Day 25 Lakeland to Innisfail

Leaving Cape York and heading for the Tablelands Regional, we started early in the morning and were rewarded with some beautiful cloud pics on the way towards Mount Molly.

Then we were on our way to Granite Gorge for a walk including watching wildlife (turtles, wallabies). Unfortunately, upon arrival we were informed, that due too the heavy rains the last days the walk is not accessible, but we could buy wallaby food to feed them and watch the animals in their little "zoo" for the entry fee. One could already see what they meant with "zoo": not very healthy or well looking birds in small cages and a child presenting a snake. This wasn´t what we have read about Granite Gorge at all and as we wanted to do the walk watching wildlife instead of making wildlife dependent on humans by feeding, we decided to leave. On the next rest area, Stuart enjoyed the lookout while we were re-planning what else to do on the way to Innisfail.

We decided to visit Jaques Coffee Cafe in Mareeba. Just upon arrival Stuart discovered the little fruit garden with a banana plant with bananas and a flower. So we started with a little walk through this fruit garden with more fruit plants like coffee and passionfruits. After a brief look at the coffee processing machines we decided to have some scones & a coffee for Stuart to judge whether it is worth to buy some coffee for the travel. Stuart was very satisfied with the coffee, so after some more bird watching we grabbed some coffee and went on our way to Innisfail.

In Innisfail we used the rest of the day to organise a windscreen repair and finding a mechanic looking at our car the next day for a quick look, whether we had to repair something before restocking on food & groceries in the supermarket. Rest of the evening was then reserved for catching up on our remote-work tasks.

To our surprise the evenings & nights & mornings in Innisfail were very cold - temperatures dropped to about 13C, so heating and some blankets for the night would have been a good idea, we realized the next morning waking up with a cold..