Day 65: Wed 29 Jun - Mareeba

Day 65: Wed 29 Jun - Mareeba

19-25°,  A mostly cloudy day, with a forecast 40% chance of showers which thankfully didn't eventuate. The wind was also much kinder today, but when the breeze did get up, it felt quite cool. We had a slow start to the day, enjoying the much slower pace. At 10:00am we all piled into our car and I drove about 18km out of Mareeba to Jaques Coffee Plantation. The owners are friends of Wendy's parents from Africa. Nat and Linda Jaques have a long and very interesting history in the coffee industry. Let's say they have amazing resilience and determination, and have a story which I couldn't possibly do justice by putting into a few words here. I recommend reading about it here: https://jaquescoffee.com.au/pages/history

After watching a very interesting video covering everything from the worldwide coffee industry and its history to their own story and business, Linda took us for a personal tour through their gardens to the plantation, explaining the harvesting equipment, processing and finally the roasting and packaging. Afterwards we sampled some tasty coffee liqueurs. We left a couple of hours later with a bottle of liqueur and a 1kg bag of ground coffee for our plunger in the caravan.

Our next destination was 28 km away at the Mt Uncle Gin Distillery, south of Mareeba. On arrival, Wendy and I partook in sampling 4 different gins, three of which I thought were nice enough to want to buy, but at a cost of $85 per bottle, I settled for only one - a bottle of Botanic Australis Ooray Native Plum Gin which has a very unique flavour and is very smooth. We got back to the vans where we had a late light lunch, and a quiet afternoon, before I set about packing up for an early departure tomorrow morning. Being Wednesday night, it was pub night for dinner, so on the way into town I refuelled, which hurt a lot: My most expensive fill yet at $268 for 111lt of fuel; but I did travel 767 km on this tank, including 540km of towing from Port Douglas to Cooktown and back to Mareeba, at an average of 14.6lt /100km. Considering the hills and winds, I am very satisfied with the fuel economy. So far this trip we've driven a total 6,534 km of which 5,399 km has been towing. Dinner at the Ant Hill Hotel was enjoyable, and before heading back the vans, we strolled down the street to IGA for a few last minute supplies, where we stumbled across some lovely murals. A few more photos, and we headed back home to end another wonderful day.


Coffee beans ready for picking

A very colourful plant in the garden


Entrance to the coffee shop

One of 2 coffee harvesters which the Jaques' developed

Greg, Linda and Noeleene in front of the other harvester - note the fibreglass rods which tap the ripe beans from the trees

Harvesters and other machinary

Linda telling the story about their coffee harvest which was stolen when farming in Africa

Rows of coffee trees - caring for the plants and processing the harvest are both very labour intensive

How coffee is grown in third world countries

Processing Plant

Processing Plant


Processing Plant


One tonne bags of dried coffee beans ready for roasting 

Roasting machine and quick cooler - Roasting is a fine art with 20-30 seconds between a medium and a dark roast

Roasting room

Packaging room

Entrance to Jaques Coffee - the Avenue of Termites

Mt Uncle Distillery

Garden at Mt Uncle Distillery

Sisal growing in the Garden at Mt Uncle Distillery

Another night of solid bookings back at the caravan Park - 

Murals outside IGA

Murals outside IGA

Murals outside IGA

Murals outside IGA

Murals outside IGA

Murals outside IGA



 


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