Saturday 22nd July Lakeside Caravan Park, Lake Tinaroo

We had a lovely day and the weather was great too. We started the morning with a visit to the Yungaburra Markets. This market is only held once a month and it was very big with a huge variety of produce, arts, crafts, food, drinks etc. available at the many stalls. We spent over an hour here and enjoyed ourselves. At the market, we ran into our friends, Heather and Paul who are also staying at another caravan park located on Lake Tinaroo. We are going to stay at that park for a couple of nights for a proper catch up when we leave here. After visiting the markets we drove to the first of the nearby volcanic lakes, Lake Eacham. The view of this gorgeous, placid lake surrounded by the thick rainforest was stunning. From here we drove to the next volcanic lake, Lake Barrine. This lake is famous for its historical tea-rooms as well as the beautiful scenery. As it was very busy, we decided that we should have an early lunch and then do our planned walk around the lake. We ordered and didn’t need to wait too long for our meals, although a couple who were going to share our table, were told there was over a 20min. wait for just coffee. (They decided to go somewhere else.) We enjoyed our light meal and then set off on the 5km walk around the lake. It was very enjoyable although in places the track was a little damp under foot and the rainforest was so thick you only had the odd glimpse of the lake. Once we were back at the tea-rooms we thought we might share a plate of scones as the tea-rooms are famous for them. We went back inside and although it was late for lunch there was still a very long line of people ordering. We decided to go elsewhere. We drove to the Lake Tinaroo dam wall and watched the powerful blast of water that was being released here. We had also tried to visit a nearby strawberry farm for a serve of scones but when we arrived there the line of customers was out the door. We suspect that many people had come to the area for the markets and as they finished at 1pm, many visitors had then gone off to visit nearby tourist attractions for the afternoon. Anyway we finally had a delicious serve of scones at the Gallo Dairy and Chocolate Café. This establishment is famous for cheese, fine chocolates, ice-cream and all things dairy. We enjoyed our scones and of course purchased some chocolates and cheese before leaving. J