Traveling the Atherton Tablelands with Celebrity, John Nicholas

That's right. Last Tuesday, Jill, Condon, and I hired (rented) a van with an Englishman, John Nicholas, and a German named Jorge. So before we leave Cairns on Tuesday I am running last minute errands when I get a call from Jill and she says " we are leaving a little later, there is a photo shoot going on right now". I assume the group wants to take a picture together. But when I get to our van, I realize it is a newspaper photographer who is taking Jill, Condon, and most importantly John's picture. John was the featured person because the article focused on English travelers in Australia. Jorge was not allowed to be in the picture probably because he didn't understand what was going on and kept asking the photographer what he was doing. Jorge, the man is doing his job. Right as I walk up the photo shoot was over, and I had missed my chance at stardom...there will be other photo shoots..

We had the campervan for 7 days and 6 nights. It came stocked with a microwave, refrigerator, sink, stove, sleeping bags/sheets, and a tent just to name some of the basics. There was room enough room for 3 of us to sleep in the back with the cushions pulled together and two boards underneath to support us. Above our sleeping arrangement there was a loft area where the 2 boys could sleep comfortably. However Jorge is over 6 ft tall and he was too clostraphobic to sleep with his head inside the loft so instead he slept the other way, causing his head to hangout sometimes, and for is pillow to drop all the time. Entertainment for me though. The Englishman would sleep in the tent whenever possible...I always thought the German would need the room more but John would beat him to it. Here is a picture of the campervan!

But we hit the road heading south. Over the first few days we stopped to see crater lakes, swim, hike, and have bbqs. On night 2 we arrive in a small town, Milla Milla. Population 300 people. We stop in at the Millaa Millaa hotel motel to have a drink and charge some of our electornics. We also are looking for a free way to charge our refrigerator battery. I ask a fellow townsman, Ben, about charging and turns out he has a battery charging outlet at his house right around the corner. Great! We get to talking and he learns I am from Ohio and tells me how he has a chat
friend in Lorraine, OH... And another chat friend in Baltimore. This is when I realize Ben is a little different. But either way the girls hang out at the hotel motel while John and Jorge go to Bens house to figure out the battery. Better them than us. Especially after Ben offered up his Internet to us atleast 3 times "Really, you can use my Internet, I have aol, msn chat, skype...". Ben loves the Internet! While the girls waited at the bar, we looked at the Milla Milla newspaper which a single piece of computer paper. The weekly brainteaser did not tease Jill and she ended up being the winner of the week. Her name "Jill from America" will be congratulated in the
following week's paper. Jorge and John get back from Bens house and it turns out the cords for charging were to small/big. But they were not completely empty handed, Ben had cut out the article from the Cairns Post that had the picture of Jill, Condon, and John. Serious celebs!

We left the local bar and went to Millaa Milla Lookout where we slept. At sunrise I got up and tried to take some pictures with my substitute camera, my iphone.

Other sites were Millaa Milla falls, Zillie falls, Ellinjaa falls.

Saw many more small towns. Including Queensland's highest town, Ravenshoe, and Queensland's tidiest town, Atherton. Day 4 gets really good. We arrive at the Granite Gorge Nature Park. Here you you could camp, explore the gorge, and feed wild wallabys. We had an American style dinner of cheeseburgers with corn on the cob and for dessert s'mores. During dinner a mother wallaby came to hang out with us with her baby in her pouch. Here is the best picture I could get! They are the cutest things!

Day 5 we explored the gorge and fed more wallabys. The wallabys in the morning were really fiesty. They no longer seemed as cute. The gorge was amazing, with huge granite rocks all around, it took us about an hour/2 hours to walk through the whole thing. After the gorge we go up north and back towards the coast to Cape Tribulation which you get to by ferry. The cape is famous because it is where the rainforest meets the ocean. None of the beaches allowed swimming though because the cape is also known for crocodiles and boxed jellyfish depending on the season. Sadly, no croc sightings for me.

Day 6, we leave Cape tribulation and go south towards Cairns. We stop for our last night in Port Douglas which is about an hour and a half from Cairns. It is a really pretty town, and happens to be where I got on the boat to go snorkeling. So pretty of a town that one day, when I have money to jet set around the world, maybe I will take a vacation there. A good relaxing way to end the trip! The next day we arrived back "home" in Cairns. FNQ, or far north Queensland, was
beautiful!

P.S. This story blog turned into a novel!