We’re currently in the beautiful Undara National Park, which is the lands of the Ewamian (pronounced ‘Oo-wamin’) people. The Ewamian people have lived on this land for tens of thousands of years, and utilised the lava tubes for many parts of life. We pay our respects to the Ewamian elders past, present and emerging.
We headed off from Hughenden pretty early – we managed to make it on the road by 7am, which was my aim. That meant we’d hopefully give ourselves plenty of buffer time as we drove up the Kennedy Development Rd to Undara. And the buffer was useful – there was quite a few spots of roadworks along the way, as they work to seal the whole road (which I’m thankful is about 90% done – because only two years ago, most of the 300km was dirt!)
We also finally got our first creek crossing on the trip! Let’s be fair, it was really only a puddle, but it was exciting nonetheless. And it’s about as much of a creek crossing as I think is sensible for an SUV!
Unfortunately, about 150km or so from Undara (about two thirds of the way along), I didn’t quite miss a really deep pothole – I caught it with both left hand tyres. And very quickly afterwards, I realised the front left tyre was deflated. We pulled up just on the side of road – it was quite wide and really open at that spot, thankfully. The good news was that only the front tyre had been destroyed (hugely destroyed – it had ripped the sidewall of the tyre apart!), but the bad news was that the rear tyre now had a huge bulge in the side of it, but it was still inflated.
I got to work changing the front tyre. And like a lot of modern cars, there is of course only a space saver tyre. Which is mostly fine – except when you’re on holidays, and the flat tyre you take off the car doesn’t fit in the space saver spot in the floor! Where on earth is it supposed to go?! We rearranged the car boot, and thankfully Daniel was happy to sit in the middle, and we got back on the road. It was an ultra cautious drive for the next 150km, but we made it safely to Undara – and in the end, we really only lost about an hour all up.
We booked a tour package here at Undara – it includes accomodation in really beautiful old train carriages, and a couple of tours, and all our meals. So it was really nice to just arrive after all that stress getting here, and just sit down to have someone else cook us lunch. The main restaurant / bistro / bar area is super open and inviting, and around the edge are train carriages that have had their seating booths made into restaurant tables. So cool! After lunch, the kids had a swim while I sorted a bit of logistics out – a tyre place in Cairns should have the tyres in early next week, and we booked a hire car for a day so that we can still do a planned self-drive trip up to the Daintree that I really didn’t want to give up.
This afternoon we headed on our first tour – Wildlife at Sunset. Our guide Liz took us down into the National Park on a small bus, and we did a bit of macropod spotting – mainly looking for wallabies and wallaroos. We managed to spot a few, but we get the feeling there has been plenty more on other days! We headed up to a beautiful spot on top of a granite crop to then watch the sunset. Liz had brought along a couple of platters of antipasto, and also some bubbles and orange juice, which was a really nice surprise! (I’m sure it was included in the description of the tour – but I booked that so long ago that I’d definitely forgotten!)
After the sun went down, we headed out to one of the lava tubes close by to watch the microbats emerge from the cave – as we arrived, it was starting to really get dark, but you could very clearly see these tiny bats flying out of the cave at full speed. It was surreal to have these things flying so close to you, but not being able to hear them at all! It was an amazing experience, and we all learnt so much about these bats and how they come and go from this cave through the seasons.
Tonight we’re enjoying our train carriages – unfortunately they only sleep two or three, so we’re split across two train carriages. But it’s a very unique and fun experience. They’re little two room carriages – one room with a couch / sofa bed, and one room with two single beds – and then a little ensuite in each. It’s just perfect for staying at a place like this where all the meals and adventures start up at the very inviting, and aptly named, Undara Central. Looking forward to the adventures here tomorrow!
