Today our aim was to go to Innot Hot Springs and Undara Lava Tubes to finish our tour of the Tablelands and surrounds. We checked out Undara online as soon as we had internet access (towards Mareeba from Dimbulah) and found that at $80 per head it was too rich for us so that was out. Oh well, we could've done the free walks but it seemed a little far to drive for a walk so skip that.
We did drive the highest road in Queensland to the highest town – Ravenshoe, and stopped at Millstream Falls, so "Check", done that. Lovely falls, and I bet they'd be a sight during the wet.
Now I'm not usually one to complain about places we come across or visit but in this case, I feel like I can make an exception. I wish someone had told us to skip Innot Hot Springs, major disappointment in our books. We had all been to Mataranka and we had been to Douglas Hot Springs so in comparison we were not impressed. What we saw was a narrow trickle through sand next to an opportunistic caravan park. In the area closest to the carpark, the springs were so hot that they burnt skin and no warnings signs were set up to keep children at a safe distance. Not happy Jan.
Dejected we continued on to Mount Garnet to at least check out a 4wd road between Mt Garnet and Irvinebank. Somehow we missed the turnoff and ended up on the Garnet-Lappa Road, which didn't turn out to be a bad thing. We got to do a creek crossing that was a bit wider and deeper than the Bloomfield Track crossings and lots of rough road and corrugations with some amazing views.
We noticed that we had "Budgie under the bonnet syndrome" (squealing fanbelt) while driving and discovered that we were missing one of our alternator belts, good job we carry spares, it's a bit far to Supercheap. At least we made it back to camp to replace that.
Cheers
Geoff
