Cairns sits on a narrow coastal plain. To the West rears a mountain range. A couple of sinuous highways climb almost a thousand meters to a plain called the Atherton Tablelands. Driving through this region of agricultural and natural lands is a relief from the restaurant—bar—tour scene down in the city.

Comfy old hotels pop up along the road. I would have liked to have stayed in one.

Houses look comfy, too. This place sort of conforms to the type known a Queenslander. Its first floor has been constructed well off the ground (Because of floods? Termites?) Steep pitched corrugated iron roofs and long rows of small windows are part of the look.

A place that bills itself as a mining museum (but really is much more than that) consists of a score of nineteenth-century buildings transported to the site from all over the tablelands. Of them all, this one is off limits to visitors—probably the residence of the museum owners.

A rusting “Jaques face shovel” once used for gold mining sprouts a healthy plant. In this climate, the old iron wreck could be covered in vegetation in just a few years.

A compression ignition engine (diesel?) once pumped water in one of the tableland municipalities. It has been lovingly restored. I think this kind of thing is beautiful.

Down the highway, a 4-4-0 steam locomotive quietly rusts on a siding. In service as recently as four years ago, the tourist excursion trains it pulled stopped operating owing to failing finances. A crude sign on the engineer’s cab asks for volunteers to help restore it.

National parks dot the tablelands. In one, a pair of rare Australian pines, bull kauris, have been saved from the lumberman’s saws. They are a hundred and fifty feet tall and twenty in circumference—as large as many California coast redwoods or sequoias..

Vulcanism during human times created the Crater Lakes. The fresh water tortise, amethyst pythons, brush turkeys, water dragons, ducks, eels, pelicans and “the occasional platypus” can be found here.

Australian national parks are not always rustic. Lake Barrine boasts an inn and restaurant, and exquisite gardens on the lakeshore.

I could have easily spent a week in the Atherton Tablelands, sampling locally grown coffee, hiking to waterfalls, ogling antiques, tramping through yet another UNESCO World Heritage rainforest. But I only had a day.