Day 29 – Tuesday 17 August 2021 – 158km

We woke up 8.20am this morning, later than usual.  The warm doona was welcome during the night.  It is a cool morning.  We booked in for another night, outside the reception there is a beautifully coloured & very large Golden orb spider welcoming us. This caravan park has ducks, chooks, brush turkeys & goats running all over the place, they even have an alpaca & pony in an enclosure for kids & all to enjoy. After breakfast our first visit is to Malanda Falls, only about 400 meters from our van, and right next to the caravan park.  We walked through real rainforest then down some steps & we saw this amazing waterfall.  It looks like the town has made the waterhole under the falls into a swimming pool – very nice indeed.   This has wetted our appetite to see more so we went on a waterfall trail.

Our first stop is at Millaa Millaa Falls, a really beautiful high fall with a nice big swimming hole under it. We admire the falls with a few other tourists, the cars in the carpark are varied with not one Queensland number plate.  Next is only 8km down the road, the Zillie Falls. The walk in from the carpark is only short, but we only get a view of the top half of the falls as the track down to the base is very muddy and rough and not worth the trouble according to a couple that went down the track. Onward to Elinjaa Falls another 2km down the road and this has a paved track down with good steps and the falls are really worth the effort, a really beautiful display as it tumbles over the rocks.

Enthused by these falls we decide to explore further & drive down to Ravenshoe, the highest town in Queensland at 930 metres above sea level. It is lunch time by now we stop into the Popular Café for a burger & coffee. Once again another giant burger that you can’t wrap your mouth around. They certainly know how to make great real old fashioned burgers in the outback, it’s a shame that in the cities they mainly have McDonalds & Hungry Jacks. The directions to Big Millstream Falls are not very clear & it takes us a few wrong turns before we find it. This has a very good inclined pathway down to a viewing platform and the falls are well worth the effort, they are magnificent as well. They are reputedly the widest single drop falls in Australia. The climb back out is a little taxing, we stop a few times to catch our breath.

The road back to Malanda is beautiful in the sunshine, a lot different than yesterday driving through the cloud & rain. We stop at Millaa Millaa Lookout, the views are breathtaking, an absolute superb vista of the region and well worth the extra trouble.

As we come into Malanda we turn off to the Nerada Tea Plantation, Australia’s largest, and drive the 10km out through lush dairy farms. The plantation has more than 360 hectares of tea fields, producing around 6.6 million kilos of fresh tea leaves each year. We order tea & scones but are alerted to some tree kangaroos that have been spotted in a row of trees next to the teahouse. We have now seen our first tree kangaroos, around 10 metres up. They are called a Lumholtz tree kangaroo and are the size of a small wallaby. Amazingly they hop between branches feeding on the leaves of the trees. The tea and scones with jam & cream were very tasty & again full bellies. No dinner tonight. The gentle sound of the Malanda Falls lulls us to sleep. Another great day to be grateful to be alive.