Yungaburra is a very quaint and picturesque town in the Atherton Tablelands with a very welcoming feel throughout. Yet another little town that goes to great lengths to look lovely and entice travellers to stop and explore. And explore we did.

I think the first thing that attracted us to Yungaburra were the beautiful hanging baskets of colourful flowers all down the main street and beyond. Next the beautiful, well maintained parks and gardens, and the cute, interesting looking buildings, shops and cafes throughout town. We spent quite some time enjoying the unique gift shops, the huge book shop which took up a whole shed, the lovely littie Visitors Centre, the op shop and the art gallery where we found an artist at work. She explained that several artists use this space to create and that the owner runs art classes for young and old, beginners and experienced artists, as well as the disabled and anyone else interested in learning to paint. And the ‘At the Art Garage’ has been running for several years.

We lost count of the number of cafes we could choose from but, when John went to the barber, I popped in for afternoon tea at the Whistle Stop Cafe, a lovely cafe with a very attractive walled garden area. I couldn’t resist it. When the young lady brought my coffee I asked her if they actually serve fried green tomatoes. She looked confused and said “others have asked me that question but I don’t understand “. So I explained that the Whistle Stop Cafe was the main setting in one of my favourite movies “Fried Green Tomatoes”. I was a bit surprised the staff didn’t know that fact.

The next day we popped into another interesting looking coffee shop – Mad Hatterz Cafe. That was fun; such a funky little Cafe with excellent coffee and scones. (The day after we went back and had yummy beef burgundy pot pies for lunch!)

The countryside around Yungaburra is lovely with natural rainforest, hills and farmland. There are also several crater lakes left over from extinct volcanoes. We spent a morning driving around the lakes enjoying the beautiful scenery.

Close to town there were several viewing platforms along Peterson Creek from which to look for platypuses but we were unlucky. We were fortunate though to see both the Curtain and Cathedral Fig Trees which were quite spectacular.

As we drove around the Danbulla National Park, we came across a pair of chimneys sitting in the middle of nowhere. It seems that this area was set out for soldier settlement after the First World War and this is all that remains of a house built by a soldier in the 1920s.

We camped at a lovely quiet caravan park on Lake Tinaroo. Opposite the park is the Avenue of Honour, a tribute to Australian soldiers who fought in Afghanistan, and we found it to be a particularly beautiful and peaceful tribute.

Before leaving this beautiful area, we popped into Atherton which, coincidentally, had a Vintage Car Show on at the local school. John particularly enjoyed taking photos and sharing stories about some of the cars his dad, his friends or he owned in the past. It was an enjoyable couple of hours.

Then we called into a museum in a little place called Tolga. The volunteers enthusiastically shared the town’s history with us as we checked out their displays. The museum focused on the old railway and on their war experiences. As we learned in Ravenshoe, this whole area was used to train soldiers in jungle warfare to help prepare them for Papua New Guinea. This museum was definitely worthwhile visiting, just like every museum in every little town we’ve been in.

We loved the little towns of Yungaburra and Tolga and their beautiful surroundings. We would have hated to miss out on seeing them.