Rick and Rae's Travels: Thurs, 8th to Sat, 10th September

Rick has had a sore and swollen thumb for a couple of days and when he woke on Thursday, he found that it was worse and obviously infected alongside the nailbed. So we left our pretty little spot at Rifle Creek at about 10am and drove 40kms to the Mareeba Hospital as we knew the infection needed to be treated with anti-biotics. The hospital staff were great, seeing to Rick quite quickly. The infection was lanced, treated with anti-biotic cream, dressed and we were sent on our way with a prescription for some anti-biotics.

With Rick's hand feeling much more comfortable, we continued for another 15kms back to the Rocky Creek Memorial Park near Atherton again for the night. We set up camp, had lunch and then walked over to the memorial area of the park to read some of the inscriptions. The park was the site of a hospital during the second world war. Between 1943 and 1945 over 60,000 patients were treated there and the complex was regarded as the largest field hospital in the southern hemisphere during the war. Since 1995 many men and women have returned to Rocky Creek for the dedication of their unit plaques. The main section of the park is for military units and the rest is reserved for Allied and Community Plaques including the Salvation Army, National Servicemen's Association, etc.

Friday morning we rose early and drove into Atherton to drop the van in for its service and to have the brakes checked as they had been pulling to one side. We then took the Navara to the Nissan dealer to have its 40,000km service done, so we were legless and homeless for a few hours. We walked down to the main street, in fact, we walked up and down the main street for about four hours. We had some lunch and then at about 2:30 we walked back up to the Nissan dealer and the car was finally ready for us to take.

We headed back to pick up the van and found that they couldn't get brakes to work on one side. After working on them for quite a while the guy quit and suggested we drive out to a specialist brake place, which we did. We found out that not much stays open after 3:30pm on a Friday afternoon, so we headed back to the Rocky Creek Memorial Park for the night and decided to sort out the brakes somewhere else.

On Saturday morning we drove out to Jaques Coffee plantation. The Jaques' story was fascinating. Nat Jaques was born into farming, in Tanzania East Africa, he grew up on the family coffee plantations, which were situated on the towering slopes of Kilimanjaro. When Nat finished his schooling, he took on the challenge of running the family business. He met his wife Linda, whose family were intensive tea cultivators in Kenya. Unfortunately political instability forced the end of the business and a close to the African chapter of their lives. Faced with leaving the country with only $2000 worth of belongings and cash, Nat and Linda turned toward Australia to follow their dreams. After a trip around Australia, finding North Queensland an ideal place for coffee and an even better lifestyle, they settled in to pioneer Australia’s Coffee Growing Industry. After a few major set-backs and on their second and current plantation, with the crucial development of the Worlds first mechanical coffee harvester under their belts, Nat and Linda along with their son’s Jason and Robert, produce a World Class Coffee, Winning Gold at national competitions in Australia. The harvester uses long fingers to literally shake the ripe coffee berries from the trees. In Africa, this work would have been done inexpensively by a human labour force.

We were driven around the coffee plantation before being given a free coffee and a taste of two of their coffee liqueurs. We decided against taking a microlight or gyrocopter flight over the plantation. Their pilots are also instructors and will (for a fee) give you a trial instructional flight.

We left Jaques and went into the Tolga Woodworks for lunch. Here we saw the most amazing wood carvings. One was of a violin and was $16,000 to purchase and another was of a pair of boots.

After drooling over the beautiful wooden furniture, wall features, etc. we headed out to Tinaroo Dam to have a look at some of the free (or inexpensive) camp areas. We decided against camping out there as the native white tailed rat was apparently in plague proportions and creating trouble by chewing car wiring, etc.

We spent quite a bit of time driving the narrow, dirt roads around the dam, visiting the camp sites before heading back to Atherton to do some shopping. On the way back to Atherton we called in to see the amazing Cathedral Fig tree.