Blenco Falls
Tropical North Queensland is ecologically an amazing part of Australia….you could literally spend your whole life exploring the whole area.
Today, I'm checking out just one little slice of it - Blenco Falls, about 85 k's west of Cardwell. My guide is local expert Claude Baron.
To the untrained eye this is just dense rainforest but to Claude, it's a smorgasboard of bush tucker.
First course - native ginger, or Baija.
The ginger fruit. We peel it…there's lots of little fruit inside seven or eight inside one bulb.
Second course is moijin, a type of bush cherry.
We press on, up the Kirrama range to Tucker's Lookout.
Claude certainly knows his stuff. Where I see a tree, he sees a handy tool…
Wet or dry season, Claude's Toyota troop carrier handles the conditions like a dream. And it needs to - workmen toiled to build this range road in the early '40s - and there's still not much bitumen.
Finally, there they are. Blenco Falls. Three tiers of cascading water, plunging almost a hundred metres into the Herbert River Gorge. Absolutely breathtaking.
The TV show Survivor 2 was filmed here amongst this rugged but beautiful landscape.
For more information about Blenco Falls and the Kirrama Range, contact the Girringun Aboriginal corporation, national parks or log onto the EPA website.
I toured North Qld in a Toyota Troop Carrier, thanks to Mike Carney Toyota. Check out all Toyota's vehicles on their website.
We stayed at the Anchorage Apartments in Townsville, booked with the help of Accom Townsville. They can help you find all sorts of accommodation from budget to luxury.
You can pick
up more details on this entire area by logging onto townsvilleonline.com.au
