The Traveller's Table: Koombaloomba Dam

Not knowing where we would be sleeping tonight, we headed north-east toward the Atherton Tablelands. We had a fair idea we would camp at Lake Tinaroo for a few days with Ben eager to bag a Barra. However stopping in at Ravenshoe, the highest town in Qld, the old chat at the information centre recommended heading to “Koombaloomba Dam”.... “More of a locals place” he said.

So off we headed, you can’t argue with the info guy! It was only about 30 km south of Ravenshoe but the road was narrow and winding through dense rainforest. I was the lucky driver for this leg but unfortunately a ute and boat coming the other way was travelling too fast to move over and collided with the driver side of our car. Shock, Devastation, Anger..... I can only begin to describe what was going through our head. Firstly, we were all safe (dogs included) and that was the main thing... but I was speechless, I couldn’t move from the driver seat. So early in our trip and with the sound of the impact we assumed the driver side of our car and camper damaged dramatically. Ben jumped out of the car to find luck was definitely on our side that day.... the front of the other drivers vehicle did not fair so well but we seemed unscathed. A miracle! It appeared the other vehicle had hit our scrub bars, tray, roll bar and tyre leaving the panel work and the trailer well alone!! I was thanking Tony for that one!

So, a bit too shaken to drive and eager to set up camp I handed the driver seat over to Ben and off we went. It felt like we stepped into a picture from a Canadian travel magazine. The dam was enormous, the water so clean and the colour of the ocean. On one side of the dam was rainforest, the other grassy campsites, opposite our campsite a small creek ran a waterfall into the dam. I have never seen anything like it and it was almost all ours.

We didn’t catch any Barra or Redclaw, we got stuck in the rainforest 4wding and had to winch out but what a beautiful place... I would definitely go back for more!

P.S. I made a DVD of getting stuck 4wding as well as a cooking demo here but i'm waiting for my editing software to arrive before i can post it!