First step in the Paradise

In the morning I embarked our touring bus. It circled street of Cairns and slowly filled with my companions for the next 2 weeks. I made already some half a dozen tours in Australia and usually most of passengers were young backpackers from Europe. This time I found myself in company of people of roughly my age group. How reassuring.
Another pleasing factor was meeting on the road other people in the same state of mind as mine...

Our bus climbed steep road. We were surrounded by dense. lush bush. Sugar cane, tobacco, mangoes.. what a fertile country. Finally we reached Mareeba for a short break. We stopped in the local museum while our guide asked two ladies to help him in food shopping.
- We will be back in half an hour - he said - fair enough, probably some savories for happy hours or desserts. We spent half an hour happily enjoying the museum.
I had also a chance to look at other tourist. Mostly in well equipped 4WD vehicles. But also such ever-young couple - how beautiful...

In fact the museum was quite interesting, I did not mind another half an hour, but it appeared to be over two hours. Apparently we hit the road without any food supplies. This was definitely a completely new experience.

We passed Mt Molloy and began descent on the North side of Great Dividing Range. Our driver/guide introduced himself as Buud, or maybe Bood, hopefully not Booed. Quite impressive story - born on the cattle station, many years in the outback, healer, astrologer, accepted into an Aboriginal tribe. Only two things missing - he never ever guided a tour, and never been North of Laura. The FAQ page of tour operator (Frontier Safaris) assured: "..providing an unrivalled level of customer service with friendly, knowledgeable and experienced guiding". Oooops.

On our way we (luckily) noticed  sign of Split Rock. Aboriginal rock paintings. Unfortunately our guide could not tell us much about them, just few general remarks. I could not find too much information in OTHER SOURCES. Ironically, I found a very expressive description of encounters with Aboriginal art in Laura region in a fiction book by young Polish author. But the book is in Polish - lucky me. So I just watched paintings in silence...

More pictures HERE.

Quite late we reached our first camping site at Hann River roadhouse. First encounter with local fauna - this emu was very keen to have his share in watermelon. Luckily we had old soldier on guard...

In the last rays of sun, we set up our tents, ate dinner and went to well deserved rest...

Jump to - earlier - Part1, later - Part3, Part4, Part5, Part6, Part7, Part8