Chasing waterfalls - Babinda Boulders, Josephine Falls, Millaa Millaa, Volcanic craters, Curtain Fig Tree, Lake Eacham / 02.11.2018

Our super nice and funny tour guide Jim (I know, I always say that people are cool and funny, but everyone here is just like that) greeted us this morning at 7:45 am at the Nightmarket in Cairns and invited us into his bus. This time we had a few more people in a bigger bus, but that was also pretty cool. Before we finally set off, he told us a bit about the animals and the history of Australia. One noteworthy quote from him is 'Everything in Australia wants to kill you.' After that, to emphasize his message, he played a song about the poisonous and dangerous things of Australia: Deadly Animals by Scared Weird Little Guys. After that, we felt very prepared for today's trip and off we went.

Our first stop was Babinda Boulders, which is a river-like body of water with many large rocks in it. We also got tea and delicious coffee there, and this place has a pretty creepy legend: There used to be a beautiful girl named Oolanda who was supposed to marry a respected elder from her tribe. But at some point, another tribe came into the area and with them, a good-looking talented guy, whom Oolanda, as it goes, fell in love with and in the end, the two fled. Both tribes were furious and chased the lovers, they took the guy and out of sadness for him, Oolanda jumped into the water and screamed for him, causing the stones to emerge from below and pull her into the depths. She became a part of this place and it is said that she still screams for her beloved to this day. Since then, up to 17 people have died between these rocks - almost all of them young men, as they are particularly attracted by Oolanda's voice.
However, Linni and I didn't go swimming here because it was still a bit chilly in the morning.

Next, we went back to Josephine Falls and we were really happy to come back here because the rainforest was just so beautiful. We already knew the way, but this time we stayed at the lower part of the waterfall and just briefly looked up to the place where a piece of our souls would now forever reside.
Jim showed us a super cool water slide down the slippery rocks, which I also slid down and made friends with 2 other German girls who later told us some real horror stories about hostels and jobs during lunch - Linni stayed outside again because she didn't want to catch a cold and was feeling cold, the water was pretty cold too, but after the slide, you felt really warm.

The town of Millaa Millaa, which means many waterfalls, was our next stop, and we visited the Millaa Millaa Falls, which were quite impressive. But the weather started to turn and it got a bit colder, so we didn't go into the water again, but just watched as the water fell from above into the pool in front of us.
We also found a bush turkey that came very close to us, they have bright red skin and a yellow wattle around their necks, males have more than females and the alpha male has the most. In the end, we even saw two turkeys fighting over cookie crumbs, they jumped high in the air, puffed themselves up, and tried to chase away the other one.

After that, we went to a small pub where we ordered our lunch, which was pretty tasty, but not as good as yesterday in the rainforest.

After the lunch break, we continued to a volcanic crater, which was just a huge indentation in the midst of the many fields of Australia, with 2 small shimmering lakes visible inside. Here we also saw our first snake, it was green and rather small but quite long, and even though it looked harmless, it was highly venomous, as Jim told us. However, it only stuck its little head out of a crevice in the rocks and seemed to be more afraid of us than we were of it.
The second volcanic crater was much more impressive because this time it was a 55-meter deep rock pool with water at the bottom, which was supposed to be another 70 meters deep. When you screamed down there, it created a really awesome echo. But we wanted to quickly get back to the bus because it started raining heavily here. At first, I was still excited and happy about the cooling rain, but eventually, I just felt cold, especially because I left my rain jacket at the hostel.

The next bus ride took us to Curtain Fig National Park to see The Strangler Fig - a giant tree that has been completely bound and essentially strangled from top to bottom by a strong vine, preventing it from growing and eventually killing it. Jim also took a group picture of us here, he took a few pictures throughout the day, which we would get next week.

After that, Jim wanted to watch platypuses with us in a pretty murky river, but since it was so cold and rainy, nobody had the patience and because of the rain, you couldn't even look out for smaller waves that the platypus creates when it resurfaces because the water surface was constantly in motion anyway. So unfortunately, we didn't see any, which was a bit sad, but maybe we'll have another opportunity somewhere, sometime, to see one.

Our last stop was Lake Eacham, a turquoise, crystal-clear lake surrounded by rainforest trees. It was now just drizzling a little, which gave the surroundings a mysterious touch, and there was a light mist in the background. Overall, a pretty nice ending, which we enjoyed with coffee and cookies.

On the way back to Cairns, we sang many cool songs together and the atmosphere was great and just beautiful.

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Back at the hostel, we were dead tired and actually wanted to go partying at Gilligan's with the girls Anna, Alice, and Melanie because tonight was also our last night here in Cairns and we probably wouldn't see each other again so soon, but we were just too unmotivated. For a short time, we felt like going again because we had talked about it with a German guy in our room and he then turned on Nena's 99 Luftballons in our room, loudly blasting, saying 'I know exactly what you need,' which revived us a bit, but in the end, we decided to just go to sleep early - after all, we also had to catch the bus to Mission Beach from Cairns at 7 o'clock tomorrow morning.

Song of the day: Home Among the Gumtrees by John Williamson because we listened to the song on the way back on the Highway to Hell, literally (the worst road in Australia with endless Slow Down and Don't Crash signs), and Jim showed us some moves beforehand, and later the whole bus joined in.