This evening, we’re enjoying a beautiful time in a treehouse in the town of Tarzali on the Atherton Tablelands. This area is the traditional land of the Dyirbal people, although I also found that the Ngadjon people hold the native title over this area of land as well. So we want to acknowledge the elders of the Dyirbal and Ngadjon peoples past, present and still to come.
This morning we packed up everything in our apartment in Cairns. It was with a bit of added stress and logistics, as we were finally getting replacement tyres fitted to Estelle (after I didn’t quite miss a pothole back on Day 67). We packed everything into the roofpod, but everything that went in the boot needed to get packed into the hire car until the tyres were done. We hung out at a beautiful park right on the Cairns esplanade for a while as we waited, and thankfully the tyres were all completed with about 15 mins to spare to get the hire car back. So after we transferred all our boot luggage from one car to the other, we got the hire car back and headed south west toward Atherton.
There’s a couple of different ways to get across the Great Dividing Range from Cairns to the Atherton Tablelands – the main National Hwy 1 to the north, which is how we came into Cairns, and the Gillies Range Road to the south. Given we’d taken the main road coming across to Cairns, I decided to head across to Atherton on the Gillies Range Rd. It looked cool on a map, but I didn’t realise just how spectacular it was. Apparently it has 263 corners and 800m of elevation change in just 19km of road! It was quite amazing… but about halfway along, Alexander did start to feel a bit seedy sitting in the boot. The poor guy is a little susceptible to car sickness, and looking down at books and activities certainly didn’t help him. We pulled over and changed seats, and opened all the windows, and we made it to the other side of the Range with no troubles – thank goodness.
On the way to Atherton, we passed through the town of Yungaburra. And just as we were about to head out of town there was a sign to a Platypus Viewing Area. I did a bit of a double take, but quickly turned around and headed back. We hopped out of the car quite excited and expecting to see platypus! It wasn’t to be. I did a quick google search and found that people had sometimes had success on the short trail that goes under the bridge nearby, so we wandered down there and did manage to spot some turtles… but no platypus.
We pulled into Atherton for lunch and enjoyed some left over pizza from last night and a couple of sandwiches – again, being super thankful for our car fridge! We dropped into Woolies here for a few supplies for dinner, knowing that where we were heading was a little more isolated.
We started the short drive south from Atherton to Tarzali. On the way we pulled into the little town of Malanda, and the Malanda Falls visitor centre. It was run by a lovely couple who were so friendly and helpful, with plenty of information in the centre about the tree kangaroos that tend to get spotted around the area. We headed across the road for a short loop walk through the rainforest hoping we might spot one ourselves! Unfortunately, we didn’t have any luck – but convincing the kids to walk quietly through the rainforest to try and spot one at least provided a tranquil and quiet walk together.
We arrived at Tarzali and at The Canopy Treehouses a bit before 4pm. We’re staying in a beautiful wooden house that sits right on the edge of a lush rainforest. It’s a lovely house inside with plenty of room, and the views out the front are stunning. We unpacked a few things and then headed off on a walk along one of the many rainforest trails around the huge property. The walk took us down to the creek, and we hoped to have some better wildlife luck here and spot some turtles and platypus. We definitely spotted some turtles, which was lovely. But the platypus proved illusive again! Just not our day for spotting these shy animals.
This evening the kids enjoyed having a spa in the huge bath here in this house. And we played a game together as well after dinner. Just generally feeling really relaxed in this beautiful place.
Mission Beach isn’t too far from here, and so we’re going to adventure down that direction tomorrow.
