π
2017-10-21 01:01
in Australia, Flying, Nflying, Ntrips, Ozsafari2017, Trips
From Sweers Island, we had an "interesting" flight from Sweers island to Undara, a little Oasis in the middle of the north eastern Australian hills (2500ft or so). It was low overcast most of the time with lots of wind at Sweers, but we got there ok. Landing was actually uneventful.
fuel stop at normanton
I did loose formation flying
Undara dirt runway
Undara had interesting accommodations in railway carriages
Lots of birds causing mayhem
Undara had lots of walks. Sadly we didn't have much time for them, nor did I know about those walks until I had wasted time screwing around a bit, so I only had 55mn in the end to do a walk before our 15:30 lava tube tour. I ended up doing the Atkinson's lookout (3.8km/1.5h) and Bluff return (1.5km/25mn), or about 5km/1h55 in 55mn. It was a bit rush, but I made it :)
Atkinson's lookout
Bluff lookout with view of Undara lodging
Jack, grabbing some internet :)
We then went on our lava tube tour. Turns out that area has the biggest lava tube in the world, although it collapsed in a few places, so it's not the full original 120km length (or so):
After the lava tube tour, we went on an evening sightseeing tour:
little baby joey
At the end of the day, we went to see a cave from which thousands of bats were flying out. They were so fast that I was not able to get pictures of them, but a video shows a bit:
The next morning, I was up early, so I went for the 5.8km/1.5h bush walk which I was able to do in 1h or so, just before breakfast:
ants make those big holes so that insects and small animals fall in it, and then they eat them
those hills are built by termites
that's what they look inside (I didn't break this one)
happy kangaaroo :)
back for breakfast
brown your own toast in the fire
And that was it for Undara, nice location with both lava tubes, and lots of macropods you can see on one of the many walks.
