July 4 - 7 (Day 155 - 158) - Atherton Tablelands - Part 1 (Innisfail to Kairi)

THE ATHERTON TABLELANDS - IN A NUTSHELL

The Atherton Tablelands is located about 100km inland from the Queensland coast, running roughly parallel with Cairns at the northern end, down to Innisfail in the south. Having spent several days in the Atherton Tablelands, it's fairly easy to summarise what it's like.

Firstly you're up in the mountains, so it's considerably colder than down in Innisfail or Mission Beach. Most mornings were around 15-18 degrees C, although daytimes were pleasant. Given there are all these mountains, and you're in a tropical area that gets about 2.5m of rain per year, there are lots of rivers and waterfalls criss-crossing through the region, so there are plenty of very pretty locations, although the water is very cold!

The roads in and out of the Tablelands go through areas of rolling hills, which are well used for farming animals and fruit, so these parts are beautiful in their own respect - similar, we felt, to parts of country England.

The Atherton Tablelands is also the main, if not the only, place in Australia where coffee is grown.

We imagined the Tablelands would be a fairly rough, untamed area - but surprisingly we found most of the roads have fully-fenced private farms running either side of main the road - in this respect it's a bit like driving through parts of the Adelaide Hills, e.g. from Mt Barker to Strathalbyn. This means there's not all that much 'scrub' or 'state forest' where you can just pull off and find a spot to explore or sleep. The few which looked promising often turned out to be private driveways! So the road is pretty well just a corridor to get from one town to the next and enjoy the view along the way, rather than presenting many opportunities to duck down bush tracks and explore a bit more deeply. We also found there were a lot less free camps than we had imagined.

For all these reasons, the Atherton Tablelands gave the sense of being a bit more 'built up', 'tourism-oriented' and 'controlled' than the fairly rough, untamed place we'd imagined. That said, it was still a place with some truly stunning scenery and the odd place to still squirrel oneself away!

Saturday 4 July - Innisfail to Zillie Falls

Normally when arriving in a new town that we want to explore we go to the information centre to find out the what things there are to do and any other interesting brochures that could be useful for the surrounding area or our next stop. We got given heaps of brochures from this information centre and realised the Sugar museum was very close by that may be able to tell us more about how all this sugar cane is processed and then turned into the sugar we use today.



As we drove to the Sugar museum we saw more banana plantations and another fruit stall.

We bought two bananas each as they were going out cheap and they are just so delicious and fresh.

Australian Sugar Museum

 This was quite interesting learning about how sugar cane is harvested and processed into raw sugar and then into the different sugars we find at the supermarket. Raw sugars is the purest of the sugars and then it is processed quite a lot to get white sugar which is probably why white sugar is not very good for us.

Matt of course found a car to sit in. :)

All the different sugars that come from sugar cane. Quite amazing all the different ways it is processed.

After the Sugar Museum we had lunch on the lawns outside and looked through some of the brochures we'd been given at the information centre. We found a map that looked to show us a good route up the some of the beautiful falls in the tablelands.

INTO THE TABLELANDS!

As we drove we came across another fresh fruit stall and saw more papaya. Often these stalls are unmanned and an honestly box is there to pay for your goods, but the owners were nearby bringing more fruit out. So we asked them about the papaya and our bad experience and how to tell if it was a bad or a good papaya. The lady that we spoke with went and got a knife so that she could show us a good one and smell the difference. She did say they didn't have a very nice smell but that it should still smell a little sweet. This one smelt way better than the previous papayas we had tried to thought we'd give it another go.

It was ... OK I guess. Still not as nice as we've had once before, but I think we'll just have to let papaya go for now.



Next stop was to be a Dairy Cafe in Mungalli Creek. We realised it was closing at 4pm so needed to get our skates on if we were to get there before it shut. We got there at 3.30pm walked in the door and were told "the kitchen's shut". What a shame we were looking forward to a cup of tea and a scone with jam but never mind we made one of our own and it was free and even came with a biscuit. :)

The countryside is so beautiful. Some of it reminds us quite a lot of England.
Narrow roads, with lush and green and rolling hills.

Zillie Falls

We were looking for a place to stop the night, but as stated up the top we found this was easier said than done. We booked a caravan park but decided to explore a loop road that ran out to two waterfalls. The first had a 'no camping' sign but the second one - Zillie Falls, didn't; it was close to 5pm and getting darker; and the carpark was back from the road a bit and fairly secluded. So we decided to explore the falls a bit and see how busy the area got at darkness approached.

Given the carpark stayed deserted, we decided to stay the night here. This was on the high side of the falls, about 100m away, so we could hear the dull rumble of the waters as we went off to sleep. The sounds of nature are so soothing to go to sleep to.

Our private garden for the night. AKA the end of the carpark!

Sunday 5 July - Zillie Falls to Bonadio RV Camp

We decided to make an early start from Zillie Falls just on the off-chance a grumpy ranger came past and decided to fine us for camping there, even though there was no sign to say we couldn't. But better to avoid the situation completely, we thought. So we got up about 5.30am so got up and had a cuppa and headed off to Millaa Millaa falls for breakfast and our meeting. Another pretty spectacular falls.

Greg and Jude were the only 2 crazies that went for a swim here as it was quite overcast and a little rainy.

They enjoyed it despite the coldness and warmed up nicely with some yummy pancakes for breakfast. A very curious bush turkey also joined us for breakfast.

We had our meeting at Millaa Millaa Falls and then made our way to the town of Millaa Millaa where there was a good park and an OPEN coffee shop nearby! So off Greg to order, while the kids went on the play ground. Greg was taking quite a while so I decided to walk up the street to the coffee shop and investigate. They appeared to be very busy and Greg had said he wasn't in any rush and they seemed to have taken him literally. We stood chatting for a while and then I thought I'd best make sure the kids were ok on the play ground so went back and sat on a nearby bench and watched the kids. 45 mins later Greg appears with the coffee and a toasty. YAY. It was very yummy but would not have taken 45 mins to make.

This log is 800 years old. 

Jude having a zen moment.

Next on the map to visit is Nerada tea plantation and tearooms. Nerada Tea is a supplier of tea bags and tea leaves through most supermarkets, and we've had their tea before so wanted to take the opportunity to have a look around. When we arrived there were quite a few cars and then quite a few people lining up. Seemed to be quite a popular place for a cup of tea. We enjoyed a shared pot of tea between 5, a cheese platter and a two toasted wraps between us all for lunch.

One of Nerada's tea plantations

Around this area you can apparently see tree kangaroos and it is well known that you can spot them at the Nerada tearooms. We managed to see two of them while there.

The higher we go up the coast the more rainforest the less free camp spots so we came to Bonadio RV Park for the night. Once we'd set up we went for a walk to explore our surroundings. Quite a pretty little spot with the Barron river running by. On our walk I spotted a chilli plant and thought I could use it in our dinner tonight, Greg gave it a little bite and said that it wasn't too bad so I thought I would give it a little try. Wasn't the best thing to do when I didn't have any milk nearby so I had stinging lips and tongue for the next 15 mins until we got back to the van.

Beautiful scenery along the Barron River

Monday 6 July - Bonadio RV Camp

Today was a quiet day doing school and business work and getting as much sun on our solar blanket as possible to recharge our batteries.

Jude learning what Dad does in the business

Tuesday 7 July - Bonadio RV Camp to Kairi free-camp

As we mentioned before we have seen lots of different plantations as we've traveled. We've seen sugar cane the most but have started seeing more banana plantations and papaya trees as we get higher up into rainforesty areas. Now we are seeing corn fields and other plantations like tea and other fruits like mangoes and pineapples in a few places. The corn in these areas looks very dry and we weren't sure why so we asked the owners at Bonadio as to the reason for this and they explained all the crops of corn up this way is used for stock feed so needs to be dry. That explains it. We also got some great tips for growing yummy full ears of corn when we get home as we haven't had heaps of success.

We were told at Bonadio's that the Curtain fig tree was a must see while in the area so we did that on our way into Atherton. It was huge and quite interesting to read how it was formed.

After the Fig tree we went into Atherton to go to the post office and to have a bit of a look around but most of the shops in the town were shut as it was a public holiday for the (cancelled) Atherton Show! So off we went to see if we could camp up near Lake Tinaroo. As we travelled I was looking up on wikicamps places we could possibly stay but most were coming back as just tent camping only or unavailable for the dates we were wanting. So we stayed at one of the few free camps in the area, in the town of Kairi, intending to head back into Atherton to do our shopping and the post office stuff tomorrow.

-- Mim and Greg