Far North Queensland Honeymoonniversary Adventure, Part II: The Scenes

The scenery in FNQ was beautiful. These should set the scene for the posts to come.

We stayed in three spots on our trip: 

1. Cape Tribulation: "Where the rainforest meets the reef", 
2. The Atherton Tablelands: "Where the dairylands meet the rainforest"
3. Mission Beach: "Where the rainforest meets the beach, but where people pay more attention to the beach"

(Only the first of those taglines is currently endorsed by FNQ tourism authorities.)

Cape Tribulation

Two World Heritage sites meet at Cape Tribulation: the Great Barrier Reef, and the Daintree Rainforest. The Daintree Rainforest is, they say, the oldest rainforest in the world.

Our first evening there, we were treated to a sunset on the beach:

The reef is a few kilometers off to the left.

The rainforest looked like this.

...lots of ferns and vines and tall trees. Such creeks were places we were told to avoid, for crocodile-related reasons.

In Cape Trib, we stayed at a 'farm-stay' on a tropical fruit farm. This was the view from our cabin:

The trees in the foreground are banana trees. That mountain was part of a range we tackled our second day there (pictures to come). The particular mountain we climbed (just to the right of the one you see here, and quite a bit steeper) is called 'Mt. Sorrow.'

The Tablelands

When Colin heard the name 'Tablelands,' he was expecting a series of mesas like the ones in his homeland. In fact, the Tablelands are not flat. They're just high in elevation. And there's lots of food on them (more about that later).

Between agricultural sections are bits of high rainforest and hills (apparently more of it used to be rainforest, but a lot was cleared for agriculture by the early European settlers). Here's a view:

While there, we stayed in a cabin buried in one of the bits of rainforest. Here's the 'driveway' in:

Slightly creepy, but good for the critters. In fact, the place specialized in 'nighttime wildlife viewing.' More about that soon.

The hills of the Tablelands make for a good number of waterfalls. Here's what's supposed to be the most famous waterfall in Australia, called 'Millaa Millaa Falls':

Very symmetrical. Apparently, a number of commercials have been filmed here, including shampoo commercials.

Mission Beach


Our last stop was the most low-key, an area called 'Mission Beach.' With an effort, we managed to not do very much there.

Here's a view of the beach from the beach:

The area had been battered by a cyclone only a few years ago, and was still recovering. But the tourists were fairly thin, and we were just able to enjoy the sounds of the waves. Looking out from the beach were a number of nearby islands.

And here's a view of the beach from one of the mountains:

This particular mountain happened to be rich in Colin-loving mosquitoes. But the view was lovely.

On the way to Cairns


Our flight home was in the evening, and we took our time getting to Cairns airport. One of our detours took us a bit up into the mountains, where we came across this scene of nicely contrasting shades of green:

Coming up:
Animals!