Freshwater inland dives in the Atherton Tablelands

[Mark Fraenkel]

Had a great scuba diving day trip up to Lake Eacham on Friday. It's about 2 hours drive from Port Douglas in North Queensland.

Red Claw Yabbies (freshwater lobsters), turtles and crazy underwater rock formations and fallen trees all over the place.
And surfacing in a lake filling a volcano in a rainforest is an experience. Interesting night dives too as the foot long yabbies get very lively.
It must be said the volcano erupted 12,000 years ago so its very peaceful up there now. It's an altitude dive (720metres) and the depth of the lake is apparently 60 metres.

We're trying to find other freshwater spots in the area. We know of the Mulgrave River but has anyone dived Lake Barrine or the Lake Tinaroo?

 

[Aquapro Dive Services]

I live in Cairns and actually run courss a fair bit in Eacham. This is the best of the lakes by far. Barine is more grassy and gravel bottom. Not that deep and has the problems of the touring ferry boats on top. but there are plenty of eels there.
Tinaroo is huge and also some good diving (drowned village up there too), but as it is fished and you are able to water ski there, it is usually not so accessable, and teh fish life is not so prevalent.
There are some reasonably good water holes in the Mugrave but watch out for the crocs.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cairns Discount Dive Trips

Cairns Discount Dive Trips - Main page