Day 10 – Yungaburra – 24 September 2017

As it was getting dark the night before when we got to the Tin Shed we decided to go back in daylight to have a proper look at the harbour with the mountainous backdrop and take some pictures.

I also realised we never even went to see Port Douglas’s famous 4-mile beach the day before so after taking harbour pictures we headed up to the Trinity Bay Lookout, and the 4 Mile Beach Lookout, both with amazing views of the beach, before going down to the beach itself (and getting myself another pie!).

Our next destination was the Atherton Tablelands, which meant heading inland. The landscape soon changed and became much drier and browner for a while, before we got to the green, rolling hills of the Tablelands. Our first stop was the Atherton Tourist Office where we got some very good information from a very helpful lady. We decided to do some of the waterfall trail, and to leave the main bit for the next day.

We also drove past the historic village of Herberton, which I thought would be like Pilgrim’s Rest in South Africa where you can walk around it and look at everything, but it turns out that you had to pay to get in and everything was fenced in! From there we drove a fair bit to get to the Millstream Waterfall, that involved quite a few stairs in high temperatures and we were very hot by the time we got back to the car!

We then drove a few smaller roads with very green fields, interspersed with some rainforest to the Millaa Millaa Lookout Point, which provided incredible views, though we couldn’t quite figure out which way the coast was!

Next we stopped at Pepina Falls before going to Mount Hypipamee National Park where we saw a funny looking bird (Bush Turkey it turns out) but still no cassowaries! By this point we’d been warned about Cassowaries, Tree Kangaroos and Possums crossing the road and having to be careful about hitting them, but we’d not spotted any of them, disappointingly enough! It turns out Cassowaries are an endangered species which is probably why we haven’t spotted any in the wild! At Hypapimee we saw the crater and the waterfall, which again involved a bit of a walk and some steps, so I was definitely getting my steps in!

At Yungaburra we checked into the Yungaburra Park Motel, where yet again the WiFi wasn’t working!! This meant we headed out for a walk/drink pretty much straight away, and it is fair to say there isn’t far to walk in the town! There are a couple of restaurants but just one pub – in the hotel. Nothing else seemed to be open so we settled into the Yungaburra Hotel for a beer and eventually a Sunday roast. The hotel is the second largest timer hotel in the southern hemisphere and is quite an interesting place. We enjoyed the beef roast and few bevvies before heading back for the short walk to the motel. I was very excited to get up the next morning as the platypus viewing platform was within walking distance from our motel and I was very keen to spot one!