Waterfall Tour

When Lori flies in on a Friday evening and leaves early on Monday morning, we usually just have a quiet weekend around town. Lori is very busy at work these days and she looks forward to relaxing by the pool, going for walks and eating out. When she's able to take an extra day, that's when we like to get out of the city on a tour of some sort. This weekend we went on a tour of waterfalls in the area and it was spectacular. It was so much fun, even if we were chilly. We were in the mountains and the Atherton Tablelands so the air was much cooler up there, plus it was an overcast day and the water was cold. It was the first time in the 10 months we've spent in Papua New Guinea and North Queensland that we've been cold.

Our first stop was a natural water slide at Josephine Falls.

The hardest part was walking up the slope next to the slide, but we both went down.

Next was Millaa Millaa falls and this place is magnificent. It felt as if we were at Disney World and the falls were man-made.

These falls have been used in lots of commercials and advertisements. One of the most famous ads was for Herbal Essences shampoo when the model flicks her hair out of the water in a big arc. Some of the girls on our tour tried to recreate the shot.

The next stop was Dinner Falls. These were cool because there is a cave behind the water on the left-hand side.

The tour wasn't just about the waterfalls, we explored the rain forest as well. We stopped to see a massive Curtain Fig Tree.

Our guide told us that James Cameron visited the area and this tree was the inspiration for the trees in Avatar. Apparently he studied lots of plants and animals in this rain forest before he wrote the movie.

We made a couple of stops to see wildlife as well, but sadly the crocodiles, tree kangaroos and platypus did not cooperate. We did see some beautiful butterflies though.

I had my waterproof camera with me, so I shot some videos as well. I stitched them together into a short movie. While the camera is waterproof, it is not water droplet proof. The spray would land on the lens so it's hard to see at times, but you get the idea. It happens really fast, but watch Lori's face after she slides down Josephine Falls. She didn't plan on going down, but for some reason she followed me up and then had no choice but to slide down. Afterwards she was glad she went down, but at the time, I don't think she enjoyed it.

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