Lake Eacham

THURSDAY, 23 JUNE 2016

Farmland

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Friendly locals

Caravan park dam ...

... camping area ...

... and bananas

Lake Eacham reflections

Looking for turtles

and found a snake!

Jungle walk

Boooo!!!

Good looking couple at the lake

Malanda Falls

Scene outside the Malanda Dairy Centre

It was a warm and cloudy Wednesday as we moved out of Georgetown and headed east.  The road between Georgetown and Mt Surprise alternated between two and single lanes but the surface was good.  We had a short stop at Mt Surprise before continuing to the Atherton Tablelands.  As soon as we climbed on to the Tablelands, the scenery immediately changed from outback to lush, green grazing lands, complete with dairy cows.

Despite obtaining the GPS coordinates from Wikicamps for our destination at Lake Eacham Caravan Park, Doris Tomtom was very insistent that we drive down farm tracks to a paddock in the middle of nowhere.  We decided to stop in Malanda and recheck the address, ignoring the coordinates and were at Lake Eacham in only a few minutes.  Moral: don’t believe everything written on Wikicamps!  Unfortunately, the owners of the caravan park didn’t have a record of our booking and then discovered they had booked us in for Thursday and Friday nights.  A quick move around of some motorhome bookings and a site was found for us.  This is a lovely small caravan park set among the rain forest, which also means high humidity!  The roadway was a bit on the muddy side – something to do with constant rain for the last fortnight, evidently.  We have a drive-thru site with a concrete slab and plenty of shade.  There are lots of little chooks and even smaller chickens wandering around, I have even spotted a mouse.  All this, of course, means that there will certainly be snakes!!!  After setting up and another shower for Himself, we decided to treat ourselves to an early afternoon tea (lunch didn’t seem to happen for some reason) on the balcony at Lake Barrine.

Today was lovely and sunny until about lunch time, when the clouds appeared and the temperature dropped – slightly!  This morning, we visited Lake Eacham and enjoyed a walk around part of the lake – not having the correct footwear did restrict us a bit.  However, we did enjoy the beauty of the lake (along with a busload of backpackers), spotting some turtles and lots of archer fish.  We then stopped at the Malanda Falls which empty into a concrete swimming hole and have a road bridge just above them, but are still pretty anyway.  A very enjoyable lunch was had at the Malanda Dairy Centre before returning to the caravan.