Leaving Millaa Millaa for Cairns via the Senic Route

Monday 15th June Leaving Millaa Millaa
Time to move on and head for Cairns. Packed up and on the road at 9.22am on a cool beautiful day at 22 deg. Said our goodbyes to Tony our next door neighbour who was disappointed that we were leaving so soon as he had plenty of other places he could tell us about. We felt we had seen enough waterfalls for awhile and wanted to head for the coast once again.
The road to Malanda was very green and picturesque-dairy farming, emerald green grass and rolling hills. At Malanda there is the main Dairy Farmers milk processing dairy centre. Up to Yungaburra a Heritage Village which is very pretty and sits on a hilltop with lots of shops, wood turning, Swiss clocks and B & B’s. As we continued on the landscape turned very dry and unimpressive, we can see now why we didn’t think much of it the last time we visited this area. We by passed the Curtin Fig Tree having visited it the last time and drove on to Atherton, a large town. Around this area it is flat and highly cultivated and grows nearly everything including coffee.
We continued on heading north on the A1 for Mareeba, past the Beck Military Museum looking for the Coffee Works where we wanted to stop and have a break. http://www.coffeeworks,com.au/ This family run business offers the ultimate tasting experience, 21 coffees, 12 chocolates, 4 teas and 3 liqueurs. I elected to have a flat white and Beatrice a shot of espresso with whipped cream! (Very adventurous)
We now headed down the Kennedy Highway to Cairns. A narrow twisting steep down hill drive skirting Barron George National Park ,on past Kuranda where the train runs to from Cairns and into North Cairns. We stopped and looked for the Caravan park location, entered it to Tom Tom which took us right there. Set up on our site and then drove into Cairns for a look around and to have a haircut and get the arm of my glasses repaired. OPSM fixed everything and the Fair Dinkum barber gave me a very short cut all over.
What a change this place has gone through over the last 20 years when we were last here. We walked all over the place and to the Marina and the old part of town trying to see what we could remember.
Tired we headed back for a rest, a glass of beer and something to eat. Tomorrow we will drive up to Kuranda and Port Douglas.