Food and Wine Trail

Today I took a food and wine tour! There were only 9 of us on the tour and the group were all very friendly and lively! They were a lot of fun.
After everyone had been picked up, we headed up to the Atherton Tablelands which is about 30km outside Cairns. Most of the tablelands is farming and cattle.
The first stop was a coffee planation. The place was a little rundown as it was run by Bruno, 89, and his daughter, Maria, 65. Our tour guide Warwick gave us the rundown on how coffee is grown and harvested. Apparently coffee beans are only good if they are red so they have to be sorted by color.

Showing the coffee harvesting machine

Dodgy coffee shop but amazing coffee!!!

 The barn doubles as a coffee shop and shop. It was quite rundown, half was used to store boxes, and there were cobwebs everywhere. I was not very hopeful. But I decided to try a flat white again. And I am so glad I did. It was amazing! I loved it! It didn't have the biter taste of the other coffees I have tried. It was smooth and very tasty. I even brought myself some (though I also need to buy something to brew it in).
The second stop was at a fruit winery. It is too hot to grow grapes in Cairns but they grew lots of different types of tropical fruits so use that instead. I wasn't very impressed with the wines. They were mostly too sweet for me. The chocolate rum was nice. But then we tried the creams. And the one I didn't think I would like, Envy made with honeydew melon, was amazing. Very different.

Fruit wine selection

 After getting a little merry, we got back on the bus and headed to Wondaree Macadamia nut farm. (Wondaree means tree in aboriginal.) Unfortunately it started raining but we just did most of the tour in the bus and got out for a look when it stopped. The nuts are native to Queensland and the farm we went to was a lot smaller than it was a few years ago thanks to one of the cyclones which come through the area on a regular basis.

Joe showing the but harvesting tool

Playing with the harvester

Nut sorting

We tried 6 different flavors including smoked, sour cream and chive, and wasabi (the last 2 were my favorites). 

Then on to lunch. We stopped in a little outback town called Tolga (meaning red mud) and eat at the Tolga hotel. The meal was really tasting, fresh fish and salad. Everyone was very happy. 

After lunch, we headed for the bit of the tour I was looking forward to the most, the cheese and chocolate tasting. We had a short talk about the production of cheese and the history in the area, before going into the cafe for the tasting. We tried 3 locally made cheeses, a camembert, a swiss/cheder mix, and macadamia cheese, which had a very interesting toasted flavor. I got some of the macadamia and some Silk, which is the cows milk version on Halloumi which sounded interesting. We also tried a chocolate. I got the butterscotch and was happily surprised. The only problem was we only got the try one chocolate. But that didn't stop me from buying a bag of mixed chocolates!

Chocolate selection 

Cheese selection

Painted cow!

After that tasting we took a break from food and went to see the curtain fig tree. This one is estimated to be 500 years old. 

In front of the fig tree

roots of the fig tree

A seed gets dropped onto the branch of a tree, starts to grow there, and drops down roots to the soil. All of the long vertical parts in the photo are roots. The tree is only the top part. Eventually the fig tree gets so heavy it kills the tree it is attached to and pulls it over. This one killed another 2 trees as well. Then the roots get strong enough to support it. And because the top soil in the rainforest is shallow, too shallow to support something this size, the fig tree spreads its roots out once they reach the soil, sometimes for kilometers. 

Rainforest boardwalk

Our guide also showed us some other plants.
The climbing fern (I think called a strangler fern but I am not sure) uses the little spikes on the climb up a tree and get the leaves to the top of the canopy. And will really hurt if you brush pass them and get caught. (The spikes get bigger as the fern gets older.) It's nickname is a wait-a-while vine as when you get caught in it, you have to be very patient to get out (without losing skin).

Climbing fern

 This one looks harmless. But it has lots of little spikes covered in acid on both the leaves and the stems. If you brush past, the spikes get imbedded in your skin and water breaks down the acids. It feels like you have been burned and you feel that way for a few days. But the worse part is months or years down the line, you might get that part of the skin wet and there will be a few spikes which had escaped water previously. When the water hits, you get the pain all over again! And the plant looks so normal!

Stinger plant

The last stop of the day was at Lake Barrine to look at some 1000 yr old Kauri trees and for afternoon tea.

65 ft Kauri tree

Flowering plant, with its own water to trap bugs

Australian orchid

We had afternoon tea (scones with jam and cream) at the tea rooms on the lake. Unfortunately the weather was not great at this point.

Some of the group enjoying scones

Lake Barrine

                                     
We were all rather quiet on the way back, tired and full. The trip down was beautiful on a very twisty road. Luckily no one got travel sick. There are apparently over 360 turns in a 19km stretch of road. There were only a couple a straights which lasted longer than 10 secs so I can see how that is true.

My food selection.