Bounce between nature and adventure
Switch your pace to SLO-MO when you visit the Atherton Tablelands and DISCOVER everything from WILDLIFE to waterfalls, writes Carla Grossetti.
I AM ENJOYING A CUP of coffee on the polished concrete terrace at Lumholtz Lodge, 93 kilometres from Cairns, when I notice owner Margit Cianelli striding towards us with an enormous tree kangaroo wrapped around her shoulders, its paws propped casually upon her head. We had been hoping the rare tree kangaroo would make a cameo at this off-the-beaten-track property on the Atherton Tablelands, but Nelson works to his own schedule, so to see him is both a surprise and a delight.
“Nobody can make a tree kangaroo do anything it doesn’t want to do. Nelson is a wild animal,” says Margit, who trained as a zookeeper at Wilhelma, a zoologicalbotanical garden in Stuttgart, before moving to Australia in 1972. The 72-year-old has dedicated the past 50 years to caring for sick and injured wildlife in Tropical North Queensland and is so invested in the Lumholtz tree kangaroo she named the lodge in its honour. Indigenous names for the unusual marsupial are mabi, muppie and boongary, and the scientific name is Dendrolagus lumholtzi, a nod to Norwegian explorer and naturalist Carl Sofus Lumholtz who discovered the animal in 1883. Margit has built an enclosure on her property that is populated with orphaned tree kangaroos, such as Nelson, as well as ringtail possums and ground-dwelling pademelons she has rescued from the pouches of roadkill.
After climbing down Margit’s back, the pendulous macropod regards us with complete indifference before bouncing along the bough of a giant fig tree and using its broader hind feet to reverse into the jungle. It’s a slow and steady exit stage left. “Tree kangaroos have very big bottoms and a long black tail to help them balance. Although they are very agile, and can bounce along and jump from tree to tree, they have to go backwards on steep sections,” says Margit, who is renowned around the world as an authority on the species.
During a beautiful banquet under a velvety night sky, we learn about Margit’s dedication to increasing awareness about the tree kangaroo and providing a sanctuary for native species. And in the morning we head south-west for 18 kilometres to learn about another grassroots approach to conservation. It’s on full show at the Tolga Bat Hospital, where we hear the echolocation calls of microbats, observe the 200-odd resident bats, which include spectacled flying foxes, and learn about the Rescue, Rehab and Release program designed to facilitate a better future for bats.
Our immersive tour of the Atherton Tablelands continues in Yungaburra, a further 17 kilometres along State Route 52, where we spot platypus from the viewing platform at Peterson Creek and bounce across the suspension bridge at the Wildlife and Botanical Walking Track. After lunch at Little Eden, it’s a short drive to the Curtain Fig Tree where the branches of a strangler fig have been braided together over about five centuries to form a soaring structure that juts skyward from the forest floor.
Lake Barrine, some 10 kilometres away, is another ecological wonderland in the midst of Crater Lakes National Park. The volcanic crater lake is set like a gem in the landscape and encircled with wild rainforest. It’s where you’ll find the monumental twin bull kauri pines, which tower above the tree canopy and are estimated to be about 1000 years old. Other off-the-beaten-track sites that deserve top billing on the Tablelands include: Mt Hypipamee, a volcanic pipe crater that is more than 70 metres deep; Mungalli
Farmhouse Cafe, where you can fuel up on the farm’s biodynamic dairy products, including cheeses, milk and ice-cream; and a 17-kilometre waterfall circuit that loops in Ellinjaa Falls, Zillie Falls and Millaa Milla.
Imagine an artist has been careless with their pot of green paint and you will get a visual of the verdant landscape surrounding Nerada Tea Plantation, located on the bony spine of Queensland’s highest mountain range about an hour’s drive from Yungaburra and on the way back down to Cairns via the Gillies Range Road.
As well as being tea territory, the plantation is a wild playground for nature lovers. Stop for tea and treats at the 360-hectare estate and you might also encounter tree kangaroos in the tufted trees all around. The Atherton Tablelands, inland from my home town of Cairns, is the backdrop of my childhood. Yet after three decades of returning home, I’ve now seen it anew. Visit now, as the region is camera-ready for a close-up. DISTANCE: 363 kilometre round trip from Cairns.