Welcome! Join us on a journey back in time to Chillagoe Caves & Outback with Billy Tea Safaris

• Includes Chillagoe, Mareeba, Aboriginal Rock Art & Australian Outback
• Pickup from Cairns, Northern Beaches & Port Douglas
• Departing Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays (or by request on other days requiring minimum numbers). Tour does not operate Good Friday, 17th July or Christmas Day.

TOUR OVERVIEW

Billy Tea Safaris is a small locally owned tour operator, which operates small personalised tours with custom built 4WD vehicles, and your naturalist guides have extensive knowledge of flora, fauna, history of the area and aboriginal culture, which will ensure your day will be a memory of a lifetime.

Your day begins when your accredited guide meets you at your accommodation Cairns CBD around 6.45am, Holloway’s Beach and Yorkey’s Knob will be approximately 7.00am, and after introductions all round We’ll ascend the McAllister Ranges and head to our first stop at Dimbulah, looking for many different species of bush birds, including Emus, Wedge Tail Eagles, Squatter Pigeons and Kangaroos, Frilled Neck Lizards, before reaching our first stop.

Please note: If you're thinking of driving to Chillagoe in your hire car you need to check with your company that you can take your car on a dirt road. The road to Chillagoe is not sealed all the way. If you can't drive... come on our tour!

Highlights of your day in the Outback

• Travel off the beaten track down exclusive 4WD backroads
• Morning tea (coffee/tea/cakes/sausage rolls) in Dimbulah
• Spot kangaroos, emus, wallabies, wedge-tail eagles (wildlife galore!) all day in the Outback
• Drive past diverse dry tropical farmlands
• Pass through historic mining ghost towns and small outback communities
• Visit the local Aboriginal Rock Art and Balancing Rock
• Local Chillagoe Gift Shop is a must see!
• Find fossils in ancient limestone casts at Chillagoe
• Explore the famous Chillagoe Caves
• View the once booming Chillagoe smelter ruins
• Outback Aussie lunch in 100-year-old pub
• Feed the wallabies at Granite Gorge and see local wildlife 
• Small-group tour in a luxury 4WD

PRICES

• Family (2 adults + 2 children 0-14 years) 
• Additional Child (0-14 years): $140.00 $695.00
• Adult $205.00
• Child (0-14 years) $175.00
• Infant $175.00

Billy Tea Safaris will provide Baby Seats or Booster Seat please advise upon booking, all children up to the age of 7 years. 
Please be aware there is a 24-hour cancellation policy of 100% cancellation fee. No exceptions. 
If you fail to load there is also a 100% cancellation fee applies. No exceptions. 
Please check our Terms and Conditions for Cancellation Fees.

PRIVATE CHARTER RATES ARE AVAILABLE ON REQUEST.

4WD THROUGH THE OUTBACK

Board the custom built 4WD vehicle and travel through the back blocks of this wetland area viewing 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. Take a step back in time as we travel through historical towns stopping at Dimbulah for morning tea. Rolling hills rich in mineral eventually giving way to towering limestone karsts scattered around Chillagoe Township.

CHILLAGOE SMELTERS & FAMOUS CHILLAGOE CAVES

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…. Now it’s time for a wonderful lunch at a true Australian Outback Pub built back at the turn of the century, before setting off to have a look at this historical town on route to our National Parks guided Chillagoe Cave tour where you will 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 Caves are nothing short of spectacular. 

Visit the Aboriginal Rock Art and the Balancing Rock.

If time permits visit the unique gift shop which specialises in gifts of Chillagoe marble and local Arboriginal Art.

After the cave tour, we head back towards the east coast, stopping at Dimbulah for comfort stop and a tropical fruit tasting platter.  

Visit Granite gorge and feed the wallabies.

The tour then returns back down the range arriving back in Cairns at approximately 6.30pm.  

Please ensure that you wear closed in footwear for the cave tour, please. No Thongs or High Heels on this tour.