Tablelands Roadtrip

Last weekend it was Roadtrip time :-D To the Tablelands this time, just a few hours from Cairns. It was amazing: lovely group of people, stunning nature, good coffee, marshmellow melting over the campfire while playing games, proper roadtrip music and magic words (New York, Paris, Obama, Lady Gaga, Ghandi) and songs.... oh only one minor issue: the fact that it was freezing at night (literally, there was frost on my pillow and the outside of the swag the next morning), so nobody really slept.

 We got two automatic cars (brilliant, loving it), a tiny Hyundai Getz and a massive Toyota Tarago. Obviously the boys drove the big one and Satori and I the little Getz.... lots of nice roads to have a bit of a F1 drive feeling, cows, casuaries, real alive kangaroos and many, many waterfalls.... We started in Cairns, got everybody in the cars and headed to Mareeba Coffee Works to wake up and get our daily caffeine shot. Then onwards to the Curtain Fig tree to get a group picture and Lake Eacham to enjoy a sumptuous lunch and amazing views (including very cute fresh water turtles), see above. Good times! Time to go to our first waterfall:the Dinner falls and the crater. On to Ravenshoe and the Millstream falls after which we had a bit of a random drive around to find our campsite. Very busy, but free and a perfect spot to have a campfire (oh and there were toilets, always a big plus). We had pancakes for dinner (baked the night before by me and heated up in the coles of the fire wrapped in aluminium foil) and timtams as dessert! Nice.... we played people, place, object which we could count as English practice :-) Time to crawl into the sleeping bags and try to sleep, but as mentioned before the temperature had dropped below 0 degrees Celsius, so that was rather impossible (I could not feel my legs at all......). One positive thing was that we were all up before 8 in the morning getting our stuff back in the car and huddling near the fire.... 

Sunday was Waterfall Day: we headed to Ravenshoe for a cooked breakfast near the I-site there (unfortunately there was a power outage so we couldn't cook the eggs, just some bacon) and took the awesome sightseeing route to the Falls circuit (lovely driving, good corners, incredible views), which contains the Millaa Millaa Falls, the Zillie Falls and the Ellinjaa Falls, but not before we had a coffee at the beginning of the circuit (after that horrible night we were all in desperate need of caffeine, and I mean really really desperate need). Beautiful falls and a great lookout (Crawford's Lookout) on the way to our lunchstop: Etty Bay, where we saw many Casuaries: the big beautiful looking but rather scary birds. Hamburgers, pasta salad, garlic bread, need I say more? Our last stop for the day was Josehphine falls after which we, sadly, had to go home to Cairns again.... Great, but exhausting weekend!

Today I met up with Lisette (whom I first met in Sydney about 1,5 months ago), good to see her again. Tomorrow Connie and I are home alone as it's Debbie and Ivan's 20th wedding anniversary, so I'll be cooking :D Thursday we are going to the Ochre restaurant after college to learn about traditional Ozzie bushtucker (what is it, how do you prepare it and of course taste it) after which it is Food Friday: we are all cooking a traditional dish from our home country/region (I am preparing 'snert' and 'oranjekoek').