Mission beach - Tablelands

Mission Beach

The first night of our trip to Cooktown we cheated and didn't even sleep in the van. We spent the night at Mission Beach with Glen and the boys. Boy can Glenny cook a mean Laksa, lots of fish and prawns...to die for. Had a nice night catching up. The house is situated on the top of a hill and surrounded by gardens and natural rainforrest. He has a fabulous view, I think he has about 4 or 5 acres, not sure exactly.

Malanda

We decided to go inland today, and head for the Tablelands. We turned off the highway just before Innisfail and headed for Milla Milla. 'The drive is truly beautiful, there are canefields on the lower slopes and they are harvesting at the moment. We are often pleasantly surprised at what views are revealed when the cane is cut. Higher up there are wonderful vistas of mountains, green valleys, farms nestled in the hills and lazy fat cows with short legs on one side (so they can walk on the slopes without falling over).

Its quite a climb up the range, and the Cheep Jeep found out what a bit of work was like. She got a bit warm but pulled the van up without a worry. You can still see some of the aftermath of Larry ~ Trees broken off and uprooted, and even a house that was wrecked and hasn't been repaired. Quite sad really, they probably had no insurance.
On to Malanda and we are staying at the Malanda Falls Caravan Park. Will go for a walk later and have a look at the falls.

The falls are not high, only a few meters, but very pretty and they fall into a huge swimming pool. Pity it is so cool, it would be lovely to swim here. Must come back in summer instead of the middle of winter. It is amazing how much the temperature drops when you come up in altitude. It is lovely and warm down on the coast and really quite cold here, yet still the same latitude.