Atherton Tablelands

Another glorious morning a little cooler here but the bloody crows are back waking us up just after 6.00am. The lady camping next to us has to much hot water so coffee was easy with no water to boil. Today is big day and we plan to drive over 400km today back to Mareeba. We have not driven south of Musgrave on the Peninsula Development Road (PDR) so we are in unknown territory. It is as expected with good and bad sections and the odd bitumen section for overtaking. We make good progress and arrive in Laura around lunch time. We push on and it is getting hot driving over the mountains so we pull in at Mount Carbine a former Tungsten mining town for a beer. Off again and with the aid of the Air con we push on to Mareeba and have some lunch. Next stop the Caravan Park where we get a cheap rate to camp overnight over with all the backpackers who work on the local farms. It is a bit of a shanty tent city but OK for us.
After a walk down to town and a beer we head back and have some more of that Trevally for tea still just as yummy.
We move down the road a bit to Atherton which is quite a contrast to Mareeba, it’s a lot more tourist looking with out as many locals wandering the streets. We check into the CP and splurge getting a cabin for 2 days. You deserve a little luxury after living in a car for 2 weeks covered in Red Bulldust, which by the way the car still is and will need a full hose out to get rid of some of this crap. We walk the main street but although there are lots of shops not really much for us to look at. It’s a lazy arvo spend sprawling out because we can and it doesn’t take long for our stuff to fill the cabin.
In the evening we watch the AFL final between Lions & the Bullies with the Bulldogs winning easy.