Cedar Park > Yungaburra
The promise of a continental breakfast had us heading back out onto the balcony the following morning, and I was in the middle of contemplating which of the array of spreads I'd be adding to the two slices of bread in the toaster, whether two croissants would be deemed excessive and whether I'd be needing cereal when Madam arrived with news that made further considerations academic.
She'd grabbed a glass of orange juice for herself and an apple juice for me and had just placed them on a corner table with a pleasant outlook over the surrounding forest when a cheese platter appeared. Samples of half a dozen cheeses along with slices of ham and salami made further consideration of breakfast accompaniments unnecessary, and we worked our way through what was on offer without quite managing to get to the Camembert.
Madam's not big on Emmenthal, but heavily into Gruyere, so there was a disproportionate allocation of those two, but we managed to share the rest nicely, filling up most of the vacant space and chatting with co-host Markus Ryf, who seemed to have taken on the front of house duties while we were there.
From there it was a matter of packing the goods and chattels and ferrying them back to the car, a wander through the grounds and off to Kuranda, where we were due to catch up with another of Madam's Japanese blog friends and her husband.
There have been encounters with a number of these people, Adelaide Lady, Adelaide Baker Girl, and Townsville Vet Photographer (Hughesy's not good with names at the best of times), all of them interesting people in their own right and the latest couple we're no exception. Husband Sami had apparently spent eight years riding a bicycle around the world, visiting Ayers Rock and crossing the Sahara before settling in Cairns and opening one of the city's first Japanese restaurants.
I'm not sure the proprietors of the cafe where we sat chatting for the next couple of hours were over impressed by the lack of orders coming from the table, but we didn't seem to be keeping other paying customers away, so there you go.
From Kuranda we retraced our route back to Mareeba and Tolga, stopping at a farm-based fruit and veg operation (though I noted the bundles of garlic bulbs were marked Product of China) and The Peanut Place, where Madam collected some of the raw product and I went for a packet of the Chilli and lime version.
After refuelling in Atherton we took a sidetrack to Lake Tinaroo,
looped back past a flock of white cockatoos feasting on something in what seemed to be a recently ploughed field,
sidetracked to revisit the Curtain Fig Tree
and arrived on the doorstep at Allumbah Pocket Cottages just before four.
Unpack the car, take a wander through downtown Yungaburra
and back to the cottage to avail ourselves of the free WiFi available was the order of the day before dressing for dinner (more precisely, dressing for the anticipated temperature outside as night fell) and wandering off to Nick's Swiss Italian Restaurant for dinner, which came in the form of bruschetta and a rather superb Osso Buco.
There had been some debate about the main course (Madam had been inclined towards the barramundi until I pointed out this would complicate the wine factor) but there were no complaints when the meals arrived, particularly when it came to the bone marrow factor.
From there, with a bottle of Coriole Sangiovese under the belt, it was a case of back to the cottage for a spa, and off to bed a little after the regular eight-fifteen to eight-thirty.