Rather than backtrack along the costal highway we wanted to head inland and see a little bit of the Queensland Outback (and spot some Roos in the wild). Having our very own Spaceship allowed us to stop and look around at any point the urge hit us. We tracked a Platypus (unsuccessfully) along a creek in Yungabura, photographed the world's most photographed tree, the Curtain Fig, in a nearby forest, we wandered through the "best mining museum in the southern hemisphere" in Herberton (convincing ourselves in the process that there must be a significant shortage of mining museums in the southern hemisphere) as well as a really nice heritage village in the same town.

As we powered our Spaceship along increasingly isolated roads the topology changed dramatically and although we weren't in the Outback highlighted in most Australian tourism brochures, it certainly seemed like a reasonable replica . By the time we docked in our camp site in the Undara National Park, we were truly in the wilderness of Oz. After setting up camp we wanted to wander the trails around the swamp but our way was blocked by a couple of curious Wallabies (you don't get to say that everyday). After that we were positively tripping over an assortment of Wallabies and Kangaroos- some skittish but most not. The encounters usually started the same way- a tall stretch to check us out (sometimes with a Joey sticking out of the pouch). Once satisfied that we weren't doing anything worth watching they would go back to the business at hand, usually grazing. Is there a more cliched Australian experience than wandering through the Outback bush with kangaroos bouncing all around you?? 

Denied their share of attention the birds were making noises like none we had ever heard- here we were watching Cockatoo's, Parrots, Kookaburras, and various other colour explosions that we would usually only see in pet store cages, and they still only rated second billing.

One of the guides at the Lodge had organized an evening campfire where he talked us through his 8 years of traveling every corner of Australia. The stories were good but the Aussie expressions were priceless. My favourite (and I'm trying to figure out how to work it into everyday conversation); "he had more flash than a rat with a gold tooth". It was a winner with "up earlier than a sparrows first fart" a distant second. 

We booked a trip through the Undara Lava Tubes (ostensibly why we were here) and our guide turned out to be far more excited by lava than any one man had any right to be. The tubes themselves were pretty spectacular topped only by the description of how they were formed- volcanoes in Australia, who knew?