Innot Hot Springs – 198 km

Boy did it rain in Cairns last night. The taxi driver this morning told us they get over two meters of rain a year. We had delayed walking after dinner until it slowed down a bit and were still pretty wet in spite of the umbrella and rain jacket.

We were at the Apollos camper rental place early and got the same gal, Margaret. We initially were impressed with the vehicle but are finding it is old and needs a good cleaning so sure hope it does us for the next two weeks. This morning it continued to rain but at least we were able to get out of the Cairns area and head east where it seems a bit dryer.

We started our day by stocking up with groceries as we had depleted everything before the transfer from one vehicle to the next. We are set now for a while.

One of the things we did want to see on this trip was the Atherton Tablelands. We had decided to take the Kennedy Highway (all the highways here have names and numbers but no-one seems to use the latter much) not realizing it would be a repeat of our VERY WINDING drive into Cairns yesterday but LONGER. Now that we have a bigger vehicle we can see why they have the call areas posted for the big trucks. We came across several going down while we were going up and it was a bit tight on some of the corners. There were a few great view stops but it was so foggy this morning we didn’t bother to stop. When we got to the tablelands we were impressed with how green everything is (of course it would be with all the recent rain). It is primarily an agricultural area for corn, sugar cane, etc.

We did stop at the Curtain Fig Tree in the Mt. Hypipamee National Park. It was pretty impressive. One of the ladies beside us thought it was big enough to build a four bedroom house inside!

Our lunch stop was at a nice picnic area in Yungaburra (love those aboriginal names).

We had decided on our destination last evening but realized with all the winding roads we were not going to make very good time so tried to stop at a town called Ravenshoe. We stopped at the information center which is also an interesting indigenous culture center. The Lonely Planet had mentioned the very helpful staff (all volunteers) and they were right. The fellow directed us to a campground but unfortunately it was full. This is school break so we may find this more often. Anyway they have free internet there so we will probably go back in the morning.

We continued on another 28 km to Innot Hot Springs, thinking we may not get a site here either but luckily did. It is situated beside hot springs bubbling out of the ground – almost too hot to touch. They have bored a hole and captured this hot water for three pools that we can use if we wish.

Steam!!!

Seeing lots of evidence of kangaroo dung in the campground area so will see as it gets dark if some come around. Also seeing different bird life. We watched a noisy miner and a butcherbird have a bath in the top of an oil drum. Wonder if the miner knows how the butcherbird feeds!