Road Trip Part 2: The Undara Lava Tubes

*Harris's version here.


We found our campsite and unloaded our bags.

The tents.

Our tent.

Maria and I picked one of the tents to sleep in, and Harris discovered that his tent contained bags from whom we assumed to be the last people to stay in it. He went back to the registration cabin to make sure we were in the right place. Maria and I pushed our beds together to be away from the edge, and once Harris came back we went to the on-site restaurant for dinner.

As we walked there, Maria and I marveled at the fact it had been three years since that fateful morning in the bathroom. 


H: Don't you guys ever run out of things to talk about?
K: No, not really. Aww we've been friends for three whole years!
M: I know! I can't believe it!
*pause*
M: Please don't steal all of the blankets tonight.


As we stepped onto a porch, Harris almost ran into a pole and thankfully I noticed. I started laughing loudly at the way he twitched suddenly at the sight of it, and pointed it out to Maria. I also reenacted it a few times.


H: "I did not almost run into that pole!"
K: "Um, yes you did."
M: "Harris, you spent all day kissing the white line, and now you're kissing the pole!"

Maria and I ordered the same chicken meal for dinner, while Harris opted for the Kangaroo. He generously offered us some, but we refused. I couldn’t get the image of the adorable baby kangaroo I fed out of my mind.

"Please don't eat me..."

After dinner, we walked back to the tents in the dark. Maria and Harris almost ran into a bright orange plastic fence, which made me laugh. I then started teasing Harris about his obliviousness in regards to the pole and the fence.

H: “I didn’t see that!”

K: “ 'Oh, there was an oncoming car? I didn’t see that!’ ”

M: “ 'Oh I was driving on the wrong side of the road? I didn’t see that!' "

K: “ 'Oh, there was a cow in the road? I didn’t see that!’ “

M: “ 'Oh, there was a dead kangaroo on the side of the road? I didn’t see that!’ "

K: “ 'Oh, the parking break was on? I didn’t see that!’ "

At this, Maria lost it. She fell to the ground, laughing until tears streamed down her face. We temporarily changed topics when Harris suggested we take a late night hike. We got back to the tent, me firmly refusing to go walking in the dark with the snakes and spiders, and saw a cute little marsupial sitting outside of our tent.

Eventually, Harris scared it away, so Maria and I climbed into our beds and started laughing about the parking brake. Harris left to go on his night excursion, so we went to the bathroom to get changed for bed, and came back. Maria suddenly had a great idea.

M: “Oh my God, it’s like an analogy.”

K: “What?”

M: “Leaving your parking break on while driving is like a kangaroo trying to hop without it’s tail. It just doesn’t work!”

We both started cracking up, and spent the next hour while Harris was gone coming up with more analogies. When Harris returned, we told him a few of our favorites, and he didn’t laugh.

M: “Leaving your parking brake on is like telling Harris a joke and expecting him to laugh.”

Harris rolled his eyes and left to get something from the car. We continued our cackling, and when he came back he told us he could hear our insanity all the way across the campsite.

We tried to explain to Harris why it was so funny, but we were interrupted when a strange voice called into the tent. Harris got up to investigate, and found a man who thought he had the tent that Harris was currently occupying. Harris corrected him and helped him move his things to the next tent, while Maria and I giggled about everything.

Eventually we calmed down enough to go to sleep.

I had set my alarm to get up at 6:30 AM for breakfast at 7 and our tour at 8. My alarm sounded, and I turned it off. About 55 minutes later, Harris knocked on our tent and told us we needed to get up, that it was 7:25 and we needed to grab breakfast and run over to the tour.

If anyone knows me, they know that the chances of me being ready for the day, including being properly dressed and fed, in under an hour are about as likely as Harris remembering to disengage the parking brake... non existent. 

Nevertheless, we tried. We went over to the “Bush Brekkie” and had some cereal, bacon, eggs, and pancakes (which didn’t taste like pancakes). 

My morning face.

Then, I was informed that my glasses and velour sweatpants would apparently be the attire I was going to be sporting on the tour. No dice.

I ran back to the tent to change, and met up with Harris and Maria where the tour was supposed to meet. The tour group had already left, so we were put on the next tour that departed at 10:25.

We went back to the tent. Maria and I crawled back into bed, and began cracking more parking brake jokes and eating some twizzlers.

At 10:15 we walked over for the tour, and boarded a nice, air-conditioned bus that took us to the lava tubes, where we got some excellent photos.

Classic Harris wave.

The fancy bus.

The fancy (cold) pool.

Harris wanted to eat them.

Nice walkway down to the tubes.

A FACE.

Harris taking a photo of darkness.

Lizard!

SUNLIGHT.

Harris even went wading in one of the tubes that was filled with 15 degree (Celsius) water.

When we got back to camp, we packed up and went back to the diner for lunch. One of the same servers from the night before was there, and was still in shock that it took us 6 hours to get from Townsville to Undara.

Waitress: “6 hours? I’ve never heard of it taking that long.”

K: “Well, the parking brake was on.”

W: “Really? Wow your car must be neckered.”

K: “Oh yea.”

H: “Stop. It’s fine.”

After lunch we went back to the car and I got situated in the drivers seat for the three hour drive to Karumba, where we would be staying at the Cassowary House.

I'm on the other side of the car!

Disengaging the parking brake.

Harris had purchased us some chocolate in hopes that the mocking would cease. It didn't help. If anything, it made us more hyper.

Maria: "Harris hit it with the car."

I focused very carefully on driving in the middle of the lane on the proper side of the road. Maria was playing navigator again, while Harris took my spot in the back seat. 


H: "How does the car drive?"
K: "Fine."
H: "See! Nothing is wrong with it!"
M: "So... it was the operator?"


Maria then amused herself with taking photos of the road signs, and of a sleeping Harris.

Apparently cows attack cars.

That's comforting.

Mutant child crossing.

The change in landscape was incredible. One minute, we were in the outback. The next we were driving through the Columbian rainforest.

M: "I'm expecting to turn a corner and see a guy with a donkey and an AK-47 trying to sell us cocaine."

Next, we were in the Rocky Mountains, with evergreen trees lining the roads. We eventually came out of the woods into a lush green field with rolling hills, cows, and wind turbines.

As the sun began to set, we pulled up to our next destination: The Cassowary House.

The Road Trip Part 1: Driving Through The Outback

*Note: the quotations in this story are things we actually said to each other, documented in my notebook and on my phone. Also, Harris is the only person who has ever spent this much time with Maria and I alone. According to him, we are not nearly as funny as we think we are. Harris's side of the story here.

Early in the week, Harris suggested that we take a road trip up to Cairns (pronounced "Cans", unless you're Harris and then its "Carns" even after being corrected by locals). His flight to Palau was leaving on Monday night, so we decided to leave on Saturday morning and take a little detour and see the Undara Lava Tubes out to the West. 

At 6 AM on Saturday, we began packing up our things in anticipation for the cab’s arrival to take us to the rental car building. Harris offered to drive, and Maria was sitting up front and had been given the task of navigating because it was likely that I wouldn’t be paying much attention to what was going on and Maria tends to be better with things like reading maps and being observant. I was camped out in the back with the bags (and a bag of twizzlers that I was hoarding), on the passenger’s side of the car. Obviously, I forgot several important things, so once we got the rental car, Harris was kind enough to go back to the dorm before heading out.

Navigator and the Driver.

The car.

In Australia, the driver is on the right side of the car and rides the left side of the road. Based on Harris’ driving, this change could be assumed to be incredibly hard to handle, as he spent most of his time with the car hovering on or over the white line on the passengers side. Maria was kind enough to point this out to Harris on more than one occasion.

Kelley: "You have no idea where you are going."

Harris: “It’s okay, Maria is here, so we’ll get there.”

Maria: “Only if you stay in your lane.”

We started our journey by heading north to go to the Frosty Mango, which apparently had the best ice cream in Queensland.

The Frosty Mango

Ice cream for breakfast. Yum.

Contemplating Harris-y things whilst eating mint ice cream
("It tasted like toothpaste.")

After we had ice cream, Maria opened her car door and a plastic bag flew out. Being the environmentalist that she is, she chased it down. Being the great friend I am, I took pictures.

Noooo it's getting away!

Not the napkin, too!

We got back into the car and headed south, to go to Paluma, which had beautiful rainforest views and some waterfalls. We pulled up to one waterfall and got out to go look and take some pictures. I was leading the way, and looking down as I navigated through the rocks.

M: “Kelley, stop.”

K: “What?”

H: “People are skinny dipping over there.”

A family with a small daughter were in fact skinny dipping underneath the waterfall. Keep in mind, this waterfall was right by the road, so there wasn't any seclusion or protection from passing cars.

We turned around immediately, and started walking downstream, taking pictures that didn’t include naked people.

Not pictured: naked people on the other side of the bridge.

Contemplating more Harris-y things.

When we finished the photo shoot, we climbed back up the hill and stopped at the restroom facilities. Maria was hesitant to go in the bathroom, and had to investigate before committing. Then she locked herself in and couldn't open the door.

Real fear.

When she managed to get herself out, we got back in the car and continued driving up the windy road with Harris consistently riding the white line and running over large sticks and branches. At one point, a stick got lodged in the rear bumper and he had to get out to remove it.

Checking for damages.

Removing the large stick/small tree from the bumper.

We made it to the top of the mountain, and looked out at the breathtaking view.

A few minutes later, we heard voices. It was the naked couple from before, only now they were wearing clothes. We walked away briskly and went back to the car to decide what to do for lunch. As we sat waiting, the couple walked by and actually spoke to us.

“Too cold for a swim, eh?”

We laughed uncomfortably, and they got back into their car with their daughter and drove off.

We then started heading down the winding road. After running over a particularly large branch and hearing us complain, Harris spoke up.

H: “I don’t think I hit that branch on the way up here.”

K: “Harris, I don’t think there is a branch you didn’t hit on the way up here.”

We managed to make it down alive. Harris turned back onto the highway.

M: “Harris?”

H: “Yea?”

M: “You’re on the wrong side of the road.”

So began the long drive to the Undara Lava tubes, where we would be spending the night at a campsite. This required a lengthy drive through the Australian Outback. The landscape was beautiful, and reminded me of the land in West Texas, only instead of dead deer on the roads, there were dead kangaroos.

Looks like Texas to me.

Whenever we saw living kangaroos, Harris slowed down on the highway (we were literally the only people on the road) so we could take pictures.

At one point, we found a large bird in the tall grass by the road. We though it might have been a Cassowary, so I decided to get out of the car to investigate.

NOTE: Cassowaries are large birds native to Australia that can grow up to 6 feet tall. They look incredibly reptilian, and we were really hoping to see some when we stayed at the Cassowary House near Cairns the following evening. They are one of two species of birds that have been responsible for human fatalities.

It wasn’t a Cassowary.

Not a Cassowary. 

Yay for still being alive.

As we continued, we came across a “Historical Monument”, which Harris just had to stop at.

It was literally six columns of granite with information about how the road was built.

There was a map, and we looked at it to try and see if there would be any food coming up.

We spent awhile trying to calculate how long it would be until we found food.

M: “There’s a picture of a knife and fork!”

H: “That must mean food!”

M: “Or cannibals.”

We came across a gas station, and stopped to eat lunch. 

Maria: "Well, I need all three!"

I got a beef burger, and Maria got a chicken burger that was generously filled with both white and dark meat. Harris and I both got some undercooked fries as well.

We got back on the road. The car was listing again to the left, and occasionally a loud *brrrrrrr* would emit from the tires running over the grooves in the white line. Harris was chastising us again for our complaining at his driving. Maria spoke up.

H: “I am a safe driver at all times.”

M: “You are off the white line, at all times.”

*Brrrrrrrrr*

We broke out into uproarious laughter as his tendency to go left was undeniably proven (with impeccable timing). Harris ignored us (theme of the weekend).

After we had ridden for about 200 kilometers, Harris made a discovery that changed the course of the weekend.

H: “Oh, the parking brake was on.”

The legendary parking brake. 

Maria and I laughed hysterically, and marveled at how we were still alive and the car was able to take us this far. Harris insisted that the break must be broken, because the car wasn’t driving differently after the brake had been disengaged. Our laughter eventually died down, and we instead focused on being sad at all the road kill on the sides of the road.

M: “That was ripe.”

Harris asked Maria to find an area that we just passed on the map. She looked, but decided it wasn’t there. I had a look, and agreed with her that it didn’t appear to be on the map. Harris pulled over on the side of the road, and looked for himself, also discovering that the map didn’t show it.

This angered Maria.

M: “If you weren’t going to listen to my navigation advice, then one of us should have driven and then you could navigate.”

H: “No, women can’t drive.”

M: “Harris! You’ve almost killed us 13 times! And that’s not an exaggeration!”

Eight hours after leaving Townsville, we pulled up into a surprisingly nice campsite. Maria and I patiently waited outside as Harris checked us in and got us linens. 

Hippies...

I was super comfortable.

Yayyy I have no room.

We then drove over to the permanent tents, and unloaded our bags. That’s when the real fun began.