Bananas, Mamgos, Coffee

On Tuesday Feb 14 we left the Atherton tablelands travelling though very good agriculutural land for bananas, mangos and coffee among many other crops.  This area is  extensiely irrigated from Lake Tinaroo - a man made lake created in the late 1950 very similar to Lake Diefenbaker in Saskatchewan.  Our impression is that this lake is used much more for irrigation than is done in Saskatchewan. Note the plastic bags or bunch covers as they are called. These cover the banana bunches to protect them from insects and disease. It takes 9 months to grow a banana. 

There are many mango trees and you can see the trees are loaded.  So we are surprised at the prices as the cheaspest we have seen mangos in the store is about $1.98 per mango which is not that much less than at home.

Of course we had to stop at a coffee plantattion so Irene could get her coffee fis.  The Jaques plantation we visited was started by the Jacques family who came from Tanzania in Africa. The plantation is near Mareeba which is known as the coffee capital of Australia as in this area is where 70% of the coffee in Australia is grown.  They now have 90 acres with about 90 000 coffee trees.  They were one of the first plantations to introduce a mechanical harvestor which they invented themselves.  See the picture and you will note the machine is very high as it must go over the plants which are 6 feet tall and rubber arms knock the ripe beans off the vines which then drop on the side conveyers. Something like a grain cart goes alongside the harvestor and coffee is then processed ending up in large 1000 lb bags.

The coffee beans grown in clusters as you can see from the green beans in the picture.  The beans turn red when they ripen.

While at the coffee plantation we came across a new boad game which is from Africa called Mankala.  Rose is learning the game.  Guess where you might see one of these games in the future??

In this area there are many large volcanic rocks and red soil.  The soil is very rich so that explains all the different plants that are grown here.  These large rocks are quite porous.

After leaving the coffee plantation we headed back for the coast which means going down the mountains to the costal plain.  The curves and switchbacks made for an interesting drive but the views were spectaculor.  

Once down on the coast we looked for our last RV park and this time we picked one at Ellis Beach which also has beach front bungalows so Don and Rose could spend a few more days here after Neil and Irene leave.  See the RV parked by the cabin.