Oddity Number 2 Monday 3.17.08

We have escaped the Noorla. John goes down early to tell them that, "thank you very much but we just won’t have time for breakfast this morning," while Mary slams clothes into bags and we are out of there. There is nothing to be seen of Joe, Bonnie or Clyde this morning so they may have been up late last night standing guard for us. We are hungry and John stops at the McDonald’s for a deluxe brekkie roll and Mary goes next door to Woolies for bananas. The bananas are better.

We are going a bit north and then heading further inland (west) today. They have had almost double the ususal amount of rain here this year and we cross the Murray river that is still in flood stage. After a couple hours we stop at an info center to get the local scoop on our route for the day and they load us down with maps and brochures. We see a sign for an Italian deli in Innisfail so that is where the Italian immigrants all went when they bailed out of Ingham. We walk around town a bit when we get to Innisfail and do find the Italian deli to get take-away sandwiches for lunch. This is where we turn inland on the road to Millaa Millaa and we immediately start a long slow uphill climb into the outback. Or the bush. We haven't worked all this out yet but pretty much anything that isn't coastal is outback and anything that is "country" is bush. There are several overlooks and waterfalls marked on our maps and our intention is to stop at one of those for our picnic Italian sandwiches. The problem we are having is rain. This is now rainforest country and they average something over 11 feet of precipitation a year. Not Kauai numbers but impressive nonetheless. Our compromise is at a creekside camping area that has covered picnic tables, and the only trouble with the Italian sandwiches is that they were made by little old Aussie ladies. There is a lot more bread than filling but still a cut above our subway experience last night.

There is a waterfall circuit around Millaa Millaa and we do drive that with John dodging some rain for peeks while Mary did her viewing from the car. Our next town up the road is Milanda which is of course home to the dairy center where we look at some of the cow pictures hanging on the walls with names and dates like a bovine hall of fame. Our real reasons for stopping were the ice cream cones and John gets a mango ice cream and Mary had the macadamia-caramel. Very nice. It is really a pleasant day and the high country scenery is very attractive with rolling hills, plenty of flowing water and even a tea plantation.

Our Oddity Number Two stop is in Yungaburra and we are staying at the Kookaburra Lodge. Yungaburra turns out to be a lovely little community in the Atherton Table Lands which is a sort of high prairie. The big attraction (oddity) here is the presence of the elusive Platypus in the stream that runs right through town. Our "Lodge" is really a motel but clean and attractive and host Mike gives us the lowdown on the Platypus viewing. There is a blind at the end of town but he is not optimistic, with the heavy rains lately, that we will have luck. We take a late afternoon walk to the blind and only see a turtle that we try to convince each other is really a platypus in a mobile home. We pause for a beer at the local pub and this is our flimsy St. Patty's Day celebration. The bartender tell us that there aren't many Irish around so we watch a few minutes of the cricket match that has Victoria up by 341 runs over New South Wales in day three. And we think baseball is slow. The sun is starting to set so we go back to the blind but still no activity.

Our dinner is at the Eden House which is the only restaurant open on Monday nights (Nicks Swiss-Italian is closed on Mondays). Mary has the Swordfish with colcannon and John has veal with roesti potatoes and we are very pleased with everything. We compliment the server for having colcannon on the menu for St. Patrick's Day and he think we are giving them way too much credit. It's on the menu every day. It is too dark for a last Platypus peek so we just go home to bed.

Today's local headline: Your New Council Cairns Post (results of Saturday's local elections)