14 May 2013 – Undara Lava Tubes

We stopped at 40 Mile Scrub National Park but only stayed long enough to chat to some other travellers and read a bit of the information boards before moving on.  We were tossing up whether to stop at Undara or not – and stop we did – thankfully!  We drove past the many train carriages (which were in fact the onsite accommodation) and parked the van before booking the 1pm lava tube tour.  We had a bit of time to pass so decided to do “The Bluff” walk which we were told is about an hour return.  After finding the start of the track, we headed up hill following our blue triangle guides.  It was pretty warm hiking around here but after some healthy words of wisdom to Samantha, we pushed on.  It didn’t take long to reach The Bluff which was a high point overlooking the Undara village.  The views were gorgeous so we took some happy snaps and then headed back to the van.  It only took about 45 mins return so we went back to the van for some shade and a bit of lunch.  The park ranger soon approached, asking us if we could move our van from the parking area we were in, as a helicopter was approaching and the folk were joining our tour.  We closed the van and shuffled it out of the way and before long the helicopter landed.  It was just an ordinary couple that take a chopper flight once during each of their holidays and this was it, they’d flown in from Cairns.  We even managed for the kids to hop in the back for a picture, unfortunately not for a free spin.  We joined our tour guide Greg and the rest of the folk for our tour, first boarding a minibus and heading out to the Lava Tubes.  Greg explained that there was a lot of pink granite rocks around from millions of years ago and this also crumbles down over the years to form the roadbase that we were driving on.  The trees around were fairly sparse but there was a lot of savannah grasses to be seen.  Upon exiting the bus, we headed for the first of our lava tubes.  We were told how these tubes / caves were formed 190,000 years ago from the Undara Volcano erupting and as the lave flowed down the hillside, the top layer formed a crust which is the cave, as the rest of the lave within kept on flowing downhill.  It’s truly amazing!  The colours of the underside, the sheer size of these tubes and the amazing tree roots which grow down into the tubes are unbelievable… who would have known.  We ended up going through 3 of the tubes, each one amazing, especially the room inside each one… in some cases walking into the darkness for  hundreds of metres.  Apparently they had a big wet season in 2009 and were actually able to swim into the third tube we entered.  I’m not sure I would have swam in the dark into a long tunnel but it would have been awesome for those that did!  After the tour, we headed back to the restaurant area for a free cuppa and here decided that we would stay overnight.  We set up camp and had some dinner and then headed to the campfire area.  They had a lovely warm fire (not that it was cold, this was to set the scene) and a big screen set up and our guide from today put on a brilliant slide show of places in Australia that he had visited and a range of amazing stories to go along with them – definitely worth staying here if any of you come to this area.  [I should note here that whilst sitting around the campfire, another one of Sami’s teeth fell out – finally they are dropping out.]