The only full day outback tour from Cairns! Includes Chillagoe Caves, Aboriginal Rock Art, Granite Gorge, Wallabies, Skybury Cafe, Outback Pub and more!

Your naturalist guide will meet you at your accommodation and after introductions all round, we’ll ascend the McAllister Ranges and head west through Mareeba embarking on a remarkable journey back to prehistoric times, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Our first stop is for morning tea at Skybury. From here we travel through the back blocks of this wetland area viewing wallabies, emus and other wildlife and then along the irrigated agricultural paddocks of this fertile area, eventually crossing over the Great Divide and into the Western watershed. Travel through historical towns and rolling hills rich in minerals eventually giving way to towering limestone karsts scattered around Chillagoe. 

  

Our first stop is the National Parks Cave tour. The fossilised remains of the ancient coral reefs with hidden limestone labyrinths give a portal to a lost world just like our own Great Barrier Reef. Millions of years in the making, the limestone formations are nothing short of spectacular. We then delve into the history of the copper smelters; whose old chimneys dominate the western horizon. We visit the remains of the once mighty smelters to ponder what it was like working there, visit Aboriginal Rock Art and then it’s time for an Aussie pub lunch.  

After lunch and a visit to the local souvenir shop, we head back towards the east coast, stopping at Granite Gorge where we can feed wallabies and hold other indigenous animals. The tour then returns down the range to Cairns.

A reasonable level of fitness is required for this tour as there are steps into the caves, uneven ground.

The tour may be closed or itinerary changed due to the wet season where conditions may close roads and access to the caves.