Sunday 2 October - Lower Tablelands

After a pretty good sleep we decided to have a leisurely breakfast then head to the lower tablelands - below Cairns.  We headed off around 10am and drove down south past Cairns on the Gillies highway.  After a short stop at Lake Barrine we went on to Lake Eacham where we stopped for a swim.  This is a lovely spot - a natural volcanic crater which is filled with rainwater - beautiful clear water set up perfectly for a swim.  So we lolled around for half an hour or so then enjoyed a picnic lunch and fruit beautifully prepared by Jen.  Here is a sneak peek...

After lunch and a quick wander around we went to Lake Barrine where we had booked a lake tour and eco talk.  Sometimes you are lucky and you get a person with incredible knoweldge and passion about an area.  it is another crater lake filled with rainwater but a real treasure in that it only has the local fish and has an area around the lake which is protected rainforest.  Absolutely beautiful and a great description - seeing different bird life, eels and lizards.

We then went for a drive to peanut world (yes there is a big peanut) and then on to Granite Gorge.  We had no idea what to expect given it was a name on a map with no more information.  "unique" is an understatement.  When we got there we got an outline on a piece of paper of what to see and where to go.  it all started pretty tamely.  Nice wallabies..

We then started "clambering" around one of the most steep, rugged and isolated places that we had been in, following only "dots" painted on the ground.  Some spectacular sights - see the "turks head"

and the dinosaur prints...

 We sort of seemed to be going in the right direction... sometimes...for about 45 minutes... with no sign of other humans.. and seemed  to be finding different dead ends and debate as to whether it was a paint dot or a natural light bit on a rock!!!   I don't have the best sense of direction, the kids were running in all directions and Jennifer was slowly running out of hope.  While I began to get a bit concerned, Jen was starting to think about which child we would eat first when we stumbled back on to the road we drove into and walked back to the beginning of our adventure!!!  This was the most dangerous walk we have done - including places in Asia!!!

We then had an "interesting" experience getting pizza for tea.  Here is the review I put on trip advisor...

This restaurant is now called "Chianti's Pizzeria". It was chaos when we arrived when the cash register was not working and clearly a lot of tension in the air. We ordered 2 pizza's and a garlic bread and were told that they were quite busy so come back in 40 minutes. Which we duly did. When we requested our order the wait person looked flustered when told there were no orders waiting and went to the back to find out where the order was. She was abused in front of myself, and my 10 and 8yo boys. It was really venomous and aggressive toward a young woman from the person running the kitchen to a person who was clearly just trying to do the right thing by us. Flustered and clearly upset she apologised and said we had to take our order again. We were told to come back in 20 minutes. It was not ready. We were told to come back in 3 minutes - after another 7 minutes it arrived. While there we overheard about the other lost orders and the free chocolate cake provided to some customers. We went back to our apartment and found that one of our orders was incorrect and we got a completely wrong pizza. After remaining calm and understanding - particularly given how sorry we felt for the girls taking this abuse, I felt it was necessary to go back (we were staying next door) and informed them of our experience - ordering twice, waiting an hour and 10 minutes for food and then getting the wrong meal (funnily a Margarita - the cheapest pizza!) while listening to people who were just trying to do the right thing get abused!!!
We have had such great food and service it was probably good for the boys to see that it is not always that way!