Sunday 4th July

We had an early start after a very disturbed night with the wind howling and rain falling. We left Cooktown as we found it wet and windy.A few ks out of town the wind dropped and the sky lightened..The most exciting thing on the journey was seeing a man panning for gold in a creek, the area around had a gold rush in the 1800s but it was alluvial gold which is found in the creeks and rivers and it soon ran out.We managed to get a photo but he packed up when he saw us watching him.Mareeba was our first stop on the Atherton Tablelands.The town has a very good visitor centre with a mini historical village big enough to be interesting but not too big to be overwhelming as many are.We also visited Coffee World which the brochures go into full blown hype about and at first we thought oh dear!It's in the middle of industrial units with a small bare earth car park and hand written notices plastered all over a rusty wire fence not a good start.We went for lunch and the menu and the ordering system was very confusing or are we getting old? Everything is rustic and is takes a bit of getting use to but the shop is excellent especially the choc dept. with its generous samples.We paid $17 to go in the museum and tasting room that was the seniors price but they have a very nice way of describing seniors, we are the wisdom set. There is unlimited tasting of about 18 coffees. 4 teas, 4 liqueurs and a dozen chocolates and when I said I can't drink coffee the young assistant offered to make me a drinking chocolate which I thought was a nice touch. The coffee museum is very comprehensive and well done but you can't take food or drink in with you.When we had looked round we went back into the tasting section for another round but a coach party was in and we had to knock our fellow wise ones over to get at the goodies. They won by the sheer numbers and we retired gracefully.We are at Atherton for three nights while we explore the area.The motel is good but at teatime the cockatoos were so noisy they almost drowned out the noise of helicopter taking of outside our cabin.