incredible views of Cairns and the surrounding valleys and Paul spotted a sign for Cathedral fig off to the right so we went to see the hype over this tree.
We parked the car and walked about 20 yards when this towering tree came into view, this tree is large on the scale of the Redwoods and Sequoias, but these figs have roots that grown down all over the place. The fig strangles the host tree and eventually kills it but has so many shoots that the tree is basically thousands of roots that can grow hundreds of feet in the air. It was such a cool site to see!
Yungaburra was only 15min down the road, and once we pulled into town we were surprised by its charming feel (we expected some kind of bush like town) it was very small but did cater to travelers with the streets lined by cafe then B&B then cafe then Hotel, etc... We spotted a sign for Curtin fig right past the platypus viewing deck, so decided to check it out, the curtain fig is the same kind of fig as Cathedral but its roots grew down like a curtain, it was equally impressive in size, but we both like cathedral fig better (I'm sure which ever a person see's first is their favorite since the initial shock sticks with you).
Back in town we went to the information center to see about accommodations, and ask about the best time to see the platypus (around 5am or 7pm) the guy also showed us the way to very a close lake that we could swim in since they don't have croc's in Yungaburra because it is to cold (it is hardly cold but we are very high above sea level and it is noticeably cooler than Cairns). Skeptical over the man's no croc statement we made our way to the first lake, there were 30-40 people there swimming (so i guess it's true) and a lot of others bbq’ing and hanging out. There was no sort of beach so we drove to the second lake that had a rain forest walk.
The lake was crowded as well but was also really pretty, surrounded by the thick tropical rain forest and mini fig trees that in a hundred years would be massive like the ones we had visited earlier. We put on our sunscreen and started walking, about 5min into our walk it started to rain pretty hard. We found a spot on the trail that had large trees that provided shelter from the rain and waited about 10min till the rain let up to carry on down the trail (life in the rain forest I suppose). We spotted lots of beautiful butterflies and vines that were braided like ropes and stretched from one tree to the next, we were also on the lookout for pythons and tree kangaroo's however the only wild life we saw was the leech that attached himself to my heel and was having a feast, and I never set foot in the water! After the leech I did have a minor beak down I felt violated from all of the bugs just using me for my blood, and Paul once again not even getting a mosquito bite. Once we completed our hike Paul took a dip in the lake then we headed back to find some lodging for the night.
We parked the car and walked about 20 yards when this towering tree came into view, this tree is large on the scale of the Redwoods and Sequoias, but these figs have roots that grown down all over the place. The fig strangles the host tree and eventually kills it but has so many shoots that the tree is basically thousands of roots that can grow hundreds of feet in the air. It was such a cool site to see!
Yungaburra was only 15min down the road, and once we pulled into town we were surprised by its charming feel (we expected some kind of bush like town) it was very small but did cater to travelers with the streets lined by cafe then B&B then cafe then Hotel, etc... We spotted a sign for Curtin fig right past the platypus viewing deck, so decided to check it out, the curtain fig is the same kind of fig as Cathedral but its roots grew down like a curtain, it was equally impressive in size, but we both like cathedral fig better (I'm sure which ever a person see's first is their favorite since the initial shock sticks with you).
Back in town we went to the information center to see about accommodations, and ask about the best time to see the platypus (around 5am or 7pm) the guy also showed us the way to very a close lake that we could swim in since they don't have croc's in Yungaburra because it is to cold (it is hardly cold but we are very high above sea level and it is noticeably cooler than Cairns). Skeptical over the man's no croc statement we made our way to the first lake, there were 30-40 people there swimming (so i guess it's true) and a lot of others bbq’ing and hanging out. There was no sort of beach so we drove to the second lake that had a rain forest walk.
The lake was crowded as well but was also really pretty, surrounded by the thick tropical rain forest and mini fig trees that in a hundred years would be massive like the ones we had visited earlier. We put on our sunscreen and started walking, about 5min into our walk it started to rain pretty hard. We found a spot on the trail that had large trees that provided shelter from the rain and waited about 10min till the rain let up to carry on down the trail (life in the rain forest I suppose). We spotted lots of beautiful butterflies and vines that were braided like ropes and stretched from one tree to the next, we were also on the lookout for pythons and tree kangaroo's however the only wild life we saw was the leech that attached himself to my heel and was having a feast, and I never set foot in the water! After the leech I did have a minor beak down I felt violated from all of the bugs just using me for my blood, and Paul once again not even getting a mosquito bite. Once we completed our hike Paul took a dip in the lake then we headed back to find some lodging for the night.
We found "On the Wallaby" a hostel really close to the platypus viewing and we figured we’d check it out. The place was really cool and Damien the manager told us we could set up a tent in the back yard for $10 cheaper than any of the motor camps, he also told us to go past the viewing platform and under the bridge for the best chances of seeing a platypus. We booked a spot and grabbed our torches and headed to the river, we went to the spot Damien told us to and waited….waited….and waited…. once it was completely dark we left disappointed and agreed to get up at 4:50am (just before sunrise) and walk back down to see if we had better luck. We did see hundreds of fruit bats and lots of frogs on the way back, and a large snake that was dead thank goodness (just seeing it gave us the creeps) we could not tell what kind it was because most of it was flat. Damien asked us if we spotted a platypus and we sadly said “no”.
We spent the rest of the night playing cribbage and listening to a compilation of artists singing cover songs that some radio station in Australia had put together anytime an artist came for and interview, it was great. We really liked it so Damien said he would transfer some on to our hard drive. He was such a cool guy and we loved the place with its big living quarters and clean facilities on the bottom floor of the hostel, we went to bed contemplating spending one more night but would see in the morning.
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