Undara Lavatubes

Good Weather

Finally we left the rain behind and got some good weather. We are currently at the beginning of what is known as the Savannah Way. This tracks begins in Cairns and pretty much heads West to Broome in Western Australia. The total length is about 3700 km without detours. There are also several alternate routes to choose. Having finally started on our outback track feels like the real beginning of our adventure.  

long empty roads and roos - The Savannah way
We thought on our first leg from Cairns to Normanton (just underneath the Gulf of Carpentaria) we will encounter the first test for our caravan with narrow roads in poor condition. Well, if you live on the east cost of Australia you haven't seen a major road as good as this. It's wide, not a bump in the road, excellent maintained and apart from the occasional caravan and road train traffic free!

Undara lavatubes

We made a small detour (again fully sealed roads) to the Undara lava tubes. They got formed when the Undara volcano erupted some 190,000 years ago. The lava flow was apparantly about one olympic size swimming pool every second! Over time the top of the lava flow cooled down, but beneath the lava kept flowing and when the volcano finally stopped it left behind those gigantic tubes. The total length was about 140 km - The longest lava tubes in the world. Today a lot of the roofs have collapsed, but some of the tubes are still intact and look like gigantic tunnels. The ones we visited were about 30m wide, 10m in hight and about 200m long. Erosion and water ingress has left behind some beautiful coloured walls and ceilings. 

Undara Lavatubes, a bat, some speargrass and the resort built out of old railway carriages

We didn't stay at the resort, but it is build out of old railway carriages. Certainly a great dining experience.

In the ares grows a grass called spear grass. The individual seeds look like miniature spears that start to twist when they get wet. They can twist their way into the wool of sheep and eventually even penetrate the skin. So the early settlers had to give up on sheep farming pretty soon.

Kalkani Crater

On the way back to the main road we visited the Kalkani Crater. Access is by about 5km of badly corrugated gravel road. So we finally had a 'shake down' of our caravan. Apart from some mashed up Avocados no damage to van, car or passengers.

It's a 2.5 km hike up the crater and walking around the rim. Even Sarah walked most of it. It's very interesting seeing all the basalt lying around and looking down into the crater. It's obviously all overgrown now, but we still enjoyed spectacular views across the vast landscape.

Check out Google Earth for an image of the crater:  https://www.google.com.au/maps/place/Kalkani+Crater,+Mount+Surprise+QLD+4871/@-18.2237267,144.6669688,1515m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x6980fbbd86ac4897:0x45f7ef360bf23be8 

Walk up Kalkani Crater, some pictures looking down into the crater and the vista from the rim walk