I walked into a valley of volcanoes

Yesterday, I discovered a great little bushwalk to a place called Atkinson’s Lookout.

I started out at 6am from my railway carriage at the Undara lodge, just after being woken up by a couple of feathered alarm clocks (Kookaburras) and began my walk. I was curious to get to a vantage point from which I could see the volcanic landscape looking into the national park. The previous day myself and a group from Mareeba had witnessed the mass of water collecting into the still rising 100 mile swamp, named so because it lies 100 miles west of Cardwell on the east coast. We are told it has not filled with water since 1991.

This normally dry country has come alive.

On my short walk, I saw red tailed black cockatoos in great flocks moving through the valleys at a distance. I was pretty pleased with myself that I could actually identify them, identification of animals being a great boost to the Australian male ego.

I was thinking all a while that if you were indigenous or european 200 years ago, walking through this country as I am, you’d feel like you had reached eden. Paradise on earth and a land of plenty.

Such a contrast this is to the normal dry state out here during winter, and presumably short lived with the length of the wet season. Locals call it the green season.
I can see why.

Marcus Brady

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