Tablelands
Lake Eacham
I camped just outside town and went on a bit of a tourist trail. First I went to the crater lakes east of Atherton, Lake Eacham is a small crater lake with pristine fresh water. It was a bit out of the way but very picturesque and the glossy brochure said it has turtles! What better reason to cycle 40km out of my way. I’d been promised them on Fraser but didn’t see any.
There was a viewing area for looking at turtles about 10 feet above the water – it came with no diving signs too but the days of bombing into the pool in Cairns made it too much to resist so fully clothed I executed a sublime 9.6 power bomb. I’m not sure what it is about it but bombing into water fun 
After spluttering my way out of the water – I still swim like a stone – with lots of disapproving stares from the old people, I noticed that no one was willing to meet my challenge, so I sat down to a triumphant lunch on the grass. There were indeed turtles to be seen but I did obey the signs this time not to feed them. Satisfied I’d seen some turtles I went to see the most visited tree in the world!
Curtain Fig
The curtain fig in Yungburra is a tree that started life in between two branches of another tree and sent root down to the ground. Whether due to a storm or the weight of the fig tree growing on it, the host toppled over and died leaving a fig tree with a root syslem starting about 60 feet from the ground. It looks impressive for about 10 minutes and then its time to be somewhere else. I saw a few waterfalls with some water this time and made it to Ravenshoe just before dark.
Ravenshoe is pronounced Ravens-hoe not Raven-shoe, I got an earful for pronouncing it wrong by some tetchy local – it’s not like it’s obvious how to say it, at least not to me. I met the darkest Aboriginal person I’ve met so far that night, a man with a more Irish name that I do – Patrick Kennedy! How that happened I don’t know but because of our ‘Irish connection’ he invited me to a Kupumurra(spelling?) where the local Aboriginals get together to cook goanna, croc, pig, chicken, cassowary (these are endangered) in a firepit in the ground. It sounded good to me but would have meant waiting around for a few days and I’d already done enough of that. Shame really, could have been interesting trying the different foods on offer.