Undara Lava Tubes

We left Cairns, staying our goodbyes to Steve, Viv, Cam & Dan. We headed west from Cairns out through Kuranda and onto the Atherton Table Lands. It was a nice drive, stopping at Atherton for lunch. Both Melissa and Nat had seen a brochure on the Crystal Caves, which is a shop in the middle of Atherton on the main street.

The shop sells crystals, but also has over $1,000,000 worth of crystals deposited into a manmade cave at the back of the store. You pay ($55) per family and are given miners helmets, a book describing each crystal and sent deep into the manmade cave. What a top place to see so many crystals. It was very good and well worth the $55, if you like crystals.

We continued on to Undara Lava Tubes, turning onto the Savannah Way. The Undar Lava Tubes are West of Townsville and can be found about 15 Km's along the Savannah Way.  We arrived and found the National Park where we camped to be very nice. You are allocated numbered camping areas, which must be booked in advance, due to the numbers of people wanting to camp there.

The main reception at Undara

We set up camp and kicked back knowing this was going to be our last couple of nights camping before heading home.

The girls took great delighting watching a friendly Kookaburra fighting over some bread with a bunch of Currawongs, near our camp.

We kicked back and took in the silence watching a beautiful sunset. Later that night we walked down to the community fire ring in middle of the resort area, where one of the guides was discussing the local bird life. Every night, there is a guide discussing aspects of Undara and its surroundings. These were very informative.

The following day we had a few hours to kill, before our scheduled tour of the Lava Tubes. So we decided to go on a self-guide walk around the camping area. There are several of these walks. It was really good to get out with the girls and have some fun.

Looking towards reminants of Undara Volcano

Later that day, we went on the adventure tour, which lasted 2 hours. The guides take you to set of tubes, explaining how, when and why the tubes were made. It was fascinating to learn how these massive tubes, 3-4 times the size of a train tunnel were made.

Entrance to a section of tube

On the way out of the last tube a friendly Wallaby greeted us, right on que. She was so friendly, just sitting there watching us and eating grass, with a little joey in her pouch.

Over looking the Savannah

We came back to camp and started to tidy up a little, getting things ready for an early get away the following morning.

I would recommend a stay at Undara Lava Tubes. Camping was cheap, $30 family 4, with hots showers and flush toilets. Some spectacular scenery in the area.