The tour of the Undara lava tubes was booked for 8AM so we got up early and packed up as we would need to leave the resort by 1030 – the tour returned at 10AM.

The Undara lava tubes are the largest in the world as far as it is known – none larger have been discovered at this point in time. This area of north Queensland was very volcanic with over 170 volcanoes active thousbads of yeasr ago. The Undara volcano was not a tall volcano but had a prolonged eruption with huge lava flows that were very hot and fluid. This meant that they flowed a great distance and as the outer layer cooled and hardened the inner lava was still molten and continued to flow creating the tubes as we saw today. Some areas of the tubes have collapsed in creating a microclimate area of moisture loving plants which can be seen on aerial shots – these pics showed the extent of the different lava tube systems flowing from Undara. The areas that have not collapsed are now the lava tube caves, a couple of which we visited on our tour.

There was a huge archway of rock at the entrance to the first cave which was the result of a collapse either side leaving the archway intact. You could clearly see the individual pieces of basalt that made up the archway which was enormous…

The interior of the tube was spectacular with volcanic rock of differing colours and mineral deposits forming down the surfaces of the walls. Tree roots penetrated in and there was a colony of small microbats which lived in the caves.

We visited 2 caves – unbelievably big lava tubes – and marvelled at how they were formed and were still intact in areas…

After the tour we left Undara and Trev and I went to the Kalkarni crater for a look and to fly the drone for some aerial shots. Kalkarni was another volcano near to Undara and the crater was impressive. All the volcanos in this area are now extinct.

Back on the road we all continued on to Mt Garnet for lunch – and stopped at the local fete where we bought some locally baked goods and a traditional sausage sanga and chips!

You know you are getting on when you need to use 2 pairs of glasses to check out your mobile phone….

We continued on and stopped briefly to look at Innot Hot Springs – not very impressive or swim-worthy in comparison to Mataranka/ Bitter Springs but the coffee from the local café went down well!!

Archer Creek free camp was only 12 kms from Innot Hot Springs so we arrived there early in the afternoon and set up. Rosie had her usual cleaning frenzy – how many different cleaning positions are there??

Gordie took the quick-clean way and utilised MacGyver’s blower…while MacGyver had a chat with the neighbours and the blog was in production….

The creek was running and Gordie and Trev jumped in – the water was VERY refreshing!!!

Pushbikes were put into gear to collect firewood (??? Not sure this was the best method – Gordie had a close encounter with a 5 ft brown snake and he and Trev looked precarious bringing wood back riding one handed along the highway!!)

We had dinner around the campfire – fantastic – free camping does not get much better than this!