Falls to Paradise Tour

Settling into the lifestyle of Airlie Beach and my Club Wyndham Resort is amazingly easy and it seems to come so naturally. You might have to show some caution as it is an easy thing to subscribe to & be lost in the transient, backpacker style of chilling out no matter what age you are. LOL!

To set a change to this lifestyle & started booking some nature tours. The first one being Redcat Falls to Paradise Waterfall Nature Tour @ $149.00 AUD located at the Cedar Creek Falls. It was not totally my thing to do this tour package, but I wanted to support the local tourism companies and the outer support companies that enable these tours to be done & keep the local economy going. In this same breath I was not inclined to rent a car for outside travel and left this to the tour operators for this type of service. I was not in the mood for more driving.

The Redcat tour started by making your own way to the main street office (West end) with check-in time being 10am and the departure at 10.30am after signing the mandatory disclaimer & health form. Our day today provided the need for two vans. Our van & guide was Donna who loves her work and her required 3 days a week work duty. She was over the 5-6day work demand. With everyone on board we head west towards Proserpine to the Cedar Creek Waterfall turnoff, some 20mins (20klms) to the Conway Rd turnoff, then, 12mins (13klms) of partly winding road linking up to Saltwater Rd, then Cedar Creek Falls Rd into the Cedar Creek Reserve.

About 2/3rds of the way we have the adrenaline rush of crossing the road weir that on this day was covered in about 600mm of flowing Saltwater Creek from the heavy downpour from the night before. What we didn’t notice till later was the number of cars that parked along the roadway & the volume of people chose to walk through this creek water knowing the safety mantra of “If its flooded .. forget it” rammed heavily through our government warnings & media. Apparently, it must not apply to North Queenslanders. Lol! The other scary hidden scenario is the most heavily populated crocodile river is the Proserpine River not very far away. Yikes!!

From the creek to the falls is 1.1klms so it’s a short walk and with our vehicle crossing we managed to beat the volume of walkers to the limited picnic spot on the edge of the billabong at the waterfall. The waterfall was almost at its best with the previous downpour and made a pleasant & loud water noise. I have been to waterfalls prior & very disappointed on what was presented so at least this was presentable. Donna, our guide said with the rain the night before, the walking trek can’t be done under the Redcat operation due to being classed as very slippery however, we can do this under our own risk but wouldn’t advise it. This is what I booked for and was dressed primarily for trek walking and later to swim in the billabong. I’d have to walk through the rocky bed of the creek and about 300mm of water and re-dress to my trek wear, so it wasn’t worth the hassle & decided to spend my time swimming in the billabong.

Please note, there are no facilities here to change clothing so dress appropriately, or wisely. Some of the walkers that arrived struggled to use the towel changeroom method, so you had to be noticed in looking away or being totally oblivious to what was happening. The obvious entry into the billabong is in front opening however, I later found I had chosen the most awkward, slippery & dangerous entrance like many others nit thinking the main force of the waterfall would come through the front opening & therefore the larger boulders stayed in this area. The underwater boulders and rock shapes, along with the moss covering & slipperiness was amazing, all within about 600mm of water .. talk about owning every step! I soon lost balance and caved unceremoniously into the rather surprisingly warmish water & not collapse onto the rock formations under. From there I was able to breast stroke further into the billabong centre where is became much deeper.

Unbeknown to me, during this time my fellow tourists were provided a morning tea with no announcements for me to leave the water. With about 30mins of soaking up the billabong water and environment I left the water through the left hand side to a pebble laid bed which was so much safer, easier & quicker than the front entrance. Thankfully Donna helped me out with a few photos and then I was able to get a conversation going with a sole British backpacker & a newly married couple without the access to the morning tea, now returned to the van. Arghh!!! For flora & fauna there was very little to be seen however, the bird life was plentiful in sound only, possibly due to the noise us tourists were making for them not to be visible.

Without much ado & what seemed to be a very short timeframe, we were ushered back to the vans for a short trip back towards Airlie Beach to Northerlies Beach Bar & Grill for lunch and a beverage included in the price of the tour. This tavern is very well patronaged by the locals & tourists as it is on the shoreline of the Coral Sea & you can look out the various islands and back towards Airlie Beach & the Yacht Club/ Marina. Donna passed on the tavern’s 2 tickets, one for a select choice of food on the menu & an alcoholic drink or soft drink. Anything else was at our cost. I was able to have another conversation with British backpacker, Amy & the married couple, but the others kept their distance so that was weird & a shame for the disconnection.

We had plenty of time for lunch and I walked to the beach and enjoyed the serenity until Donna provided another photo opportunity which was very pleasing & to advise the other guide lady will be doing an island tutorial under the pergola now. The tutorial provided many facts and descriptions of the main islands & how Cyclone Debbie had devastated the region in 2017 with 270klms winds & surging seas, etc. Some of the island resorts may never be restored, such was the devastation and only a handful have survived and now operating.

In regards to the Whitsunday Island and its famous shoreline always under threat she lost me when she sprouted the crap of ‘Climate Change” which this con is being rammed down our throats by the UN & our weak compromised governments and bureaucrats. I strongly advise everyone I meet to read the real expert, Ian Plimer’s book “Green Murder” which is the real bible of Earth & its climate pre-dinosaur years to now. I declined in jumping in as I respected the means of the tutorial however, I would have loved the opportunity in discussing this with the young lady guide later on to steer her research past the climate narrative.

The tour concluded 3pm sharp as previously advised, however we all had the opportunity to stay longer & use Northerlies transit bus back to Airlie, leaving every 45mins if we so desired. Our group all loaded back into our van, but we were two people short (2 young ladies who didn’t really mix very well with us) were not within the other van. With another 20mins or more passing, finally a young man sitting in the other van looking at his phone the entire time advised the guide the young ladies had used the Northerlies transit bus an hour ago. The ladies never advised anyone apart from this young guy, so we were all not impressed by the lack of courtesy from these self-indulgent young people, including the young man stuck in his own media world.

With Donna holding her anger within I quickly changed the subject and had a great conversation with everyone back to Airlie seeing I’m now in the front passenger seat & not in the rear seat like before. We were let out back at the Redcat office and without many good-byes the office frontage was quickly deserted. Amy had vanished within seconds so that was unfortunate to not being able to wish her safe travels back to England the following week.

On refection, I was a bit flat knowing I had not received the full exposure of the waterfall tour, missing out on the trek walk, morning tea and the non-connection of people doing the tour at $149 but that is the risk you take even after scanning the website reviews. At least I felt better knowing I was helping keep Donna & other guides in their employment to some scale.

Looking around at the street I was encouraged to cool off again in the Airlie Beach community lagoon and then later a cold beer & a taxi back to the Club Wyndham Resort for another swim in the pool & spa. Tomorrow is a complete chill out day so I might take the local bus to see Shute Harbour some 10mins away & return to Airlie at $2.40 to start the day off.

I’ll end this blog here and start on my next Airlie Beach nature tour using a Segway of all things. Stay happy, healthy & celebrate every day. Take care.