Day 82 - TYTO Wetlands & Murray Falls

TYTO Wetlands

There were decisions to be made in the morning light but having made them, we struck out to the north gain.

Ingham was our significant stop for the day. We had considered Wallaman Falls, a hour's drive inland. They are reputed to be the tallest in Australia, as readers of this blog would already know from an earlier entry and all the intel from fellow travellers was indicating a spectacle but time and circumstances were against us. Needing to stay in phone reception range was a major consideration but Sue, limping from a fall off the bike at Rowes Bay, was probably not in the condition she needed to be for even a short walk to see the falls. As a result, we opted to walk along the elevated boardwalk at Tyto Wetland, in Ingham, with its vast array of birds and magnificent displays of water lilies.

An art gallery, library and cafe/restaurant are a welcome adjunct to this wetlands precinct and we were easily persuaded to turn a coffee into lunch, during which I captured some nice shots of the birdies in the wetlands: magpie geese, jacanas and darters among them.

After lunch, it was further north on the Bruce Highway - only in Qld could the highways be named with such distinct Aussie flavour - and a short stop at Cardwell, one of two small Qld towns devastated by Cylcone Yasi a few years ago, the other being Tully, further north.

Murray Falls

The last fifty or so kms eventually took as west toward another one of the huge ranges which run roughly parallel to the coast in Queensland and the Murray Upper National Park. The picnic/camping area is immediately below the Murray River Falls, which were in full flight. After an initial view of an impressive set of falls which the walkway takes you to with twenty metes, I returned with the camera in those golden moments about half an hour before sunset and scored some classic waterfall shots.

An emotionally draining day had another plug removed when Sue got her first major twinge in her back for six months.

We can't be ungrateful. We have had a wonderful trip so far ... such that it would be unreasonable to expect no bad days. This was one of the lesser ones.

Oh well. The sun comes up again tomorrow and pushes the reset button.