30th July
Meeting up with Elaine and Blue we enjoyed lunch at the Malanda Hotel. This Hotel was officially opened boxing day 1911. In 1976, Tom and Joan English, the son of the original licencee and owner [Paddy English] brought the hotel and are still today the current licencee. For lunch they had a deal $25 for any two mains, I had the Kiev, Greg had a seafood basket all served with chips and salad. Then to be really piggy Caz had the Eton mess & I had the overly scrummy sticky date pudding for dessert. We enjoyed looking through the old memorabilia before heading to Malanda Falls. Malanda is a quite town, sitting in the rolling hills surrounded by pockets of rainforest. Here you will find Australia's only tropical dairy centre. You can discover the traditional stories of the Ngadjon rainforest people on a walk through the Malanda Falls conservation park. After this walk as we were heading to the falls we were lucky enough to spot a tree kangaroo. The picturesque falls is an ideal location for a swim. On to the next walk the rainforest walk. We were lucky enough to see the turtles but not the elusive platypus.
HERBERTON & RAVENSHOE
31st July
End of the month already, where does time go? Today we are heading to the historic town of Herberton. Since the decline of tin mining Herberton has become known as the centre of bushwalking, mountain bike riding and horse riding. Based on the discovery of lode tin in 1880, Herberton is now a charming town with a unique combination of natural history. Walking through town we enjoyed looking at the old buildings.
On our way to Ravenshoe we stopped and had a look around Tumoulin which is the highest railway station in Queensland (elevation 964 m) where the historic steam train travels to from Ravenshoe, unfortunately no rides happening as they are replacing a boiler pump & retubing the boiler in the engine. Ravenshoe at 930 metres out ranks Herberton by 15 metres to become the highest town in Queensland. The most popular attraction is the ultra modern wind turbines.
We have enjoyed spending time here and have never got bored by the scenery and hope to be back one day. Moving on Friday to Mt Surprise.
