Brett's Outback Tasting Adventures

This boutique food and wine experience from Cairns will be tasting some of the best food and wine that the Atherton Tablelands has to offer. We will take you through a variety of contrasting landscapes, from lush rainforest to stunning ochre savannah plains. The rich volcanic soil allows farmers to grow many and diverse crops from Bananas, coffee, sugar cane, avocados, mangoes, macadamia nuts, citrus and more which you will learn about as we taste our way around the regions 'Food Bowl.'

Take in the beautiful views as we take you on a fascinating and tasty journey through another gem of Far North Queensland.

LAKE BARRINE NATIONAL PARK AND HERITAGE TEA HOUSE

A mere 1 hour drive from Cairns via the scenic Gillies Highway brings you to the cool atmosphere of the Atherton Tablelands, where you will come across a beautiful, enchanting natural lake hidden in World Heritage Rainforest. Lake Barrine is something special as it is actually a water filled crater left by a volcanic eruption approximately 10,000 years ago. Here we enjoy a delicious breakfast of local produce and enjoy a special 'Lake Barrine' coffee or local tea at the charming 80 year old lakeside teahouse amongst beautiful terraced gardens overlooking the Lake.

The timber teahouse was originally built in the 1930s as a dance hall and has since had many uses, including an aquatic centre, guest house, school; and during World War II, it was a convalescent home. The 3rd generation of the Curry family still own, and the 4th generation manages the teahouse and boat cruises. Their commitment to preserving the natural heritage of the lake has remained unchanged for the past 90 years.

NERADA TEA PLANTATION

Nerada Tea Plantation is situated on the scenic outskirts of Malanda. Here you will be tasting several of the Plantation grown, single origin teas, such as Plantation Fresh Black, Lemon Myrtle and Royal Devonshire, black tea with a hint of natural vanilla. The teas will be paired with a selection of local Gallo cheeses.

Whilst enjoying your Tastings, you will be overlooking the lush fields of Australia’s largest Tea Plantation. Nerada has earned the Rainforest Alliance certification to uphold this certification, Nerada must keep a watchful eye over how much energy and water is consumed through the production processes. They must work to protect the natural ecosystems of the region, maintain wildlife corridors and aquatic ecosystems, and support the protection of endangered species and other fauna in the local area. This includes taking care of the precious tree-kangaroos, Misty, Billy and their extended family, who live on the estate. Fingers crossed we might just spot one!!

AUSTRALIAN PLATYPUS PARK

The Australian Platypus Park is home to a thriving platypus population. These wonderful creatures can be found in a spring fed pond surrounded by lush tropical vegetation. In order to create a natural environment for the development of the platypus, plants are naturally grown in accordance with the habitat of the platypus.

We take a wonder down to see them in this magnificent setting then sit down to enjoy flavoured handcrafted smoked products, combined with a unique blend of local Australian native herbs and spices.

These tasty treats are all produced in-house using only the freshest quality ingredients and include Crocodile, Red Claw (Yabby) and Kangaroo with fresh local salads topped off with a ‘Tarzali Lakes’ boutique beer, Dragon Fruit cider, Lemon Myrtle tea and some tastings of the Murdering Point Tropical fruit Winery range. (Menu (EXCLUSIVE to our tour.) Time to purchase some of the smoked products and sauces.

All in-house smoked meats are locally sourced from around the tablelands. All food scraps from the cafe feed the animals.

GALLO DAIRYLAND

We now head towards the historic village of Atherton. Driving through this thriving hub, a patchwork of amazing farmland and rolling green hills appear before us. We are on our way to a fully operational dairy farm spread across 1000 acres of rich red volcanic soil with delicious handcrafted chocolates and a gourmet cheese factory.

Here we can buy the delicious cheeses that we have just tasted and sample irresistible Swiss style filled chocolates that are a work of art whilst gazing out over the picturesque landscape. Meet some friendly animals before heading back to Mareeba through a variety of diverse crops.

Gallo milk 350 cows twice a day, which equates to 20 L of milk per cow per day. Some of their sustainable practices include scraping the animal food lot into the manure pit to use as fertilizer and using rainwater to clean the factory.

THE HUMPY NUT WORLD

We now head through a patchwork of amazing farmland, diverse crops and rolling green hills for a tasting and shopping treat. We stop at ‘The Humpy’, the best place to go to for freshly harvested Atherton Tablelands produce straight from the growers. From vegetables to tropical fruits and hundreds of different varieties of nuts, dried fruits locally produced jams and sauces.

Here we get to taste some seasonal fruits and many different flavours of hot local peanuts and macadamia nuts. We leave you time to browse this amazing and quirky grocery store so you can purchase goodies for the rest of your stay.

MT UNCLE DISTILLERY

Then just down the road we arrive at Australian Distiller of the year 2017, Mount Uncle Distillery, North Queensland’s first and only distillery. Here we taste some of their Award winning liqueurs and spirits.
Then take a wander round this stunning property nestled in coffee and banana plantations, with beautiful gardens and friendly animals.

Increased interest in and understanding of Australia’s Indigenous heritage has, in part, been driven by education and the accessibility of native foods and ingredients, nowhere more so than in the development of the Australian gin industry while supporting ethical and sustainable practices.

Founded in 2002, Mount Uncle Distillery was one of the first distilleries to embrace native botanicals in its gin recipe. Founder Mark Watkins discovered an early gin recipe used by local settlers and set himself the challenge of replacing the traditional ingredients with native.

 JAQUES FAMILY COFFEE PLANTATION

Next stop is to Jaques Family coffee plantation the 3rd generation; with 85,000 Arabica Coffee trees growing in the rich soils they produce a smooth and vibrant flavour unique only to the remarkable location. Here we get an enchanting insight in to the finer details of coffee from the tree to the cup. We stroll through the gardens and finish our stop with a delicious cup of Jaques coffee made ‘just as you like it’ with scones, local jam, Mungalli cream and coffee liqueurs.

A family owned and operated business employing up to 15 staff year round, now in business for 40 years in Australia and pioneering the Australian commercial coffee growing industry in the late 1970’s. Jaques Coffee is a proudly sustainable business adding further to its solar system in 2019, have a total of 470 solar panels now offsetting the entire operation from the farm pumping, tourist centre, Roastery coffee driers and processing mills producing up to 1 Megawatt of power per day.

Another proud achievement is of the Jaques family is the design of the world’s first mechanical coffee harvester in the 1980’s which can still be seen in operation today as one of two coffee harvesters in operation on the plantation today.