Day 46 Atherton (Mareeba)

It's funny how you can get caught up in touristy traps whilst on holiday, and then some days you just find a rare gem...if you will pardon the pun.  We set off at a good hour to go and visit the Crystal Caves exhibit in Atherton, and I would be kind to say that the kids were jumping out of their skins to go.  The entry fee we thought a bit steep at the time, but was worth every cent by the time we had spent 2 hours there.



The exhibition has been very carefully put together around a couple of very special exhibits.  You enter through the shop front past vast displays of amethyst and other rare gems, and make your way down a ramp into the bowels under the store.  At first it looked a bit tacky, and I was unsure if we had made a wise decision, but the further we went, the better the displays got. 

There were large crystal balls, rare and semi precious stones and crystal formations set into the cave like walls and really good mood lighting throughout to keep the use of the hard hats and head lamps more than a novelty.

They had several sections of preserved fossils in gem stones and petrified woods that dated over 350 million years old.  The claim of the exhibit is that there are no man made crystals in the entire exhibit, and everything is authentic.


Towards the end of the exhibit were some truly spectacular pieces which included an egg shaped out of petrified wood that was bigger than my head.  There was also a display of spheres cut from a type of photoluminescent stone under ultraviolet light.  These spheres glowed various colours in the dark, but looked black and white under normal fluorescent lighting...very bizarre.  There were some very beautiful geode spheres that had been polished and looked like cracked eggs with their amethyst centre visible through small cracks, and some more spectacular pieces including this sculpture out of Lapis Lazuli that is thought to have been carved by a master stone mason in the 1600's in Japan.

The fountain here is formed with rosy quartz rocks that are back lit, and this is the corner piece of the exhibition highlighting the Empress of Uruguay which is a Geode that measures 3m tall, by 1.5m wide and weighs in at over 2 ton making it the largest ever found.  the crystal itself is a magnificent deep purple, and is quite mesmerising to sit in front of. 

The kids absolutely loved the whole experience, as did Lisa and myself.  In the end, we relented and let Ashley and Emma purchase a geode that they got to crack open themselves, and then the caretaker filled out a certificate and explained what all the crystals were for the kids.  Nice work guys...Crystal Caves rocks big time.

From the Crystal Caves, we went to the Mt Uncle Distillery to try some liqueurs and have some lunch.  Like many businesses in the area, this is a working farm that has diversified for tourism.  There is a banana plantation, sugar cane fields, fruit trees and a restaraunt.  The area is very reminiscent of Margaret River. 

The wines were ok, but we were taken by the Sexy Cat marshmallow liqueur which was just very different indeed.  Now, I thought I knew a few things, but when we were told that this was flavoured with the root of the marshmallow tree, I must have sat there with my mouth hanging open...Don't act smug, I bet you didn't know marshmallow was a flavour extracted from a tree and that the confectionery is based upon a sweet that dates back to ancient Egypt...Hello wikipedia my friend.


We had the feeling that we had spent too much time here, so barrelled up the Kennedy Hwy towards Mareeba.  We chose to go straight out to the Jaques Coffee Plantation to do their tour.  This family started the first commercial coffee plantation in Australia and spent 5 years maturing their crop, only to have the bank repossess their equipment and land during the 1986 recession.  They procured more land, and set up again, and with a massive crop ready to harvest the DPI implemented a blanket spraying for fruit fly that destroyed the entire crop.

They replanted for a third time and managed to get a harvest, and have been here ever since.  It was very interesting to see the process from bush to cup.  We were able to sample the cherry straight off the tree, and I was a bit surprised but there are 2 seeds per cherry which is quite sweet.  There is a faint coffee after taste to the cherries.  After the cherries are removed from the seeds, they are fermented in water, de-husked of their 2 skins and finally roasted.  They have absolutely no coffee aroma until they are roasted...cool.

We bought some coffee liqueur here, and went to the winery (De Bruey's Boutique Wines) to see what else they had to offer as they make the coffee liqueur for Jaques.  We were having a great conversation with the owner when Rowan came in soaking wet to inform us that Ashley had turned on all of the irrigation on the property and that they were playing in the sprinklers playing dodgem.  Needless to say we weren't too impressed.  We purchased some wine made from wild Jaboticaba berries, some mulberry port and a baileys type liqueur which is made with coconut.  That bought our booze tally up to an unreasonable amount, so we called off any other wineries for the afternoon. 

We decided that we would try and follow the back roads down to Lake Tinnaroo, so we headed off from De Bruey's with vague directions on the Tinnaroo Creek Road.  It was on the GPS, so we just went with it.  The road meandered through the lowland forest of gum trees, and the pasture land of surrounding farms before ascending the hills.  We drove for quite some time through quite dense forest following the road (Translated as 1 car track) enjoying the sweeping views of the Dividing Range, and the lowlands and farming area below. 

It appears that we drove quite some way into the Lamb Range.  There was the odd property dotted along the way, so we thought nothing of it.  Before long we were heading into more rainforest with solid canopy, overhanging ferns, and the odd tree lying across the track.  There were sharp granite cliffs to our left going up and a sheer drop to the right going down. 

We started getting a little nervous when the GPS just spat us off the road into nowhere, but trusted that we were on a well graded track so it must lead somewhere...Right?

Eventually I had to take the photo of the altitude as we were tipping over the top of the range.  1250m above sea level is a pretty good achievement, and we were high in the mountains with nobody else around. 

The driving was a little bit slower than hoped, but the scenery was absolutely breathtaking.  Emma didn't even get sick from the dips, and ruts.  It was a little like riding a giant personal rollercoaster through the bush with very steep ascents and descents and sharp corners twisting back on itself. 

Just when we thought that all hope was lost we came to an intersection that was listed on our map, and had to choose left or right.  2 attractions left, so left it was...unfortunately that meant we didn't get to see lake Tinnaroo.

Finally we made it back onto bitumen and headed around to the cathedral fig.  This monster tree is over 44m around the base, estimated at over 50m high, and has a canopy surface area of roughly 2000 square meters.  We tried taking photos, but after the casowary incident the other day, Ashley had managed to terrify his little brother who almost ran out of the forest when it was time to go. 


Our last stop of the day was in Yungaburra where we sat for 40 minutes in the very cool afternoon air in hope to see wild platypus.  The did not appear for us though, so we headed over to Nicks Swiss Italian Restaurant for dinner.  Now I can't complain about the food here, because it was delicious when it did arrive, but a 2 hour dinner is a bit of a joke in this day and age. 




The kids had a good meal though and ate everything on their plate for a change which was nice.  Back at the caravan well after dark, and we have thrown the kids into bed without showers tonight.  They washed at the winery in bore water, so we can let that one slide for a night.  It must be time to sample some of our booty for the day, so goodnight from him and her, and hopefully tomorrow won,t be as full on as today.