About Mareeba
Mareeba, an important regional service centre, is the largest town on the Atherton Tablelands. It lies at the heart of the tableland’s agricultural activities and is surrounded by coffee plantations, mango and paw paw farms, avocado farms, macadamia nut plantations as well as sugar cane fields and orchards specialising in pineapples, bananas and cashews (sourced from the Aussie Towns website – click for more).
After the big clean-up of our car in Cooktown it was off to the town of Mareeba and checking into a farm stay called Ringers Rest for a few days.
Ringers Rest
Ringers Rest is an absolutely top spot to camp for a few nights. Only $10 per night to stay – no power or water, but we’re pretty self sufficient anyway. Located about 6kms SE from Mareeba it’s easy to find (maplink)
Dave, who ran the place, was an absolute blast. He was a true bushman and had so many stories; like…
- the time he broke his leg saving a young girl from being trampled by a runaway bull. He fixed it by wrapping it tightly with heaps of gladwrap
- he was bitten by a Taipan snake and he sucked the poison out and survived
- he has survived out in the bush for so long, living on bush tucker, that he is basically immuned to anesthetics and wakes up during surgery, even after having 7 doses
- … and the stories went on for about 30 minutes – and we were only checking in at the gate LOL
Here’s some photos from around the Ringers Rest camp…
The sunsets at Ringers Rest were pretty cool too…
Mareeba Museum
Behind the Mareeba Visitor Centre is a pretty cool Heritage Museum about the town and it’s history. It’s worth taking an hour or two to check it out.
Granite Gorge Park
About 17kms SW of Mareeba (maplink) is a park by the name of Granite Gorge. If I were coming through this way again it would be a toss-up between here and Ringers Rest to camp for a few days. $13 per head to enter and explore the park.
Summing up…
- Accommodation – Ringers Rest Campground (website)
- Cost per night – $10.00 (@ 5-Oct-2020)
- Facilities – a long walk to the toilets – would be crowded when a wedding is on – 1 mens & 1 ladies dunny
- CP Location – 277 Fichera Rd, Mareeba (maplink)
- Our rating/score – 7/10
- Was it a nice town to visit? – Yes – lots to see & do
- Activities & places of interest – Would want to stay at the Granite Gorge Park next time as there are heaps of walks in the gorge
- Tourist info centre? – 345 Byrnes St, Mareeba (website)
- Would we return? – maybe
- Overall Score – 7/10
- Summing up – it was a great stay. The guy who mans the camp’s entry gate loves to chat & it took us about 30 minutes to check in – 1 minute to pay & 29 minutes to hear his life story; a great character.