Day 27 Tablelands sights day

For a day packed with lookouts, walks, lakes, trees and drives we had an early start heading to Rusty´s Market in Cairns for breakfast, stocking up fruits & vegs and mainly to buy some fresh bread. Unfortunately the bakery wasn´t open that day without any hint why, so no bread this time.

First stop was at Lake Barrine for 5km loop to see the kauri pines. No luck today: after almost finishing the loop there was a construction site to repair the broadwalk around the kauri pines, so we couldn´t see them. On the 5km loop was otherwise not much to see, so not really worth the walk, but from the car park over a cafe was a beautiful sunny lookout over the lake. So Stuart decided this is the perfect spot for having the delicious small cakes we bought at Rusty´s Market.

After the picnic we were heading to the Tinaroo forest drive (although almost no forest on the way) for a stop at the Cathedral Fig Tree. This tree was very big and impressive. Good signs explained how a fig tree can become over time so big and how fauna & flora is benefiting from such trees.

Next stop on the way was the Mobo creek crater to look out for some wild platypus on the short loop walk. As we couldn´t spot any platypus we drove on to Lake Euramoo for a short picture from the lookout and a look at the impressive Tinaroo dam. Next stop was Lake Eacham to maybe see some freshi & turtles. There were signs to not disturb the freshi and turtles but although we had a close look around the clear water, we did not find the freshi or any turtles, so to see a freshi in the wild still remains on the bucket list.

As we didn´t see a platypus at Mobo creek crater we decided to head to the Yungaburra area. First stop was at the Curtain Fig Tree. On the walk we were also looking out for tree kangaroos but didn´t see any except on the roadsign.

So the last stopp for the day was the Yungaburra Platypus spotting platform. Although we also walked along this little river for over an hour in the late afternoon, we were only able to find some turtles but no platypus. As we did not want to drive back in the dark to our accommodation, we decided to come back the other day to try our luck again...