Oddity Number 3 Tuesday 3/18/08

We are out of the motel at 6:45 for a brisk walk down to the platypus viewing area and the little creeps are still not cooperating. We do take a picture of the sign and check the platypus off our list. As long as it's raining, we take a couple hours again this morning for some internet work (we have wireless—hooray) and get some stuff done for our trip home. Mike, the owner of the Lodge, thinks he has a buyer for the place and we can see a familiar anticipation in his eyes. He says it would be alright if it didn’t go through but you can see that he is lying.

Our first stop is the "Curtain Fig Tree" just outside of Yungaburra and just past the stupid platypus. This tree is really a combination of trees that have fallen, tipped, tilted and grown together to form a curtain of tendrils that drop from great heights to the ground. The effect is pretty unusual and the little hundred meter walk on a boardwalk into the rainforest just feels good. We stop in Atherton at the info center for another load of maps and brochures and head towards Mareeba. Mt. Uncle Wines and Distillery is our first stop and the plant and tasting rooms are surrounded by a coffee plantation and many acres of bananas, avocados and macadamias. We sip a couple liqueurs (coffee and plum), buy some macadamia brittle and watch the folks in the plant process banana bunches. The answer is, yes, they do put those little stickers on the bananas by hand one-at-a-time. This place is certainly the equal of the fancy wineries we visited in the hunter Valley.

Mareeba is the coffee capital of Australia and we see field after field of low growing coffee trees as we move closer to town. Apparently all of this land as well as the cane fields to the south were all planted in tobacco as little as a couple decades ago, but now most of the locally used tobacco is grown in Indonesia. Our next stop is "Coffee World" where they do tours of the processing and roasting facilities with tastings along the way, but we just opt for the chocolate and coffee shop. Lunch is take-away sandwiches from Nastase's in Mareeba and we find a picnic table in the park. John has the "Steak with the lot" that is very good and messy but could have done without the pineapple and Mary risks another chicken and salad that is fine.

Leaving Mareeba we head due west for another 135 km to our destination, Chillagoe. We are going to be a couple hundred kilometers inland by the time we arrive and in this part of the world, this is undoubtedly outback. The road gradually deteriorates and we cross several flowing streams, thankful that the rain has stopped. Eventually the paving disappears and we travel on alternating surfaces of gravel, clay, mud and pieces of blacktop. Wait 'til Hertz sees this one. This is open range cattle country with low rolling hills, scrub trees, an occasional dead emu on the road and a sprinkling of unfenced cattle along the entire length of the trip. We have to stop from time to time to let some critters meander across the road while glaring at us. After our platypus shutout we are not in any mood to take crap from any more animals. There are tens of thousands of termite mounds along the road, many the size of living room furniture and in shapes that look a bit like jungle animals. Every vehicle we meet (3 or 4) is a white Toyota Land Cruiser with a snorkle air intake above the hood, so we may be a bit out of our element.

It is late afternoon when we arrive in Chillagoe (chill-ago) and check into our mining hut at Chillagoe Cabins. The hut is really a nice little cottage that is sided with corrugated tin but all new inside, and the grounds are tropical gardens with bunches of wild and tame birds. Carolyn, our hostess, is a rescue animal person and she takes care of abandoned or injured wallabies, kangaroos, and, a new term to us, wallaroos. Of course none are in residence right now but she says one or two might pop in during our stay. We had hopes of this being a semi-recreation of our Kangaroo Island experience, but Gary, the chef and tour guide, has been called away and will not be back until Thursday. We do follow a tour route around the area that Carolyn has mapped out for us but about a half hour in it starts to pour. We try to plug away for a while but eventually just give up and return to our cabin. When the rain stops the wild birds come flocking onto the grounds and raise a racket with the in-house birds as they all negotiate their food options.

The normal experience here is supposed to be cocktails and dinner around the pool with our hosts but without Gary we are relegated to getting take-away from the pub in town. John has the steak with fries and Mary has a chicken schnitzel with fries and with that we have now sampled 2/3 of the menu. While waiting for the food, John chats with Lizzie, another John and a few other locals over a stubbie (bottle of beer). Not exactly dinner around the pool but local color nonetheless. After dinner we walk around the grounds checking out the stars and almost full moon before packing it in.

Today's local headline: For Sale Cairns Post (local entrepreneur has to sell his stake in his hospitality company and lose control of his 100 pubs)