Wed 5th Sept - Mareeba to Townsville

Kick started the morning with a visit to the Coffee Works in Mareeba which was just around the corner from the motel I stayed at. I got there about 15 mins before the next tour was due to start and was left in a room with a selection of about 12 different coffees there for the sampling. Even only having a small sample of about half of them I was pretty alert by the time the tour started.

They roast coffee beans here that are grown in the locality, and it was actually pretty interesting to see how the whole process works from picking the ripe fruit from the tree to how they extract the beans, and how the roasting works. The tour finished up with a sample of 2 liquers made from their coffee and some chocolate that they also make on the premises. Not a totally unpleasant way to spend an hour.

Near Innisfail I paid a visit to Paronella Park, which was a small castle built by a Spaniard who settled in this part of Norther Queensland. He made enough money to buy the land from renovating a number of sugar cane farms over time and trading up. He built a small castle complete with ball room, outdoor tennis courts and various attractions to encourage paying visitors to come and have a look. He built a hydro electric power plant for himself about 20 years before electricity reached this part of Australia. The power was used to power lights for the castle and a film projector which he used to setup in the ballroom and charge admittance to films he had shipped up from Brisbane.

Unfortunately the castle has been subjected to flood damage and has been paid a visit by the cyclone in the last few years, so its a shadow of its former self. However, the present owners are quietly working away at restoring parts of the property, such as the hydro-electric generator to its former glory. Well worth the detour to pop in and see this place.

I paid a brief visit to Lucinda, a small town on the coast in the heart of sugar cane country. My main reason for coming was just to take a peak at the 6km long jetty. After a further few hours on the road I made it as far as Townsville, where I'm going to spend the next 2 nights, availing of the opportunity to pop over to Magnetic Island for the day tomorrow.