Departs Cairns Tuesday & Friday
This is the only Outback Day Tour departing from Cairns and also includes Chillagoe Caves and Granite Gorge! Your guide will share information about the region’s wildlife, history, and aboriginal culture. You will enjoy exploring the Chillagoe-Mungaga Caves National Park with an expert local guide, travelling through historic mining towns and small outback communities, seeing the Chillagoe Smelter Ruins, visiting Balancing Rock for an amazing photo opportunity, viewing aboriginal rock art and experiencing the beautiful Granite Gorge and making friends with the wild wallabies. Not to mention you’ll also be treated to lunch at a 100-year-old Aussie Outback pub, what a day!
Departs Cairns Tuesday & Friday
Courtesy pick up and drop off (note Port Douglas is an additional cost of $89pp). Board the custom-built 4WD vehicle and travel spotting wallabies, emus, and other wildlife and then along the agricultural paddocks of this fertile area, where you will have a chance to see, Paw Paw, Lychee, Longen, Mangoes, just to name a few eventually crossing over the Great Divide and into the Western watershed, we are now in the Australian Outback.
- Stop 1: Skybury Coffee Plantation for Morning Tea – enjoy a coffee or tea and a morning snack (such as scones, jam and cream, and tropical fruit) while enjoying the balcony views.
- Stop 2: Private local ranger-guided Chillagoe-Mungana Caves National Park Tour – take a step back in time and be inspired by the knowledge of your guide as he explains about the fossilized remains of the ancient coral reefs some 400 – 420 million years old, with hidden limestone labyrinths give a portal to a lost world just like our own Great Barrier Reef. This was once the inland sea. Millions of years in the making, the limestone formations and Chillagoe-Munagana Caves are nothing short of spectacular.
- Stop 3: Chillagoe Smelter Ruins – here we delve into the history of the Chillagoe 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.
- Stop 4: Aussie lunch at Chillagoe’s 100-year-old pub – a true Australian Outback Pub built back at the turn of the century! There is time to visit the unique gift shop in Chillagoe specialising in Chillagoe marble and local Aboriginal art.
- Stop 5: Visit Balancing Rock for an iconic photo opportunity!
- Stop 6: See Aboriginal Rock Art and learn about some Dreamtime stories.
- Stop 7: Visit Granite Gorge to see the wallabies – get up close and personal with these local rock wallabies at Granite Gorge National Park and have time to explore this National Park before making your way home.
Please note: itineraries may be changed, operate in a different order or some destinations may not be reached at the discretion of Billy Tea Safaris guide on the day due to weather, possible road closures and for the safety of all passengers.
