Atherton

Tuesday 9 July

The world's largest Amethyst geode "The Empress of  Uruguay"

Since arriving in Atherton we have experienced constant light showers. We decided to do some activities today which would not matter if it was raining. Declan wanted to see Crystal Caves ever since he saw the brochure about it. Crystal Caves is a shop that deals in crystals and gemstones and underneath the building is a fake cave. 

You go down the stairs with a miners helmet on and look at a crystal display that is lit up with strategically placed lights and obviously the light from the miners helmet. Linda and I decided not to go into the "cave" but both of the boys seemed to enjoy it. 

From there we went and saw the Curtain Fig, a very large Fig tree. The curtain fig started from a seed that a bird dropped on a host tree. The fig grew a root down to the ground and, now nourished by the soil, grew trunks up and more roots down and eventually strangled the host tree. The picture below does not show the trunks and canopy of the tree or the area below the boardwalk - it is a massive tree.

Curtain Fig tree

Gallo Dairy is not far out of Atherton and produces some beautiful cheeses and, although we did not try them, the chocolates looked good as well. The boys were not hungry after having a big breakfast and so had a milkshake each for lunch. The meals Linda and I had were very nice. Another short drive brought us to Lake Eacham. Lake Eacham is a crater lake spanning just under 200m and is about 65m deep with crystal clear water. We took the 3km walk that goes around the lake which is all covered by rainforest and the boys decided to run it so they could get back into the car sooner.

On the way back to Atherton we dropped in to Shaylee Strawberry Farm and bought a large punnet of Strawberries. There's nothing like farm fresh produce!