Saturday, February 25, 2012

Cairns Part III

The final day was a long one, 5 hours each way, to visit Undarra lava tubes, about a third of the way across to the Gulf country. We headed out of Cairns and up through the incredibly rich and fertile Atherton Tableland where there are cassowary and tree kangaroo.
Pretty amazing, hey. This is part of one of the lava tubes which can be easily accessed. After our lunch we were taken on a tour of a couple of the tubes which was very interesting, though it was conducted in English so I felt the frustration of the group, but they had Taka and another geography professor to translate or add their own interpretation so all was not lost.
Looking out from one of the tubes. The vegetation surrounding the area generally is savannah woodland but around the tubes it is a really interesting form of dry rainforest which creates a very pleasant micro climate.
The only snake we saw on the entire trip - a freshwater or keelback - I think this is the first I've seen in the wild. It was in one of the tubes looking around for frogs.
On the way back we stopped at this quite famous cathedral fig. Got back to Cairns just on 8pm and then had a lovely dinner at Ochre, a very good place to eat. Some had wallaby, others had crocodile, I opted for the duck and Cal had the lamb.

1 comment:

Dr. Mieke said...

I was fascinated by what you were telling me about the lava tubes ... so very interesting. I'd love to go see them someday.
Wonderful photos, Kevin!