THE ATHERTON TABLELANDS

Wednesday, 14 August 2019

Afghanistan Memorial

Memorial to the canine troops

A very full Lake Tinaroo

Anyone for a cuppa?

A "tea cup"

Decisions, decisions

Hastie Swamp

More ducks

Twitcher

Water plants

Hastie Swamp

Hiding in the hide

Thousands of magpie geese

Rocky Creek Memorial Park

At last we have been receiving some beautiful, typical Cairns weather – clear blue skies, sunshine, warm days and cool nights.

Saturday we headed to the Atherton Tablelands for a day revisiting old favourite places, as well as a new stop.  After climbing the Kuranda Range, we turned left at Mareeba and headed for Tolga, where we took the B-double route to Yungaburra.  The farmland looked absolutely magnificent all through the area, with the mango trees starting to flower, vegetables growing, sugar cane flowering, happy cows and so much lush green grass!  Our first stop, naturally, was at Sharlee’s Strawberry Farm for one of their delicious ice creams, before continuing to Yungaburra and the Avenue of Honour on the shores of Lake Tinaroo and paying our respects to the soldiers who never came home from Afghanistan.  How this avenue of trees has grown since 2013!  We enjoyed a walk around the quaint village before continuing to Malanda and then on to the Nerada Tea Plantation for lunch.  What a beautiful spot to sit in the open-sided coffee shop and look out across the tea plantation to Bartle Frere, the highest mountain in Queensland.

After lunch, it was back to Malanda and then on towards Atherton, with a quick stop at the Gallow Dairyland, along with many, many other tourists!  Being situated alongside the milking sheds, one of us (not used to stinky farm smells) had a long breath hold as we left the car and made for the visitors’ centre.  Giving the large display of cheeses a miss, we made straight for the handmade chocolate case and spent some time making our selections.  (The Turkish delight was just divine!!!)  Our next stop was at Hastie Swamp, near Atherton, and we were pleasantly surprised at the large number of birds present – mainly whistling ducks, magpie geese and smaller ducks.  We spent some time in the bird hide with binoculars, watching and listening.

After passing through Atherton, we started the return journey to Cairns, stopping at Rocky Creek Memorial Park.  Although better known as a free camp area, the park was actually the location of a very large base hospital during World War 2, which the Tablelands was one huge military base.  There are a large number of memorial stones dedicated to the different units, etc., which were stationed in the area, as well as some story boards and a memorial wall.  We had a conversation with a couple of Melbourne who were visiting Rocky Creek for the Victory Pacific Celebrations which were to be held the following day.  The lady’s mother had served at Rocky Creek for two years as a nurse and we discovered that this nurse also liked to paint in her spare time.  She has a number of paintings at the Australian War Memorial and a copy of one which was painted at Rocky Creek was on one of the story boards.  This really made our visit seem rather special.

Sunday was a quiet day, with a visit to Rusty’s and Movenpick before a walk along the Esplanade.  Monday morning we actually made our first visit to a movie theatre since 2015 to watch Danger Close, The Battle of Long Tan.