TasWeekend Travel: Tableland of tastes, sights and smells

EAT up – there’s more to far north Queensland’s plateau of plenty than crater lakes, rainforests and elusive wildlife.

Nikita Gageler, at Nerada Tea Plantation in Malanda. Picture: Mark Calleja

MATT, the ranger at the Australian Platypus Park says: “They’re timid creatures so please don’t point if you see one, they consider it threatening.”

There are six of us staring into a rainforest-fringed, natural spring-fed pond at Tarzali, just off the Millaa Millaa-Malanda Rd, about 90 minutes’ drive southwest of Cairns.

“Look for a trail of bubbles,” Matt urges as we peer down as intently as a medical team conducting microsurgery.

Then comes the call; a female is emerging from an outcrop of lily pads and she surfaces before disappearing beneath the wind-ruffled water.

Within minutes we see another two, likely out hunting, as platypuses ingest up to a third of their body weight in food each day.

If you’re a human with a similar inclination, you’re in the right place.

The pond is a five-minute walk from the park’s Smokehouse Cafe, which overlooks a lake and has a fridge full of goods from the property’s smokehouse for sale, a menu that reads like an encyclopaedia of north Queensland produce (smoked barra on a Gulf burger, smoked crocodile tail and pork belly pie, or a Tablelands steak sandwich), and a stack of house-made jams and chutneys.

Dairy cows at sunset in the Atherton Tablelands. Picture: Tourism Tropical North Queensland

An espresso ingested while waiting for a tour ($8.50 for adults, every half-hour) is good too, using beans from Jaques Coffee, on the northern Tablelands near Mareeba.

This mix of alfresco dining with David Attenborough overtones seems to be a feature of a trip to the Atherton Tablelands, at least at the southern end.

A day is hardly long enough to explore the Tablelands in depth – it’s a 65,000sq km area packed with rainforests, waterfalls, lakes and historic sights – but this is a whistlestop guide to some of the available food experiences with a little sightseeing on the side.

THE MILKY WAY

The next stop for those keen to sample the bounty of the region is south of Millaa Millaa off the Palmerston Highway to Mungalli Creek, a biodynamic dairy and organic cafe on a farm named for a creek which, further on, plunges down Mungalli Falls.

Out of the Whey cafe opened in 2002 in the original farmhouse and offers free tastings of cheddar, quark dips and yoghurt (the Davidson plum version is a ripper), and dishes up cheese platters, house-made cakes and cheesecakes, and Devonshire teas with rainforest jam and jersey cream. Also on the menu are freshly churned gelati, milkshakes, or just a simple glass of milk.

Mungalli cheesecake

Tables on the veranda and downstairs, on the lawn beneath a grove of trees, have a view over lush hills and dairy cattle to Queensland’s highest mountain, Mt Bartle Frere.

On the way back towards Malanda, a stop at the elegant vertical drop of Millaa Millaa Falls beckons. At the turn-off from the highway, The Falls Teahouse, built in 1930 from local timber and with grazing dairy cattle in an adjoining paddock, serves up “Tablelander” corned-beef sandwiches, house-made pies, burgers and scones.

Further on, tea-lovers might detour to the Nerada Tea visitors’ centre, opposite the company’s 400ha tea plantation and next to the processing centre, which churns out 6 million kg of tea leaves a year. You can view the processing facility from a platform, and there’s a shop chockers with tea and teapots.

In Malanda, home to a large Dairy Farmers factory, the Dairy Centre has historical displays and a cafe.

Out of the Whey cafe.

About 10km north of town on the way to Atherton is Gallo Dairyland, home to descendants of Italian immigrant Giovanni Gallo, who bought the land in 1937, 350 Holstein-Friesian cows, and a 100-seat cafe and shop selling chocolates and cheeses made onsite, including feta, gorgonzola and camembert styles. Tastings are offered at the counter, there’s a milking demonstration in the afternoons, and an animal nursery.

On the other side of Atherton, on the Kennedy Highway at Tolga, the Peanut Place and the Woodworks Gallery and Cafe are possible stopping points.

COFFEE & LIQUEUR

The Mt Uncle Distillery at Walkamin is an unlikely find on a banana plantation. Mark Watkins founded the distillery in 2001, creating liqueurs from fruit, then moving on to distil what has become the establishment’s bestseller, Botanic Australis Gin, made from juniper berries imported from northern Italy and local botanicals. Two other gins have since been added, including the new Bushfire smoked version, vodka and whiskies. Tastings are $4 for a single, or $10 for four.

Mareeba is an agricultural heartland with avocados, mangoes, bananas and coffee among the crops. In town, Coffee Works roasts coffee and makes chocolates, and also has a shopfront in Cairns. It sells more than 40 freshly roasted varieties of beans from local plantations and from around the world. The Coffee World Experience (adults $19, children $10) includes all-day coffee and chocolate tastings, tours and displays.

Jaques Coffee Plantation at Mareeba. Picture: Jason Jaques

Continue through Mareeba and 9km along the road to Dimbulah is Skybury Coffee, Australia’s oldest coffee plantation, which has produced arabica coffee and tropical fruit for 30 years. The property’s Sweet Red Papaya (2 million are picked annually) won a state 2018 Delicious Produce Award. An onsite visitors’ centre cafe roasts coffee daily from the beans plucked only metres away. Papaya and bananas are also for sale.

Back through Mareeba to Cairns via Kuranda, Jaques Coffee Plantation has 85,000 arabica trees and a licensed cafe serving lemonade scones, wagyu burgers, battered barra and more. Here, there are self-guided and guided tours and, if you book ahead, Segway, gyrocopter and microlight tours are also available.

Nearby, the Emerald Creek Ice Creamery scoops up 21 flavours: 14 gelati and seven sorbets made using as much local fruit as possible. Mandarin sorbet incorporates fruit grown on the property, and at various times the range includes mango, coconut, pineapple, Davidson’s plum, and dragon fruit and lime.

The author travelled courtesy of Tourism Queensland.