Hanging in the Highlands

Spending most of this week in Yungaburra, in the heart of the Atherton Tablelands. About 1.5 hours west of Cairns, the Tablelands sit at about 3000' elevation comprised of rolling pastures and beautiful lakes and waterfalls. It's also much cooler and less humid than Cairns, with no mozzies either. The best part is that the region is also largely devoid of the mania touristica of the coast.

So I've been happily staying at the "On the Wallaby Backpacker's Lodge", an immaculate and intimate hostel in here in Yungaburra. The proprietor, Paul, leads various local nature trips, and I've been canoeing with him twice so far. Last night, we went for a night paddle on Lake Tinaroo, sublimely gliding along under a perfect starry sky. Using our torches, we spotlighted animals in the adjacent trees-- I managed to bag a very rare tree kangaroo. Awesome!

Got the car mostly kitted out now, waiting on the metal shop to finish fabricating some brackets so I can install my surfboard shelf in the cargo bay. I've got the mattress and linens all sorted out, so I slept comfortably in there last night for the first time. The car is great, the only downside being that it seems to be getting only about 10mpg at the moment. I'm going to have to keep an eye on that.

Each day, a small group comes to the hostel for the various tours, spends the night and leaves the next day. Each night has been spent with a different set of interesting people, sitting around, drinking beers and chatting about our various adventures. I've befriended one resident, Blaz the Slovenian, (pronounced Blosh), he's been here for some nights as well. We both want to head down to Townsville via Mission Beach, so he's going to hitch a ride with me and we'll go down there tomorrow.

Still have lots of pictures to upload, sadly the uplinks here aren't very good. I promise to get them up soon.

Oh, and there's been some requests for amateur porn. Working on that.