Caribbean or Cairns? Good news for Costa!

8th -13 May  Inland from Cairns

Really confusing. We flew for a couple  of hours to Cairns in North Queensland, some 1712 kilometres from Brisbane but we seem to have arrived in the Caribbean! Palm trees,  loads of sugar cane, banana trees, very warm and lots of rain! For our first two days it shloshed down with rain! We had to unpack all our cases as they and the contents got wet at the airport. However, we're canny travelers so on day 2 we drove over the mountains to the Mareeba area where it was cloudy but mainly dry! Since then we've had a mix of sunshine, cloud but not so much rain and whatever the weather, it's gloriously warm!

Had a great day mooching around the Mareeba area. They make coffee, tea and chocolate here and there's a fantastic place called "Coffee Works" where you can test all three. How sensible is that! It also has a great little museum full of coffee and tea makers from across the ages. Learnt loads of useless information that may just come in handy for a pub quiz one day (or not as the case may be).

Great news. It's official! Coffee's good for you. The first record of coffee drinking is supposedly from 800 AD by the Mufti people in Yemen. Initially they drank it only as part of religious ceremonies or when prescribed by a Doctor! Once the religious leaders and medics saw the beneficial effects, the practice spread across mosques throughout Arabia and inevitably once news of this exotic brew spread, people began to drink it outside religious confines. Officially only Imams and Monks were allowed to drink coffee but try as they might, it's usage spread to us commoners. Bet they never dreamt that it would be quite as succesful as it has been!

Another coffee legend is about kaldi, a goat herd in the upland plains of Ethiopia. He noticed that his goats got very frisky after eating the leaves and berries from a particular bush and tried it himself with similar exhilarating effects! Kaldi took some of the "magic" leaves and berries to a local monastery where the Monks think they are works of the devil and chuck them on the fire. This releases the aroma of the berries at which point they're hastily rescued from the fire and after much experimentation, coffee production is born!

Some fabulous examples of early coffee makers. And we thought the modern day ones are complex!

1910 (ish) first expresso maker

How stylish!

Wonder if it's would serve quicker than Costa!

And even the humble cafetiere (or plunger as they call it here) is nothing new. 

Know that this dates us, but who's parents didn't have one of these?

Clue- it wakes you up with lots of whooshing noises and tea!

Couldn't go home without trying some of the local spirits. Sugar Cane is put to good use here. For rum predictably but also for gin, vodka and a range of liqueurs which are mixed with other local produce such as mango's and bananas. We sampled the rum, gin and vodka and all were delicious. What really swung it (for Maggie anyway) was the design of the rum bottle. So pretty. So once again we've added to our luggage!