After the excitement in Tully, I headed up to Cairns where I was planning to rent a car to explore the Atherton Tableland. On the way I stopped at a little reptile park, where the highlight was seeing this blue tongued skink AND catching it on my camera sticking its blue tongue out! That was lucky!

Cairns is a really touristy city, and not really my thing, so after getting off the bus, I went straight to the airport to pick up my car. The Atherton Tablelands is the area just inland from Cairns, and is full of rainforests, waterfalls and little sleepy mountain towns. I spent the day driving around stopping into the towns and doing short hikes to the waterfalls. The three largest waterfalls I saw were the Milla Milla Falls, Zillie Falls and Ellinjaa Falls. It was a nice relaxing day just driving around with the windows down and listening to music in the car and enjoying the scenery.

After making it to Cairns, my trip up the east coast is complete. Although I've really enjoyed visiting all the coastal cities and beautiful beaches, I'm excited that I'll be heading into the outback and (hopefully) learning more about Aboriginal Culture. I'll be spending the next 2 weeks or so in the Northern Territory, where half of the land is owned by Aboriginals. I flew from the east coast this morning and have just arrived into the outback town of Alice Springs, and tomorrow morning I'll be off to see Ayers Rock!