CAIRNS and the ATHERTON TABLELANDS

Villa Carlotta Tour – June 2025

Saturday

I had booked the wrong tour. I knew that from the beginning. As you can (not) see from the pictures, I really don’t like cities, and Cairns is typically touristy. We spent five of our nine days there.

Villa Carlotta provides sleek door-to-door service, pick-up was at 4.30am, and Big Annie shared my Uber. After a slight hitch we found Craig, leader of our select group of eleven women. Check-in was slow, the flight via Adelaide smooth.

I must be destined to have stressful Aussie airport experiences. I left my mobile phone on my seat at Adelaide airport when getting up to wander … didn’t realise until we were at the boarding gate for Cairns; went back to the wrong seat. A helpful lady tried to ring my number, but of course no luck. I asked a cleaner where was the information desk? I couldn’t understand a word she said.

Eventually I found the correct chair. A woman was sprawled there, fast asleep. Gently, I tweaked aside her trailing jersey. She woke with a start.

“You’ve lost your phone? That lady over there took it to security…” A pleasant Indonesian girl led me to where she’d handed in the phone. I gave her a big hug.

We dined that night at Novotel Cairns Oasis Resort. Far too much tough ham and pineapple, and uninteresting tiramisu. But a good night’s sleep, Myf – my room mate – and I falling into a habit of me showering at night, her in the mornings.

Sunday

A coach for 50 people turned up in the morning for our tour round Cairns, driver Joe talking non-stop and very fast.

After a laborious winding drive up the Gillies Range tropical highway. We emerged at the summit, and the Tablelands were stunning, with rolling green hills and valleys just like the Highlands of Kenya. In my mind’s eye, I substituted the green spaces with tea bushes, and I could have been in Tigoni, twenty miles from Nairobi. It was the first of several surprises.

We stopped at Yungaburra Memorial of Australia’s military role in Afghanistan, spotting stone curlews and a lapwing, and board-walked past the spectacular Curtain Fig Tree.

Dinner at the Chinese Restaurant beside our Atherton Motel was a great success. Wine on the house of Villa Carlotta flowed and Craig ordered every dish on the menu. We melded beautifully as we turned and turned the table in the middle to take seconds and thirds. But big Annie had a sore throat and a cough and came wearing a mask.

Monday

The breakfasts at Atherton Motel are excellent – complete with delicious Aussie fruits and bananas.

The historic village of Herberton was an interesting surprise. Its collection of over sixty varied vintage buildings kept us occupied all morning, recalling our younger days of Singer sewing machines, rocking horses, even push lawn mowers.

Tea, cakes and biscuits were served by Joe before watching two pioneer films in the old theatre. We walked the 25 minute river circle in 40 minutes – spotting a few birds and Myf fascinated by the flora. Three hours flew by.

We visited the Tolga Bat Hospital. Blind flying foxes (megabats) and microbats, orphans or wing-damaged, mainly from barbed wire and netting. Many have died from tick fever. Passionate volunteers demonstrated detailed anatomies of different sizes and shapes of these incredible animals; some looking like cute puppies, but, we were told, with vicious bites. Two more hours whizzed by.

Our final surprise was the convoluted man-made tunnel of crystals and fossils, if you were into that sort of thing. Rene’s World. where touching and photos are allowed. We saw the love crystal, and a giant amethyst geode. 

Craig worked tirelessly in the background getting us to choose our dinner menus well in advance and surprising us on the night with complementary wine, unexpected free desserts, even an impromptu offering of free tea or coffee from time to time.

The ladies are jelling well. Jan is a cleaner. Little Annie a dedicated social worker with the homeless and disadvantaged children. Her sister Mardi a self-published poet / author of workshops. Utterly different characters. Big Annie might be suffering from Covid, but insists on joining in, wearing a mask and keeping herself separate. Has sleepless nights, sore throat, vomiting. We try to be polite while fearing infection.

Tuesday

Then on to Mt. Hypipamee National Park rain forest, where we followed the journey of the Barron River headwaters to Lake Tinaroo.

Dinner at another hotel was the worst yet (3 “garlic” prawns and salad and a horrid choice of rich looking gourmet desserts). Craig sent out for a mango sweet, light and just right. Worth waiting for. He is the most attentive of tour guides – ready to go the extra mile and produce unexpected delights. He and Joe, an enjoyable duo, had not met before.

Joe knew his stuff and talked non-stop in a quick monotone, but I couldn’t keep up with him and only processed a fraction of what he said.

My breakfast at the Atherton Hotel was beautifully cooked scrambled eggs, bacon, chipolata sausages, tomato & mushrooms followed by toast, marmalade and coffee. Every day I enjoyed bananas, berries, and yoghurt as starters. We trundled our cases to our enormous bus after saying goodbye to our smiling hostess.

First stop Lake Barrine Tea Rooms. A saunter through a stand of thick rainforest, gawping at gigantic trees vying with each other to reach the light. Joe was in his element, demonstrating with a serrated vine how you can get entangled in the jungle; pointing out the various trees, remarking on those which had toppled to form new undergrowth in the thick forest.

I opted to follow Craig and two others up a longer rougher circular track back to the tea rooms. Knotted roots lay in wait as I tried to keep up. The path steepened. My boot caught in a snag and down I fell. Craig came back as I carefully heaved myself onto my feet, giving him a wry smile.

“You’re going too fast… ” But no harm was done. He stayed with me the rest of the way, encouraging the others to go on.

We had delicious cream teas in individual pots, berries instead of strawberry jam. Then with twenty-five people, we boarded a flat-bottomed boat piloted by a willowy girl with a pony-tail and tight jeans.

Crater Lakes National Park revealed its secrets; crested grebes, enormous eels, turtles, tilapia fish vying for tasty morsels of fruit thrown out by Joy (so named, she said, because she was smiling 80% of the time). I saw a comorant, glimpsed a thin snake among the lily pads. A lovely peaceful interlude before the drive to Yungaburra where we were let loose to forage for ourselves.

Neither Myf nor I were hungry after that cream tea, so we forwent lunch and wandered through a tiny park; we poked around in a shop displaying opals. In no time our hour was up, and we drove back to Cairns, this time along the Kennedy Highway, stopping for a surprise ice cream each at Emerald Creek with its beautiful tables of grained varnished wood and its happy child-like painted walls. The winding road down the escarpment was punctuated by long queues for one-way sections where road works were ongoing since the 2023 cyclones had caused landslides. We glimpsed the MacAlister Range far below through the trees past some heavy machinery.

Our new room at the Novotel Cairns Oasis Resort was way up on the 6^th floor, served by a lift direct from the dining-room. Supper was again a disappointment. My steak was too large and too rare, the fruit salad too chunky and mostly of melon. I picked out the morsels of sliced strawberries and about four pieces of pineapple. Little Annie, who had devoured her Kalamari, finished off my steak with relish. In return she offered me half of her pastry dessert, which was too tough for me.

Conversation was sometimes slow. Diana’s life seemed dull to her (helping her husband who was a Ranger and bringing up two children). Mardi was sitting on my other side. Her poetry is self-published limited editions. She takes poetry courses / clubs / workshops and encourages me to write my biography. I don’t feel like it yet – perhaps never! I’ve revealed so much of myself through my novels. Even writing this diary is an effort.

Thursday

At the Botanical Gardens we were divided into three groups. A volunteer guided us through trees and plants from round the world. Joe tagged along and offered pieces of information. An amazing handkerchief tree with lanky sprouted leaves dropped wet toxins to protect new shoots from insects until they were mature enough to cope themselves. It was a pleasant hour’s saunter followed by Joe’s morning tea break, complete with table cloth, cakes and biscuits laid out on a table beside our coach.

Another coach tour round Cairns to show us the seafront and places to remember, I presumed in readiness for Friday when we had time on our own in town. I relied on Myf for essential information and directions.

Eventually, we came to the Aquarium Café for lunch and a drink on Villa. Another pleasant surprise. Wraps, chicken or ham. We couldn’t eat all of them, so Craig had them put into doggy bags to pass on to the homeless.

We wandered through the Aquarium for the remainder of the afternoon. Excellent, informative, a sea wonderland beautifully presented. I could have stayed for longer, except my legs were getting tired and my brain was suffering from information overload. Craig patiently waited for us at the exit, guarding our backpacks. He pointed the way “home” to the Novotel just round the corner.

Friday

Rather a scrappy day without Joe and the coach. Cairns Museum offered little I hadn’t experienced elsewhere, but the Art Gallery was more interesting in quality, although missing a whole level due to renovations.

In the afternoon we walked to St. Monica’s Cathedral with its contemporary stained-glass windows. Notable absence of the Virgin Mary statue in the main part, although she presided over a side chapel. The Stations of the Cross along the sides of the main body of the church were unobtrusive brown plaques with QR codes to reveal oral explanations.

Saturday

We were all looking forward to our last day of the tour, especially Myf. The train ride up and the Skyrail Cableway down were to be her highlights. Little did we know what was in store, as we arrived at the station to start the Kuranda scenic train ride through thick rain forest. 33km of track, 106 cuttings, 15 hand carved tunnels (1746m in length), 55 bridges, 98 curves.

It was overcast from the start, but we enjoyed some spectacular views through openings in cloud on a couple of lookouts. The weather looked ominous as we clattered up the approach to Kuranda Station and started up steep flights of steps to the village. Myf lagged behind, and at her insistence I left Craig to encourage her upward. As I got to the top it started to rain. Oh well, we were prepared with umbrellas and mackintoshes. (We had three blessed days of full sunlight in the whole nine days of our holiday).

Craig and Myf arrived, somewhat bedraggled and very wet, Myf clearly out of breath. We were encouraged to make our own ways through the touristy village. I donned my mackintosh, pulled the hood over my hat, and marched out in the pouring rain. Taking refuge in an empty art gallery, I had a leisurely conversation with the proprietor, then tramped uphill towards the butterfly sanctuary. The lady at the counter advised me that as it was raining, and the butterflies were not flying, she could not recommend I buy a ticket. I thanked her, consulted my map of the town and made for Birdworld.

Large vulgar cockatoos perched above us squawking raucously at shouting children rushing round the cage. I fixed my eye on one bird and spoke to him softly, soothingingly, telling him to calm down. He cocked an eye at me and shuffled closer, nodding his head, listening. We communicated peacefully for a short spell and the screeching stopped.

I moved on and spotted a docile cassowary. There had been much talk of these rare birds while we were on the tablelands, but no sighting. I took a photo of it for Myf, careful not to include the wire netting cage. Then I noticed a new message from Craig addressed to all of us:

“Has anybody in the village seen Jane? Please ask her to contact me.”

I rang him, putting him on loudspeaker and shielding from the rain. He had finally got through on the telephone to a doctor on Health Direct at 1.15pm, who’d talked to Myf, then told Craig that her heart was at risk and she must go to A & E and see a doctor within four hours. Craig wanted to call a cab, or an ambulance, but couldn’t go with her for obvious reasons.

“I’ll come right away and go with her.”

But Myf did not want to go by cab or ambulance. She was adamant. She wanted to travel on the Sky Rail. She felt perfectly alright now that she was on level ground. She felt like a fraud. I took her to one side; she wouldn’t change her mind. Neither Craig nor I wanted to tell her about the 4-hour deadline. He waved a couple of sky rail tickets at me, and we went to the office. They did not want to take her; there were two stops on the 45-minute journey and nowhere was there any medical facility. But Myf was happy to take the risk. They gave us a gondola to ourselves and fast-tracked us down the sky way.

“If I collapse on the floor, Jane,” she said, “you have my permission to throw me out into the jungle!”

We peered through the lashing rain and swirling clouds, sometimes catching a glimpse of the tropical jungle below. It would help if they’d provided the gondola with windscreen wipers, I observed. We giggled together and arrived safely at the bottom of the cableway. I summoned an Uber, which deposited us at A&E of the Cairns Hospital at 4pm.

Three people were in the slow-moving queue for triage. When our turn came, I needed to speak to the nurse first. Myf knew what she wanted: just clearance to travel back to Perth with the tour first thing tomorrow morning. She felt absolutely fine. Utilising my experience as a volunteer advocate for Age Concern in the UK, I persuaded her to let me speak first and told the nurse of the 4-hour deadline from Health Direct.

“Now she can speak for herself,” I said, giving way to Myf.

I went to sit in the waiting area, where she shortly joined me. The hospital was admirably responsive. Not much later she was called behind the scenes. I waited about 20 minutes, then took her bag to the nurse, saying that I would go back to the hotel, and our tour leader would return in due course.

Our final dinner cruise aboard a sailing catamaran on Trinity Inlet was a pleasant experience, and the generous buffet delicious. On the way back to the hotel at 10pm we dropped Craig off at the hospital with a sandwich for Myfanwy.

I woke up at midnight. Myfanwy had not returned. I messaged Craig.

“Are you still waiting?”

“Yes.”

“Do they know about our departure early tomorrow morning?”

“Yup.”

I decided to message Myfanwy. She rang me back.

“What do you mean by waiting up for me? You had no business to wait up.”

“I wasn’t waiting up ….”

She told me that she had seen the doctor, had countless tests, was still waiting, and it was very boring. But she was feeling perfectly alright, had enjoyed Craig’s sandwich and I wasn’t to worry.

At 2am she tiptoed into our room and got into bed. Later, she told me that she had not let Craig notify her daughter in Perth, until the doctor had finally given her the go-ahead to fly home. Craig got his own back by insisting she use a wheelchair at the airport.

Pam came out of the disabled toilet and Myfanwy got out of her wheelchair.

“She’s okay – she’s in there.”

Craig appeared.

“The bird has flown,” I told him. “But we’re all keeping an eye on her. No worries.”

Our return flight was uneventful, and our cabbies were waiting at Perth Airport complete with a final surprise – goody-bags of bread and milk, courtesy of Villa Carlotta.