Atherton Tablelands

Dear Family and Friends,

       We are in the Atherton Tablelands which is in Queensland, west of Cairns. On Saturday we drove to Chillagoe, where we went to a natural swimming hole which was really fun. After that we watched the sunset and saw a ton of wallabies by the old railroad tracks. On Sunday we went caving in Chillagoe-Mungana Caves National Park and we went hiking there. In the afternoon we went to the old Chillagoe mine and then we went to the natural water hole again; this time we saw a file snake in the water. Note from Michael: Chillagoe is widely known for the caves in the region that are the result of repeated periods of volcanic activity over geologic time. There was a lot of gold, tin, silver, lead and copper mining here in the late 1800s, up to the 1950s, although it was never profitable. We went hiking in the afternoon at Royal Arch Caves with a ranger.  He showed us lots of neat stuff like cave spiders and bats.  The caves also had a species of cave snake but we did not see any of them.  The caves wound all around underground and had amazing limestone features, including stalagtites (which are the ones that hang down) and stalagmites (the ones that stick up).  The walk was a total of 1.5 km underground. 

Limestone formation of Royal Arch Caves, Chillagoe-Mungana Caves National Park, QLD. This is the outback. One of the signs we saw along the road here said "Next Gas 500 km"!

Stalagtites (they hang down, like the middle of the "T" in StalagTiTe) in the Royal Arch Cave.

Later, we went to a campground called Granite Gorge near Mareeba where I saw wallabies and I also petted them. On Monday morning we watched the wallabies for about 20 minutes then we went on a 15 minute hike.

                                            Travis with a mob of friendly Rock Wallabies.

   A Rock Wallaby contemplates her peaceful life, 

Granite Gorge, near Mareeba, QLD.

An interlude from Karen, with a warning that it gets a bit scientific...one of our main reasons for visiting the Atherton Tablelands, in addition to the diverse fauna, was to see a few tropical forest restoration projects in the region.  We spent a day with Nigel Tucker and half a day with Kylie Freebody, both of whom have worked on forest restoration in this region. We saw a range of tropical forest restoration and natural forest regeneration sites ranging from 5-25 years of age.  Much of the forest restoration here has focused on restoring corridors to connect the remaining intact forest habitat, which is home to the cassowary (the largest Australian bird and an important seed disperser), flying foxes, tree kangaroos, a variety of opossum species, and many other critters.  The oldest site we saw was 25 years old and now has some fairly large buttressed trees.  In one of the corridors they’ve recorded 119 unplanted species which includes a range of understory plants, trees, vines, and epiphytes.  They’ve done studies showing that small mammals are dispersing through a restored corridor that is 1.3 km long.  The results of their work are quite impressive and at some of the sites it didn’t feel like we were in a planted forest. 

Overview of what the Atherton Tablelands look like.  They are closer to the ocean than the Chillagoe area (previous photos) so this region gets a lot more rain.

              Example of one of the restored rainforest sites we visited.  Would you believe that this was a grass-covered cattle pasture about 20 to 30 years ago?

    Monday night we stayed at a hostel in Yungaburra.  In the evening we went night canoeing which was really fun. We saw 2 tree kangaroos, 3 barramundi (fish that can be huge...over 3 feet around!), an echidna, a water rat, and a blue water lizard. The lake was really warm so there was fog coming off of the lake which made an eerie effect.

On Tuesday we went for a hike to a water fall in Wooroonooran National Park (try saying that five times fast). On the way back we saw a turtle which was really cool. In the afternoon we went swimming and there were places at the swimming hole that were about 15 feet deep. Today (Wednesday) we are going back to Cairns and tomorrow we are going to go sailing on the Great Barrier Reef.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Travis (or as my friend Skylar suggests; Travis lord of birds and wool; behold his amazing rock watching powers)