ATHERTON TABLELANDS

We travelled to the Atherton Tablelands and found ourselves at a place called Lake Tinaroo

Lake Tinaroo is used for all manner of recreation these days

The camp here has this tremendous obstacle course that school and other groups can use

Ello little fella!

And good day to you!

At lake Tinaroo we came across this memorial to the soldiers who trained here to enter the 2nd World War.  Emotionally the 2/16 BN was the Battalion that Karen's father "Ningy" was transfered to and saw his active service.  He was sent to the Middle East and later to New Guinnea.  In October 1944 Ningy lost the sight in one eye and was repatriated back to Australia.  He was transferred for duty at the Marrinup POW camp in May of 1945 eventually discharged from the Army in September 1945.

The following is a brief history of the 2/16 BN.

The 2/16th Battalion was an infantry battalion of the Australian Army, serving during World War II. Attached to the 21st Brigade that was assigned to the 7th Division, the 2/16th was raised in 1940 as part of the Second Australian Imperial Force from volunteers drawn mainly from the state of Western Australia. After training in Australia, the battalion was deployed to the Middle East where it undertook defensive duties along the Egyptian–Libyan border in early 1941 before taking part in theSyria–Lebanon campaign, fighting against Vichy French forces in June and July. At the conclusion of the campaign, the 2/16th remained in Lebanon, contributing to the Allied occupation force there, before returning to Australia in early 1942 following Japan's entry into the war. In August 1942, they were committed to the fighting along the Kokoda Track and then later fought around Buna and Gona. After a period of rest and reorganisation in Australia, the battalion fought around Lae and then took part in the Finisterre Range campaign in 1943–44. Its final campaign of the war came in Borneo in July 1945. At the end of the war, the 2/16th were disbanded in January 1946.

The water in the lake at this time of the year is usually in between the yellow markers of these jetty poles.  You can see here for safety the council have taken the jetty board walk away.

From lake Tinaroo we journeyed to what is called the 'Curtain Fig'.  This fig tree is over 500 years old and started as a seed germinating on a branch of a host tree eventually strangulating the host tree until the host died and rotted away, leaving the free standing fig.

The board walk access trail

Eventually comes upon the massive fig tree

An amazing spectacle

The whole tree is the fig with no sign of the host tree left

You can see in the middle of the picture here one of the massive fig tree roots running off into the woods.

We travelled a little further south to Lake Euramoo which is a lake that has been formed as a result of volcanic activity.

Lake Euramoo

There are Platypus in this streem but unfortunately we weren't quick enough to get a picture of the shy animal:(

So here's a picture of one that was on one of the signs hahaha

We headed back to camp from here and tomorrow will be heading out to look at the 'Avenue of Honour' just near the town of Yungaburra.

I found the following plaques and information a stark reminder of the horrors of war and the 'Avenue of Honour is a fitting tribute to all those who have served so that we may live a life of freedom, something that many people around the world can only imagine what life like ours would be like.

The following plaque reminds us that it is not just humans that have been involved in the horrors of war.  These 'Dogs of war' story reminds me of the horses that served during war and in particular 'Bill the Bastard'.  Bill the bastard was an unbreakable horse and was one that when paired with inexperienced types who came to war, seemed to take pleasure in watching them fall off his saddle in seconds.  

But Bill became a Great War legend, famed for his incredible stamina and for saving many soldiers’ lives in World War 1.

He was one of the 130,000 Australian horses who served in the war and were never to return home.

Like Bill these dogs were casualties of war

 On a lighter note we returned to Lake Tineroo to wake up to a beautiful morning

The night before we spent some time with some lovely people in Giles and Cindy who were camped on the lake as well.  We spoke and laughed about the funny side of back packers and how they tend to like camping right on top of you when there are large spaces available.  Well as it would happen we woke the next day to find Giles and Cindy surrounded!

Hahahahaha!

So we headed into an outer township near Atherton called Kairi and met up with some more lovely people who are also into music in a big way.  Lois and Savoy help run 'The Shed' in Atherton which is a local venue where muso's can get up and jam which we thought that would be a bit of fun.

And we're jammin

The farmer's got a squeeze box!

We're jammin!

And after a fun night we took off the next morning to head to our furthest point north in Queensland of this trip in Cooktown, before we head back south and then across the top of Australia.

Loi and Kaz :)

So we hit the road off to Cooktown

Up Fido Up!