Finally another chance to update my blog. There is so much going on I have no idea when I am ever going to get this properly up to date. But oh, well at least I try!

At the moment we’re in Byron Bay – one of my favourite places so far – a hippie heaven. Tomorrow (now about four days ago!!!) we’re off on a trip to a small town called Ninbin. Apparently it’s the drugs capital of Australia (in a good way) and is full of stoned old hippies and cops that don’t care. We going on a tour with an eccentric old hippie guy who’s mate has grown a tropical fruit forest in his garden! I’m looking forward to seeing what adventures the day will bring!!!

But for now, back to the past!

After leaving the far North we headed South of Cairns via a pretty little mountain town called Kuranda. The peaceful town has rejected modernisation and big business and exists much the way it did 20 years ago. All the shops are locally owned, there is no McDonald’s and the pace of life seemed very relaxed. Perhaps too relaxed though as when we arrived at 3:30pm everything was already closed for the day. After a cursory glance around and some useful information from the woman in the tourist information (which was open until 4pm!) we left along the windiest road ever.

A couple of hours driving took us to Bramstone Beach, an incredibly small village with one shop, a campsite and a motel. We checked into the campsite, which was situated on the beach, and pitched our tent near the beach. We cooked and sat chatting as it got dark listening to the waves crashing against the shore a short distance away. It was an amazing location and we were all looking forward to waking up and looking out onto the beach. But…. it wasn’t long before someone said Crocodile, before we knew it we were all seeing things in the undergrowth that weren’t there and freaking out that a large croc was going to drag us from our tent in the night. Something that was very unlikely but possible!! In the end Katy, Naomi and I ended up picking up the tent and its contents and moving it half way across the campsite on the grounds a croc wouldn’t come that far inland to eat us! Emily and Kat sat watching not quite believing we’d freaked ourselves out so much, but we all got a better nights sleep for it!

After sleeping content in the knowledge we weren’t going to get eaten by crocs the next day we set off for the Atherton Tablelands. The Tablelands is a mountainous range nestled between the Bellenden Ker Range and the Great Dividing Range with an altitude of between 600 meters and 1100 meters. Our main interest of the day were its waterfalls and the Fig Curtain we’d been told was a must see.

Our first stop of the day was The Boulders a stretch of river where massive boulders framed the landscape. Most of the river was unsafe for swimming and it was raining, after a short walk to the lookout we piled back in the car and headed somewhere where we could swim.

Our second stop was Josephine falls an amazing two tiered waterfall with a natural water slide on one side. The water ran over a gentle slope that over time had been covered in algae and was now very slippery. It was possible to swim to the far side of the pool, haul yourself out of the water and make the precarious walk across the (dry) top of the waterfall to the top of the slide. Here pushed yourself over the edge sending you sliding over the algae covered rocks into the water below. The most fun I’ve hand on a water slide in years! Kat and I had been the first ones to the top of the ‘slide’ and the last ones to leave having endless fun sliding on our bums and stomachs into the fresh water pool. But all too soon our fun was over and we had to get back in the car to make the mammoth drive through storm clouds to the fig curtain.

The fig curtain is a number of trees that have been strangled by strangler figs, in time the figs have joined together forming a ‘fig curtain’. Many people had told us this was a must see taking: “10 minutes to walk around”. But I was disappointed, it was big, but certainly didn’t take 10 minutes to walk around and whilst being impressive wasn’t worth the two hour drive across stormy mountains to get there. But Oh well. At least I can say I’ve seen it.

After a long day the last thing we wanted to do was cook plus we didn’t have any food. We arrived back at Bramstone Beach to discover that as it was Thursday everything had closed early, the motel wasn’t doing food because it was Thursday and the shop had closed early because it was Thursday – obviously we should have realised it was Thursday! We decided to drive to the nearest civilisation a small town called Babinda.

It took about half an hour to reach Babinda. We tentatively drove up the main street looking for somewhere foreigner friendly to eat. The street looked like something out of a western set (apart from the tarmacked road), I almost expected some people to come running out of the tavern hiding behind wooden barrels as they shot at each other!

The main pub was a big open room with bright lights full of locals that looked like they had six toes! There were youths outside being talked to by the police masking the pub somewhat off putting! The only other place open was a coffee shop, if we wanted to eat tonight it was going to have to be there. The clientele, who were all eagerly awaiting the start of Thursday night Trivia, looked more favourable than those in the pub despite the comment of: “new meat” as we walked through the door. The staff were very nice finding us a table out of the way of the trivia and the food was pretty good. Soon the locals almost forgot we were there and we didn’t manage to raise another comment until we left with full stomachs ready for our beds.

* Posted by j150vsc on 18/11/2007.