Terrible Dad pun title. It was the start of our time on the Savannah Way – a tourist route across northern Queensland. After Cairns came the Atherton Tablelands, Undara Volcanic National Park and, with a few stops in between, Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria.
First was the incredibly green Atherton Tablelands. A very twisty but stunning drive up the Gillies Highway (Wanda was not a happy passenger, with forested valley views and sheer drops from her window, took us to Barrine Crater Lake and its lovely 1930s tea house for breakfast. It was then waterfall time – Millaa Millaa and Millstream – with a very relaxed stop in Ravenshoe (Queensland’s highest town) between the two. The Visitor Centre there is a so helpful and doubles as a local history museum and environmental centre. For some reason best understood by the military, thousands of WWII servicemen and women were stationed in this part of Queensland … not really sure why, as the transport connections would have been terrible, the summer heat unbearable and the winter cold unpleasant. A stop at Innot Hot Springs almost turned into Idiot Hot Springs, as when we were exploring the creek bed, Alistair fell out of his thongs onto the hot sand – the water comes out of the ground at about 70ºC! – luckily not burning his feet, using some quick footwork and a jump into cooler water.
We headed west to another of our bucket-list destinations, the lava tubes at Undara Volcanic National Park. We completed the Kalkani Crater Rim Walk on our way into the park, with it pretty-faced wallabies, incredible views of the surrounding savannah plains and collapsed lava tube remnant rainforest patches (semi-evergreen vine thickets) from its scoria cone. We had booked a few tours of the tubes, which is the only way to see them as most are considered dangerous, owing to a buildup of CO2 gases that could cause death. We had the most wonderful guides: Murray in the morning to Collins Road Cave, The Archway, Stephenson and Ewamian caves, and Mel for our evening visit to a sunset spot for champagne and charcuterie board and then to the microbat-rich Barkers Cave for their nighttime flyout. They really helped explain the tubes’ creation, uniqueness, geology, botany and local history. There are lots of tube caves in the area but only six are safe to visit and we managed to take in five of them. It has been unseasonably wet so there was still a lot of water in the tubes, reducing our ability to go deep into them, but they are impressive all the same.
The next day was a long drive through savannah countryside and small, formerly prosperous gold-mining towns to the Gulf of Carpentaria coast. Mt Surprise is not surprising, Georgetown has a terrific minerals exhibit, a comprehensive roadhouse and was our introduction to the Savannah Way Artwork Trail sculptures, Croydon has an amazing history precinct of goldrush-era buildings and is also one end of the Gulflander train, Normanton has a few historic buildings (one being the other terminus of the Gulflander), amazing birdlife and resident crocs (unseen in their river). Last stop was Karumba Point at the mouth of the Norman River. Incredibly popular with fisherfolk, we endured torrential downpours and flowing streets, loved spotting a variety of previously unseen birdlife and explored the little that was open in Karumba and Karumba Point.
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