Mad Mick had spoken glowingly about a pie shop along the way, somewhere you turned off the highway to the left that Madam thought might have a name starting with W. Under the after-effects of the previous night's indulgence I wasn't quite sure about these things, but Silkwood, from some fuddled memory or other, might offer some prospect as far as a gobble and go lunch was concerned. A turn off the highway to the left revealed a sprawling settlement with nary an option on the main drag and not much, as far as I could see, on the side streets. There was allegedly a business centre somewhere, but it didn't seem to be on the main drag.
Back on the Bruce Highway we headed towards Innisfail, stopping in Mourilyan on the principle that continuing on in search of places on the left that start with W might well see us turning off to the Mamu Rainforest Canopy Walk before we'd managed to find lunch.
A sign on the highway advised of a bakery in Mourilyan, and regardless of Mad Mick's endorsement of place starting with W's comestibles if they're better than what the Mourilyan Bakery turns out they must be pretty damn fine.
Madam's spinach and ricotta pasty hit the spot nicely and my gourmet mushroom pie was arguably the best pie I'd eaten since Rutherglen at the end of 2006. There mightn't have been a plethora of pies in the meantime, but this one was very good and wasn't far short of the Rutherglen beef and burgundy number. I could easily have gone anotherie, but Madam's mind was set on the Mamu Rainforest Canopy Walk and she was driving so…
I'd conveniently forgotten that the turnoff onto the Palmerston Highway is north of Innisfail, which was just as well since stopping there for lunch would have involved more than getting out of the car. Mamu beckoned and it was just after one-fifteen when we turned off the Palmerston and pulled into the relatively deserted car park.
Now, you might think four vehicles in a substantial car park suggests a venue that isn't highly favoured, and you may well look at the $20 admission and think that's a contributory factor, but once you're in it's fairly obvious that the twenty isn't an unreasonable impost. But more of that anon.
If you're looking for an actual overview, you can find one here, and while the walk through the rainforest is pretty standard it's the specially constructed viewing structures that set the Mamu RCW apart from the standard rainforest experience.