Well it was very hard to leave Mission Beach but the road home was calling.  Milla Milla was our next stop inland.  There were a few things to see around this area with the waterfall drive being high on the list.  Milla Milla is mainly dominated by the diary industry and with the rolling green hills of the tableland, some of the scenery was very postcard like.

We booked into the Milla Milla tourist park and it was nice to get back to some sensible pricing for caravan park stays.  You certainly notice the difference after being near the coast.

We did a couple of scenic drives around Milla Milla that took you through a lot of the diary farms around the district and also to some walks around the area.  Its a pity they don’t really name the drives, they just list them from 1 to 7 and you can do them as you like.  If you have the time they are certainly worth doing.   We chose one drive that took us along the road towards Ravenshoe but didn’t go all way there.  We did a couple of waterfalls then a short walk along the Hinson Creek Trail then home.  Filled in the afternoon very well.

The Waterfall Drive just out of Milla Milla takes you past four waterfalls and is only around a 20 kilometre drive overall.  It also takes you to the Mungalli Creek Dairy that sells its own range of yoghurts and cheeses and they also do a very nice lunch as well.  A lot of the locals were saying how dry it has been around the area but we were still impressed at how green it all was.   The waterfalls were all flowing really well and it all made for a great day out.  This area with the waterfalls was also very popular for day trippers from the coast to drive to for the day.

Probably the pick of all the waterfalls for us was when we did the drive to Wooroonoonan NP and the walk into the spectacular Nandroya Falls.  This was a 7km return walk and was well worth it.  The walk is a loop and takes you through some unspoilt world heritage rainforest with a lot of interesting features to take in while walking..  The falls  would be around 40 plus metres high and very impressive.  What is also good about these bit longer walks is that most times you are the only ones there which makes it even better.  This would be the pick of our stay in Milla Milla.

We really enjoyed our short stay in Milla Milla but it was time to leave.  Atherton was our next stop for a couple of nights.  This was only a short 40 kilometre drive up the road.  Love these short drive days.  We were catching up with Janet in Atherton.  We used to live next door to Janet in Wickham and had arranged to catch up and go out for a meal.  We stayed at Bonadio RV and Nature Park about 8 kilometres out of Atherton.  This was a great park situated on a farm with a large creek at the back that had a lot of platypus in it.  In the late afternoon you could walk along the creek and see anywhere up to 6 or 8 platypus in the water. 

We also did a day drive out to Nerada Tea Plantation.  This was supposed to be the place that you could almost be guaranteed to see tree kangaroos.  When we were here a few years ago we weren’t lucky enough to see any.  This time lady luck was with us and we saw two tree kangaroos.  This was the first time we had seen them in the wild.  We felt very lucky indeed.

It was great to catch up with Janet and Nikki and both seemed to be doing well since we last saw them.  From Atherton we drove a little bit southwest and stayed for a couple of nights at Pinnarendi Station Stay.  Our drive here took us through Ravenshoe which is Queensland’s highest town, which was also our morning tea stop.  We had stayed at Pinnarendi previously on our last trip through and they were only just starting out and weren’t really ready for visitors at that stage.  It was great to see how far they had come since that time. 

They do meals as well now and Kaye can fully recommend the coffee’s.  Not for me though.  Apparently the breakfasts are also very good but we didn’t partake in that indulgence.  The AFL Grand final was also on while we were there so that was a day of not doing very much at all.  Hot dogs and beers for lunch was the order of the day.  That night we had wood fired pizzas and if you are ever at Pinnarendi we can fully recommend these.  Very moorish and yummy.  They have a couple of walks you can do from the camp ground to some dams which we did both days.  Great hosts and a great stay, thoroughly recommend.

From Pinnarendi we did a 200km trip and stayed at the Moonstone Hill Campsite.  This is in the Blackbraes National Park that  is on the Kennedy Development Road that was a mixture of gravel and bitumen.  Right next to the campground is a fossicking area where you are allowed to look for moonstone.  This is a crystal like rock.  We tried a little bit of fossicking and found a couple of small pieces.  We didn’t really have the right equipment for fossicking which made it a bit hard.  The country here is very hard and rocky and we had trouble breaking into the surface.  Good fun though and filled in a bit of time.

We were the only ones at Moonstone for the night.  As the weather is getting a bit warmer we aren’t expecting to see to many travellers on some of these less travelled roads.  Hughenden was our next stop which was another 180km along a reasonably good gravel/bitumen road. 

Apparently we had been to Hughenden before but it didn’t ring any bells with me.  Kaye could remember it though I couldn’t.  Hughenden is one of three towns that form the dinosaur trail in Queensland.  The other two are Richmond and Winton.  There have been lots of dinosaur fossils found in this area and there seems to be a bit of healthy competition between the towns over this. 

We did a couple of drives while in Hughenden.  One was a 95 kilometre loop called the 4wd Basalt Byway.  We packed a picnic lunch and thought we would do the drive, stop somewhere for lunch then come back into town.  There really wasn’t much to see on the drive.  One lookout stop and that was about it.  The drive took you through some station country but there wasn’t all that much to see.  We ended up back in town just after midday so had lunch in one of the local parks.  After lunch we went out to Mt Walker to the lookouts.  They have set up six different lookouts on top of Mt Walker and you can walk to each one for a different view of the landscape.  They have done it really well and was a lot better than our morning drive.

Its been good to be back travelling again after our extended break at Mission Beach.  It didn’t really take much to get into the groove with setting up and packing for a move.  We are noticing that the weather is getting a bit warmer than we had thought it would.  We are hoping that it doesn’t get to hot for our trip across the centre.