Driving through the Atherton Tableland
Summary
If driving along the standard East Coast of Australia route, I’d highly recommend taking the short detour slightly inland for the Atherton Tableland. The higher altitude (the tableland is home to Queensland’s highest mountains of Bartle Frere at 1622m and Bellenden Ker at 1593m) makes for a pleasant break from the oppressive heat of the coastline and also fellow tourist numbers drop off dramatically. Give yourself half a day to drive through the pockets of rainforest and see / swim in the magnificent waterfalls dotted all through the area
highlights
#1 Taking a dip in some of the magnificent waterfalls all throughout the Tableland
#2 Wandering through the lush, tropical . . . and very wet! . . . jungle
#3 Having the place at times largely to yourself to explore
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Waterfall Experiences
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone