Mareeba to Tolga - August 2014

After a very bad night with Chloe she woke up feeling almost normal again and it was time for us to leave Mareeba and head to the next destination a massive 22km away!! We stayed at the Rocky Creek War Memorial Park a few kms out of Tolga. Lucy did a couple of hours of school work then we went for a drive to Lake Tinaroo where the kids found a pretty awesome park. 

We wandered around Atherton for awhile, Chloe spotted a Dominoes and decided she wanted pizza, which was the first time she had asked for food in 2 days, but it wasn't open until later that afternoon, so we headed to the Herberton Historic Village. Chloe lost interest pretty quickly but I think that she was just too tired. Lucy was horrified when we told her what the canes in the classrooms where used for! 

A wanted poster made from a 120 year old printing press

It was a great way to spend a couple of hours, Brad & I probably could have stayed longer but the kids had had enough. We went back to the bus, stopping at Atherton along the way to pick up pizza for dinner. Chloe then ate 2 days worth of food in one meal!

There are so many waterfalls in this area and that is what we had planned for the next day. Chloe was much better but she woke up grumpy and was not happy about spending the day looking at waterfalls. Before we hit the waterfalls we stopped in at the curtain fig tree. I had seen photos of this tree but it is much more impressive in real life!

We stopped at 5 or 6 different waterfalls and each one was so different and beautiful in its own way. The first one was Malanda Falls which would be an awesome swimming spot in summer.

The next 3 were off the main road on a loop called waterfall circuit. It was quite strange you would be driving along passing farms and then out of nowhere would be this little pocket of rainforest with a waterfall in the middle of it. At each one of these stops we had to fight with Chloe to get her out of the car and start the walk (they were all really short ones) but once she got going she forgot she didn't want to be doing it and enjoyed herself. 

Millaa Millaa Falls - This one was my favourite so far

Zillie Falls

Elinjaa Falls

None of these falls had a long enough walk for Lucy, so we drove a bit further to Henrietta Creek, which is the start of a 2.2 km walk to Nandroya Falls. Finally Chloe left her grumpy pants in the car and started off at her usual pace - a run.

A quick drink to cool down

And then we got to Nandroya Falls - WOW! Thats about all I can say about it, the photos definitely do not capture the beauty of this spot and I can't describe it except to say it was stunning.

The walk back was at a pretty slow pace, but we eventually made it back to the car, there were a few more waterfalls around the area, but we decided to call it a day and headed back to the bus.