It was a bit of a lazy day today, I have to confess. Sunday, the rest day, so that was fitting.
We had a tour of the Undara Lava Tubes this afternoon, so we had the morning to kill. It was also quite cool this morning – MBW put her slippers on – so it was a “sit in the sun and drink coffee” kinda day.
I had some administration to do. Just boring stuff – pay some bills, book some more leave (I don’t actually retire until the end of July and I’m on leave until then). Just boring stuff.
MBW went and lay on the bed and read her book.
It was just one of those mornings.
We are staying at Pinnarendi Station. The Undara Lava Tubes are in a national park (or maybe a nature reserve) about 46km back the way that we have already come. There was a reason for that – really just trying to get that bit closer to our next destination for when we leave here tomorrow, even though it means an extra 92km for Elsie and a bit over an hour in the car for us.
But we will be laughing tomorrow because we are that much closer to Cairns already. Well, that’s the hypothesis, anyway.
We could have gone for a drive, but the nearest township (Mt Surprise – population 138) is about another 25km beyond Undara, and we have been there already.
In the other direction is My Garnett (population 532) about 55km away, but experience tells us that it is likely to be a ghost town on a Sunday afternoon.
So we stayed at Pinnarendi Station and just chilled.
We had to be at Undara around 12.30pm for a 1.00pm kick-off, so we left Percy around 11.30am to give ourselves time to have a leisurely trip to Undara and have a look around the resort there before the Lava Tubes.
Just before 1.00pm we were rounded up into a couple of minibuses and taken on a 2km (or so) trip into the bush towards the Lava Tubes.
Our guide either didn’t introduce himself, or I missed it, but he was a South African gentleman.
Not that there is anything wrong with being South African, but we have been to 2 different nature reserves in the last few days (Cobbold Gorge and Undara Lava Tubes) and encountered several South African guides both times.
You have to wonder if South Africa exports tour guides as a commodity.
The Undara Lava Tubes were great. Created by molten lava flowing at different temperatures and at different times to create something like “a skin on boiled milk”.
There goes any desire I have for a hot chocolate tonight 🙁
Our guide said that the First Nations peeps wanted nothing to do with the tubes, because they see them as being a scary spiritual place. Even though those lava tubes were 120 million years old (… and don’t quote me on that …), there were piles of rocks at the entrance to one of the lava tubes that we were told had come down “only last year”.
The Rangers check the rocks every season to see if there are any loose ones.
Now I have to say that closer inspection seemed to indicate some large cracks in the rock, and there were some large rocks in the ceiling that only seemed to be just hanging on.
So if you did a risk assessment on going in there, I suspect that you may not go in at all. We must have signed a waver when we paid for the tour.
We looked in two lava tubes and they were both more like a cave than a tube … when you consider that a tube is normally open at both ends. And these tubes that we saw were both closed off at one end. But the belief is that the tube only appears to be closed – rather it goes downwards and is full of mud.
Our guide was telling us that they can get a build-up of carbon dioxide in the lava tubes and that is one of the reasons that the Aboriginals don’t like them. The build-up of CO2 can (apparently) bring on a feeling of confusion and impending doom.
I confess that I was also having a feeling of impending doom with the sense that I was at the end of a long cave with rocks that could fall at any moment – potentially trapping or crushing me – and I was reminded of those boys that were trapped in that cave in Thailand in 2018.
I can’t even bring myself to watch the documentary on Netflix about that!
Our guide also told us that the first tube had about 1.5 metres of water through it up until about 6 weeks ago, as a result of the late wet season.
The second lava tube that we went through still had water on it – but only about 30cm deep – and so we were all invited to remove our shoes and go for a paddle along the walkway and into the water.
Cool and refreshing are the two words that spring to mind. It was fun and certainly a highlight of the walk.
We were back to Elsie just after 3.00pm, and back at Percy (Pinnarendi Station) by 3.45pm for a coffee and rest.
It has been funny weather today – cool this morning, hot at Undara but cool inside the lava tubes (as you would expect), and now (5.00pm) it is cooling off to the point that MBW has put on a hoodie.
Tomorrow we are heading off again – north east towards Cairns – although we are staying at a place called Fishery Falls that is about 40km south of Cairns. We couldn’t find anything that we really liked (or could afford) in Cairns.
We had considered staying at Palm Cove – north of Cairns – and having a few days of “beachside” holiday, but there was no availability in Palm Cove for the days we wanted. Plus Palm Cove is about another 65km north of Fishery Falls, so we would need to tow Percy all the way up there, and then all the way back again for our trip home.
It’s a bit of a tricky run into Cairns from here. We would have liked to go up through the Tablelands, but the roads down into Cairns are steep and twisty (some say treacherous), and so instead we are going to head towards Innisfail and then head north.
It only a short run tomorrow – just over 220km – so should be an easy driving day. MBW has advised me that we are leaving early, but let’s see what time we wake up.
3 nights at Fishery Falls, then 2 nights at Paronella Park, and then once Elsie’s nose is pointing towards home and those horses start galloping, there will be no stopping us.
MBW has pulled something out of the freezer for dinner tonight, so it will be a surprise to see what that turns out to be.
There are way too many midges around here and I am getting eaten alive, so I’m going to go and hide inside with the bug zapper.
Maybe I’ll go over to the ablutions block first and have a nice hot shower, and use another squirt of that 13 cent handwash.
Ciao
#Retirement2024
#VanLife