Day 8: Driving to Townsville

I started my day with a nice coffee with my friend Yvonne before meeting up with Dean and Jenny to head to Townsville. They gave me the option of the quick drive (4 hours) down the coast or the more scenic drive (6 hours) through the Tablelands. 

The tablelands are the fertile rolling hills and plateaus along the Barron river in N Australia. It’s a large agricultural region, that once was home to vast rainforests. Now it’s mainly agricultural area with pockets of rainforest. We took the tablelands route. 

Jenny and Dean know all the best stops along the way and we made lots of good side trips. First we stopped at a coffee and chocolate farm where we got, you guess it chocolate and coffee. Hard to believe. It was of course delicious. I’ve got plenty left to enjoy as well. 

Along our drive we saw some huge flocks of Brogla. They look a lot like a sandhill crane. Tall and majestic, soaring in like little airplanes. 

Our next stop was Yungaburra, where we tried to find some platypus, but we weren’t so lucky. Jenny and I became platypus instead.

Next we stopped at a creamery where Jenny got espresso ice cream and I got macadamia and honey ice cream. Apparently the cows are happy there and we picked up some cheese and a turmeric chai cheesecake as well. Incase you haven’t noticed we had nothing yummy to eat at all. 

Our next stop was the mamu tropical skywalk. It’s a short trail with a few raised walkways over the rainforest floor. You get to walk amongst the trees and they have a bunch of information on the different species. It also has the tallest rainforest tower in Queensland, which I walked to the top of. It was scary walking up cause you can see the ground 100 feet below you because the stairs are metal grate. I didn’t look down. It was too much, but the view was spectacular. 

Along the walk we saw basket ferns (daynijirri) (Drynaria rididula), Hairy Mary (gambit, Calamus moti) which has long spines that grab onto you and the leaves look like palms, native nutmeg, and tamarind, Davidson plum (a flavor of yogurt we bought at the dairy! It’s a native plum), Queensland maple (not a real maple, but what Dean and Jenny’s house is made out of, I think, unless it was red silky oak), Red Silky Oak (not a real oak), and heaps of other species…. Most exciting of all was the CASSOWARY! 

We saw a young, cassowary, it was really cool to see one in the wild, even if it hadn’t come into its colors yet. It wasn’t in the least bothered by us. They are the third largest living bird in the world, and an endangered species due to habitat loss. I was sooo excited and so was everyone else. It was such a pleasure to get to see. 

That was our final stop before Townsville and we headed towns home stopping for pizza and pasta on the way. Overall a delicious and lovely day.