Cairns - Day 1 On the Wallaby

ranoodle31
Jan 3, 2016
6 min read

I apologize for not being able to update this as often as I would like, I have internet on my phone but am not able to update this a mobile only a PC so keep checking for updates :)

We arrived into Cairns late last night, so we checked into our hotel and tried to get a good night’s sleep knowing we had a jam packed 3 days ahead of us.

Early in the morning we go picked up by the tour bus for On the Wallaby which is based out of Cairns, we signed up for a 2 day 1-night trip. We brought all of our luggage out with us since we were checking out, next thing you know the tour bus is like you can only bring 1 bag. Oh lord, so of course we had to scramble to see what we needed to pack for 2 days. Needless to say I wore the same clothes and 1 bathing suit for the same 2 days. After the bus picked everyone up from their hotels, we got to introduce one another and meet our tour guide Laurence (who is damn hysterical) and off we went.

Our first stop was Cathedral Fig Tree. This thing was MASSIVE! A fig nut lands in another tree via a bird during flight. It then starts to root itself within the tree, as time goes on, all of the roots make their way down to the ground and even up taking over the host tree. This host tree ends up dying over decades that the fit tree has taken over, as it steals all of its nutrients and ultimately blocks any sun from getting to it. The tree we saw today was over 500 years old. It is absolutely stunning how intricate the roots are from the fig tree as they wind their way down to the rainforest floor. It was so incredibly wide all the way around as well. I wish I knew what the circumference was around it, but the video I will get to post hopefully shows how large these trees really are.

From there we headed over to a local park to check out two large bull Kauris trees, they remind me of Red Wood trees on a smaller scale. They can grow over 146 feet tall and 20 feet around and are the largest of the Australian pine trees.

We then had the absolute pleasure of catching a BBQ at one of their beautiful swimming areas, Lake Eacham, which is an old volcanic crater. The only source of water that this has is rain water. There are no rivers or streams or any under the crater flows of water that feed this place. The water is almost indescribable…..almost! It was so clear and blue, I was semi afraid to jump in thinking it was going to be freezing cold. Oh lord, totally opposite, it was warm and soft. This is the best water I have ever swam in hands down (well at least till this part in life). I didn’t want to get out of it, but sadly we had to so we could have lunch.

Our next stop was to Mila Mila Falls, and since it had been raining for a few days before we got here, the waterfall was pretty strong. It was beautiful! There was a small pool at the bottom that you could swim in. Normally you would never catch me in a small pool like this for fear of what is on the ground, or under me that I can’t see. BUT I am trying to do new things that I don’t usually do so I went in!!! Holy crap the water was fricken freezing! Mary and I swam out to the waterfall and tried to get pictures in front of it but that didn’t go as planned since the water coming down was splashing everywhere and in our faces and eyes so we couldn’t see and barely get a good expression for a picture. After attempting to grab a few pics we attempted to swim under the waterfall to the rocks behind it. Oh lord, that didn’t go well for me haha! That damn water coming down was extremely powerful, more so than I could ever think. I have no idea why I thought it would be a calm fall of water….dur!!! That water was brutal, so much so that one of the guys on the tour had to help me get out on the other side…the video is quite hysterical if I do say so myself.

After hitting up this waterfall, we headed on another small trip to Dinner Lake Falls and got the chance to look at another crater. This was 427 feet down from the viewing platform to the bottom, and the crater itself is 239 feet deep. It actually is home to some surprising forms of life, it is filled with water that has been largely undisturbed for tens of thousands of years and is covered with a native duck weed that supports a thriving population of freshwater shrimp – possible found nowhere else. This rounded up our trip for the day so we headed back to the small town of Yungaburra where our lodge was to grab dinner and crash for the night, or so I thought).

There were only 7 of us from the whole tour that stayed overnight here so it was nice to get to know some of them a bit better. There were 2 sisters from Switzerland (originally from Turkey), a couple from Thailand, and Will from England, who has been in living and traveling around Australia for the past 2 years. After dinner, we had the opportunity to go for a night time canoe ride to check out some nocturnal animals, only Mary, myself, Will and our kick ass guide Bridgette went. It was really creepy to be out on a lake with only flashlights looking for animals. I think the BEST part of this was how many stars I could see. I have NEVER in my life seen so many stars in the sky and so clearly too. Since some dipshit stole my tripod in Fiji, I have to buy another one so I can take some amazing pictures to share with everyone. We also got to see a ton of nocturnal animals as well, they were: Red Tree Kangaroo, Bandicoot, Common Brushtail Possum, Coppery Brushtail Possum, White Tail Rat, Red Legged Pademelon, Eastern Water Dragon (type of lizard), a few different kinds of birds: Brushstone Curler, Australian Darter (snake bird) and Coronarants and last but not least a spectacled flying fox. Mind you this was all via a 2 hours canoe trip. As if this wasn’t enough, Mary and I had the fantastic pleasure of getting our canoe stuck on an underwater tree! I thought it was quite hysterical and couldn’t stop laughing. Bridgette and Will were like what is the matter over there, we informed them of the situation and Bridgette told us to paddle and rock the boat back and forth. This was even more entertaining I am sure from outside the boat as an on looker, but of course during all of this all I could do was laugh. I just prayed we 1 didn’t tip over and 2 didn’t have to get in the water to get it off the damn thing. We finally rocked ourselves off of it, about 5 min later. After this small debacle we were on our way back to the lodge.

As if I didn’t do enough during the day, Will asked if I wanted to head out to take some pictures on a walk of different animals we could find. Oh hell!!! A walk at night, in a place I don’t know, in the friggan woods??? Sure why not! I wasn’t afraid of getting lost cause it wasn’t far from where the lodge was, it was just all the creepy crawlies that we could find along the way. And about 2 minutes into the walk we encountered a beautiful and nasty grayish spider in its huge web. (GAG!) So of course Will wanted to take a bunch of pictures of it which meant I had to stand fairly close to it with a flashlight on it so that you could see it. I kept reminding myself…try new things….it isn’t going to hurt you…it is just waiting for food (not you)…it still didn’t help that shit creeps me out! During our walk for the next our or so we had the pleasure of seeing a cicada coming out of its shell, multiple different frogs and a salamander. There might have been more but you can imagine at 1am my brain was getting a bit foggy and still is trying to remember everything. We made it back to the lodge a little later on and finally got to bed around 2am….a bed hadn’t felt that good in a long time!