Day 41- The Tablelands

June 7, 2011- Day 41

Where: Millaa Millaa- Tablelands

Dinner: Chinese food made by Patrick! Ginger eggplant with soy dressing and sesame seeds and beef with bell pepper, ginger and spring onion.

        We started into the Tablelands area today. We drove a bit west away from the coast and today we drove through beautiful mountain and fields. The roads were narrow which made for slightly stressful driving, but it was great to get away from the crowded beaches and cities we've been in recently. I love a change in scenery. We left from Innisfail and went through a section of rainforest. We pulled over at one point to take a short walk down to a waterfall. Because of a huge cyclone they had a few years ago the trail didn't lead all the way to the bottom of the falls, but we did get a pretty good view of it. It was amazing, but it was only the first of many that we saw during the day. From there we turned off onto a different trail which lead to another waterfall that was much wider. It had an awesome viewing spot and we hung out there for a while. Waterfalls are mesmerizing, and this was one of the biggest ones I've seen.

        We drove out of rainforest area for a while into the hills and fields that I mentioned. They were covered in a wheat or hay looking plant with purple tips, so when the light was right some of the fields looked purplish. Really lovely to drive through. We stopped up on a hill at a little creamery. It produced milk and yogurts and there was a small house cafe. We stopped and had some Devinshire tea which is so fun! We each got a warm scone with tropical fruit jam and thick cream to put on it. We ate that along with the local tea that they served us. We had stopped at a roadside stand to buy tea earlier in the day, and it was this same tea that the cafe had. Good thing it turned out to be tasty. We sat out on the porch overlooking the fields and had our tea. You can imagine we were feeling pretty good about our lives at this point. Oh yes, and Pat was using his British accent that he always uses when we have afternoon tea, so I was laughing as well :D The mountainside detour comes through for us once again!!

        From the mountain we drove back into rainforest area and took a road along a “waterfall drive”. Along this road there were three very impressive waterfalls to stop at. One was the longest dropping waterfall in Australia, and one had a big pool you could swim in at the bottom. We got there too late in the afternoon, however, and the pool was in the shade. There was a tour bus of people swimming in the water, and by the looks of them the water was very cold. Hopefully we'll swim in some falls at some point.

Tonight we're parked right next to a rainforest park that also has a small falls in it. We can hear the waterfall from our van. Pat cooked a wonderful dinner of Chinese food tonight. I'm always impressed with what he can produce with only our one little burner. Tonight we was over at a pick nick table chopping up eggplant, ginger, garlic, onions and meat while he had me toasting sesame seeds in the van. The final result was two incredibly restaurant quality dishes. Whenever I tell him it tastes like a restaurant he tells me that he's been to a restaurant once or twice. Haha Mr. Smarty. ♥