RHH's photos with the keyword: atherton tablelands

Driving through the Atherton Tablelands near Millaa Millaa we stopped to photograph a large tree that was covered with these brilliant orange blossoms. We later discovered that not only is it not native to Australia but is considered one of the worst of invasive species. It not only infests areas of tropical rainforest but is toxic to native bees, destroying them as pollinators of other species.

Dinner Falls in Mt. Hypipamee National Park has three tiers of which this is the upper tier, but viewed from near the middle tier and from the channel that carries the water further down. These falls are on the Barron River, many miles away from Cairns where the river empties into the sea.

These are more unidentified flowers from Dinden National Park, though I am not even sure they are actually flowers. They may be just bracts from flowers.

The day my wife and I spent in Dinden National Park along the Davies Creek Road was very warm and we decided to go swimming here. The water was cool and very refreshing and the stone bottom made a delightful swimming hole.

The third day of our Australia trip was spent in the Atherton Tablelands. My wife and I had picked up our oldest daughter in Cairns that morning and we went on to Port Douglas that evening. We enjoyed a beautiful day and beautiful scenery. Ellinjaa Falls is part of the waterfall circuit near Millaa Millaa, a beautiful falls that is also a good place to see the elusive Playpus, though we did not see any of them.

This was taken looking up at the top of the Cathedral Fig, a 500-year-old Strangler Fig in the Danbulla State Forest of Queensland. The Strangler Fig is Ficus virens and this tree, its host long since dead and vanished, is over 50 meters tall.

Dinner Falls is actually a series of three waterfalls in Mt. Hypipamee National Park in Queensland. We hiked the track to the falls after visiting the Crater, and old volcanic pipe, which is the main attracation of the park.

"Australia burns!" That was what one of the men who were setting these controlled burns said when we asked about the fires. Taken along the Davies Creek Road in Dinden National Park, this is one of my wife's photos.

This photo was taken along the Davies Creek Road in Dinden National Park, but we saw these all over the drier areas of the Atherton Tablelands. This was an area that had been burned over but that did not seem to affect the insects living in the mounds.

This was one of the areas of Dinden National Park along the Davies Creek Road that we explored. On the maps it was referred to as the upper camping area and it certainly would have been a beautiful place to camp though no one was around. We not only explored the area but swam in some of the deeper pools along the creek with the smoke from the fires that were burning in the park as a backdrop.

There were advantages being in Australia during the winter, but one of the disadvantage was the lack of wildflowers. This was one we saw in a number of different places, and Fizgig has identified it as Blue Porterweed, an invasive in many parts of Australia. The beetle is unidentified. The photo was taken in Dinden National Park in Queensland on the second day of our stay.

On the first day of our arrival in Australia, after checking in at our youth hostel, we drove up the Kennedy Highway, the main route out of Cairns to the Atherton Tablelands. This photo was taken from a viewpoint along that highway and shows the Cairns airport (the city is behind the hill on the right) and the area north of Cairns.

We saw this iconic Australian bird near Millaa Millaa in the Atherton Tablelands on the second full day of our trip. We saw many more besides but this was the first and one of the better photos I was able to get.