Day 46 Monday 26th August Hair, Coffee and Falls

I had booked in to have a haircut and colour this morning so while this was happening Rob did some jobs and a bit of shopping. The lovely woman who did my hair suggested we head out to Jaques Coffee Plantation for lunch. As Mareeba grows over 70% of Australia’s coffee, we thought we should do the self-guided tour to find out more about the growing of coffee beans in this area. We were really glad we did! We watched a very informative and funny video that explained the history of coffee and then how and why Jaques family set up a coffee plantation in the 1970s after leaving their Tanzanian coffee plantation in the 1970’s due to safety concerns. It was also a testament to their resilience after several disasters beset them. We also completely understood why coffee costs so much! The amount and intensity involved in production to produce roasted coffee beans is huge. We finished our tour by checking out some coffee beans that we found on the nearby plants and checking out some of the machinery used on the plantation. We decided to have a delicious lunch, to go with our free coffee and liqueur tastings which were included with the tour. After lunch we decided we needed to do something energetic to work lunch off. We went for a beautiful hike to the base of Emerald Creek Falls. Some rock scrambling was involved at the end of the trail and Rob crossed the water but I decided not to chance it as I didn’t want to get wet. Instead I hiked up to the lookout while Rob waited for me.