Tinaroo Dam, Atherton Tablelands
We have spent the last four days in the Atherton Tablelands, the mountains behind Cairns, at Tinaroo Dam. Absoloutly stunningly beautiful spot. Peaceful and serene, gorgeous weather. The locals warned its cold and will need jumpers, but their version of cold is very different to ours and the only time we needed a jumper was at night if we weren't near the fire. We still swam everyday, in the dam, the freshwater crater lakes and in the waterfalls.
The highlight of the trip would have to be seeing a platypus in the wild, and seeing dusky rat kangaroos, the only place in the whole world you can see these is between Innisfail and the Daintree. But all this pales in comparison to our early morning fishing trip in the dam. We got up at 4am and paddled the canoe along the bank of the dam, after about an hour and a half of fishing with no luck we decided to head back. When WHAM! I thought my lure had just hit a brick wall, it just stopped dead, then there was a giant splash as the barra launched itself out of the water. Judging by the splash it left i knew it was a decent fish. It pulled out line and bent the rod tip over until it touched the water. It fought like this for quite a while. I think Lee and I might have woken every camper on the dam with our laughing and screaming! When at last it tired and rose close enough to the surface for us to get a good look at him we were shocked. He did not give up just yet though, he took one more run before i got him to the surface again. Lee gaffed him in the lip and stood to pull him into the canoe, at this point we really realised how heavy he was because the canoe nearly tipped as lee took his weight. We got him in the canoe and he filled the floor space. We spent the entire paddle back to camp looking at her and shaking our heads, repeating, holy sh** its a big fish!
We measured her and she was 116cm, and would have weighed about 28kg. An absolute stud fish!
While in Atherton we took a drive to Yungaburra, a tiny little town. We tried two different places to try and buy a decent coffee, and tipped both out. We had a picnic down by the river and went spotting for the elusive platypus. Thinking it would be pretty unlikely to see one, we actually spotted two, both of which we sat and watched for about 15 minutes as the came to the surface then dived for fodd, and came in and out of their burrows. We were well and truly stocked to see such an amazing animal in the wild.
We then headed to Lake Eacham which is one of two fresh water crater lakes formed by a volcanic explosion 65,000 years ago. After the explosiion the hole solidified and the crater has since filled with rain water. They are both about 65 meteres deep and the water is crystal clear. The temp was a little fresh but by no means too cold for a swim. We went for a snorkle hoping to spot some freshwater turtles, we didn't see any but did spot a good size, tasty looking red claw, a local crayfish.
Next stop was Lake Barrine the second of the two crater lakes. We were advised to visit here for the scones, which have one many first place prizes in local shows. The tea house which sits right on the edge of the lake has been owned and run by the same family since the 1920's. And yes the scones were really really good.
Each night we built a fire and cooked damper and roasted marshmallows, Lee taught the kids to whittle, and they sat around the fire at night trying to whittle snakes out of branches.
The next day we drove to Milla Milla, about 35 mins away to take the waterfall tourist drive, visiting three waterfalls. They were all beautiful, my favourite probably being the first with its jagged verticle, mossy rock formations and over hanging vines, it looked like something used in a movie.
Our last day we took the drive around the top of the dam to the dam wall, we did not take a wrong turn because i was giving the directions, we did not drive down a bumpy, narrow dirt track that led to the dam with no room to turn around, and it was not then rather difficult to try to turn the caravan around in space only wide enough to do a three point turn in a car! None of which was my fault!!!
We had a great trip, definately a place worthy of spending at least a week at if you ever have the chance. Wildlife and scenery five stars.
The first few pics are below, stay posted as i will add more from this trip asap.
one very happy girl!!
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