Day 50 Friday July 25th 2014 Rocky Creek to Ravenshoe
We wake to misty rain and it is cool. After leaving Atherton we climb into the hills to Herberton where we visit Herberton Historic Village. On the way we have passed markers for miles that denote the (WW2) site of the AIF 6th Division it must have covered an enormous area.
The Herberton Historic Village has an exhausting and extensive collection of paraphernalia from the Atherton Tablelands early days. The most fascinating is the fact that most of the buildings in the village are original and have been trucked in from all over the district. It was effort enough towing the caravan through those hills let alone a shop or a school. As we leave, some poor woman almost chokes as Woody says “don’t they ever have anything new in these places?” Well, at least I know what he means.
We continue to climb through thick beech forests until we reach cleared farmland and Windy Hill wind farm. We settle in at Ravenshoe Railway Station camp, which costs a very fair $15 for a powered site. Our tap is on the wall of the station and one side of us is the Men’s Shed in an old railway building. On the other side our door opens to a pretty garden and the railway tracks. There are a lot of vans here and it is charmingly quirky.
This is Queensland’s highest town. We are at an altitude of 930 metres and there is a cloud sitting on Ravenshoe. It rains and rains, so we walk up the main street to find something for lunch and are seduced by the menu board at the Club Hotel. Not a lot of pubs do lunches up here. Now it’s not the highest pub in Qld, that honour goes to the Tully Falls Hotel just over the road. But the Club, which must be the second highest, is doing a roaring trade with lunch goers and they even do take away. We order the lamb roast that we’ve been dreaming about for days. The young publican bounces his toddler on his hip, while his wife cooks. “There ya go guys and here are some tools (cutlery).” We demolish that lamb in record time.
The rain continues and everything is wet and soggy and muddy so we spend the evening watching Jaws2 on the only viable TV channel.
Towing Kms: 62Kms
2020 Note: Watching an old movie on the only channel available in steady soaking tropical rain, is this what makes travel exotic? I don’t know, but these are the things that will always stay in your mind years later. The cold, the miserable and the searing heat.
itchingforhitching 