Its Friday evening

So today being my first day off work I decided to make it a long one ... and that it was. Woke at 6:30am for a quick check on one patient I had been changing medications for and a pre-8.00am handover to the doctor covering for my time off.

The at 9.00am I headed south to Innisfail, get some cash from the ATM and fill the car with petrol. Then back north along the Palmerston Highway inland to the Wooroonooran National Park. It is World Heritage listed Rainforest, in the Waribara clan country.

After the damage of Cyclone Larry, a tourist venture called the Mamu Rainforest Canopy Walkway was built involving construction through and above the rainforest on the steep slopes down into a river gorge. The total length of the walk to the end and back is about 2.4 kilometers. It takes a trip through the treetops of a regrowing rainforest ... I read in the information provided that it will take up to 30 years for the rainforest to return to its normal condition after the Cyclone damage. With the canopy half destroyed, the trees that struggled under the shade of the canopy have burst into life with new light reaching down to the forest floor.

The traveling up inland out of the rainforest into cattle country via Millaa Millaa and then to Atherton. A quick stop for lunch ( falafel and a bottle of water ) then further up into the inland dry country where potatoes, cane, macadamia trees, bananas all seem to do well enough, but a lot of irrigation is obvious. You can see the dryness of the local bush around Mareeba ... I took a westerly detour to the Mareeba Wetlands ... a fascinating oasis in the middle of dry bush lands.

Then up to a small town Mt Molloy .. and heading east again, crossed back across the range back into rainforest. Steep gradients down from the tablelands to the coast resulted in a rather slow trip behind a B-Double ( I think that's what they are called ) full of cane for processing.

I did take a look at Port Douglas ... high class tourist town - I can see international tourists coming here, never leaving for the whole of their stay, and naively thinking that is representative of far north Queensland. I did not stay, just came, saw and left ... no thought of conquering !

Then southwards along the coast road back into Cairns in time to pick up a few supplies that I can't get locally. Arrived back home at about 6.30pm and just under 400km traveled.

Tomorrow I will likely take a little less intensely and head just north of Cairns to the Aboriginal Display and Skyroad.

( I have emailed quite a few photos with this entry, but I will take a few out of my post and leave them in the online album for you to look at .. if you can find it )

Catch you again soon !