Ravenshoe Falls
Driving through pouring rain on the Atherton Tablelands on the way to the lava tubes in the Undara National Park, 400km southwest of Cairns, it's easy to understand how - unlike much of Australia - it's wetness not dryness that dominates the psyche in the tropics.
Bring on the wet
season, from October to April, and the region takes on a new look, with major natural attractions - the lakes, the waterfalls, the tumbling rivers - blooming into full beauty.
Travelling from Innisfail along the Palmerston Highway, we found ourselves in a hotbed of volcanic landscape, well before we hit the lava tubes.
First stop was Hallorans Hill Lookout: its location atop an extinct volcano guarantees the most spectacular view over the Atherton Tableland in Tropical North Queensland.
Built on the highest point in Atherton, visitors to the lookout will enjoy views over the patchwork farmlands of the Tablelands (known as the "food bowl" of the north) through to Lake Tinaroo and the Seven Sisters volcanic landscape.
Next, Crawford Lookout gives us a great view of the Johnstone River as it tumbles towards the sea in the valley far below - a river valley formed by ancient volcanic action.
Further up the range, just before Millaa Millaa, we came to Waterfall Country, where a short circuit took us to Zillje, Ellinja and Millaa Falls, all spectacular in the wet.
Millaa Falls is a classic cascade, a curtain of water pouring off a rock shelf into a deep pool, easily viewed from the comfort of a vehicle on a wet day.
Millaa Falls shelf is basalt (solidified lava), so the falls are a result of previous lava flows. Basalt rock also makes up much of the rocky structure blocking the water flow to create other falls.
Further on, past Ravenshoe, are the Millsteam Falls, the widest in Australia, pouring over another basalt shelf.
A popular attraction on the road west to Mt Garnet is Innot Hot Springs where mineral springs heated by seismic activity below the ground bubble to the surface at a local health village.
North from Ravenshoe near the Kennedy Highway is the Mt Hypipamee Crater, a 60m vertical shaft that goes deep into the ground, and is partly filled with water. The crater is a volcanic pipe, formed when pressures below ground blasted the core of the crater far away from the site, leaving the open pipe. Today, the crater is encircled by forest that is rich in wildlife and a popular picnic spot.
To the east is the Malanda Volcano. Three million years of age, it is one of the oldest shield volcanos in the region and topped by the McKell Hill lookout, which offers outstanding views of the surrounding farmlands.
Further north are the twin crater lakes of Lake Barrine and Lake Eacham. Known as maars, these 65m-deep lakes were formed 10,000 years ago by a series of explosions resulting from the interaction of hot rising magma with cold groundwater.
Today, the clear blue lakes are encircled with thick rainforest which can be viewed from cruise boats. The leisurely pace of the cruise allows us to see plenty of wildlife, such as a 4m amethystine python, a large Boyd's forest dragon and a raft of turtles and eels in the clear waters.
Walking tracks around both lakes take visitors past some of the richest forest on the tableland, growing in the fertile basalt soils left from ancient volcanic activity.
Finally, to the east off the winding Gillies Highway is Lake Euramoo, a small crater lake in the heart of the Danbulla State Forest. Set among lush rainforest, Lake Euramoo is popular with naturalists because of the extensive birdlife.