Tag: gorge

Coromandel

First stop today: Hot Water Beach. Well, that was literally hot! You need: low tide (plus/minus 2 hours), a shovel and you’re ready to dig your own hot water pool. The water pouring out is either cold, warm or boiling hot. But you’ll realize it soon enough.

Hot Water Beach

Close to it is the Cathedral Cove. Very picturesque – very touristy. But again, just do the side-walk to a lookout and you’re alone.

Sailing Rock

On partially unsealed roads we passed the Waiau Falls (good for a short swim) and reached our campground at Shelly Beach near Coromandel just before the nice sunset.

Shelly Beach

Atherton Tableland (1/2) – Wallabies!

Short form of what we did today:
• Picked up our rental car (Kia Sportage)
• Took the curvy road till Kuranda
• Tried a few walks, but “River Walk” would have been literally walking in the river
• Admired the impressive Barron Falls
• Escaped the rain at Kuranda and enjoyed the green landscape of Atherton Tableland
• Nice lunch / coffee at “Coffee Works” in Mareeba
• Wine tasting (mango wine!) at de Brueys Boutique winery
• Spotted rock wallabies and turtles at Granite Gorge Nature Park (highly recommended!)
• Talked with a local from Atherton who was on exchange program in Zofingen (close to us)

  • River walk
  • Barron Falls
  • Dinosaur foot prints
  • Turtles
  • Wallaby
  • Wallaby
  • Steffi and wallabies

Cape Range NP – Gorges and Snorkeling

We did short hikes into the Mandu Mandu gorge and Yardie Creek gorge (again, we did a suggested 2-hour, class 4 hike in under about 50 minutes). Sadly, we couldn’t spot any wallabies. To escape the hot temperatures (and the flies) we went snorkeling again, now at the Turquoise Bay where you are encouraged to do “drift snorkeling”: just walk a bit to the south, enter the sea, swim for maybe 20 meters and let the stream flow you over amazing coral reefs.