Today Hendrik’s parents booked a tour to some of the places around Cairns. All the tours including the ones to Cape Tribulation were booked and this one was the only one available. Hendrik and I were less then thrilled to know we would be going back to Paronella Park and thought it would have been much wiser to just rent a car.

We went with Tropical Horizons Tours and the first stop was Lake Barrine where we had tea and scones, yes I felt like I had aged 50 years in a matter of 2 hours. Then we went on a cruise around the lake which was relatively small. The guide pointed out as many snakes and birds as he could but there just weren’t that many. We didn’t see any cassowaries or a platypus.

Giant curtain fig tree

The next stop was also my favourite which was the Giant Curtain Fig tree. I thought it was pretty spectacular the way the tree grew but it was also impossible to take a descent picture of since we couldn’t back up far enough. Then we were off to the Millaa Millaa waterfall, which was pretty and had lunch by the Mungalli waterfall. There was a 30 minute hike to the waterfall but we didn’t have time to do the hike so that was disappointing. So we didn’t get a good view of that waterfall.

How the tree formed

After lunch we did the Ma Mu Rainforest Canopy Walkway which was nice and our guide was well informed. The last stop was Paronella Park which Hendrik and I skipped and relaxed outside in the café. I wouldn’t recommend this tour to people who have a limited time in Cairns. Go to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation but as a tour it was well organized and the tour guide was very nice and passionate about nature and Australia.

Ma Mu Rainforest

This concluded the trip with Hendrik’s parents and the next day we all had morning flights, and Hendrik and I went back to Melbourne.

It was only south from here and we left Cairns to go south to Townsville. On the way we passed a billboard for Paronella Park and decided to go since I had seen brochures for it and it seemed nice. It was a bit out of the way and on the old road to Townsville and overpriced, like everything touristy I have found out, but it was a nice detour. It’s basically an old villa and gardens, which have unfortunately seen a fire and a few floods and the owners don’t plan on rebuilding, which I think they should.

Paronella Park

Cane Train and sugar cane

Then we passed through acres and acres of sugar cane and saw lots of cane trains on the rest of our journey to Townsville. We had found a campsite in the brochure but without a proper map we got a bit lost and it was a mess because when we called the campsite I think they also didn’t know where they were located and we spent a good 2 hours driving around the outskirts of Townsville.

I was in a mall parking lot, turning around when a lemon of a car drove by me with a heavy-set woman in it who stuck up her middle finger and yelled obscenities. I felt right at home, as if I was back in Philly. In Philly this is a normal everyday occurrence and on a journey to and from the city this happens at least once for sure and sometimes even three or four times. That’s when it hit me that this was the first and turns out only person that had road rage towards me, and believe me there were countless times people could have had road rage with me driving the bus, and this wasn’t even one of those occasions. I realized there is no way I would want to drive the van anywhere near Philadelphia, because I couldn’t even imagine the abuse I’d get, but here, at best when I was driving my worst I may have gotten a beep.

After the fiasco of driving then turning around four or five times we decided we had it with Townsville and would move on. As we were leaving the city, what did we see? The entrance to the campsite we were looking for all along. We could have strangled ourselves and the teenagers behind the desk since their directions were for a wild goose chase.