CHILLAGOE & PETFORD DID YOU KNOW? About 400 million years ago Chillagoe was the site of a shallow sea with thriving coral reefs. WATCH VIDEO Over time, the limestone formed by those ancient reefs has been folded, stretched, heated and weathered to form the jagged, glittering limestone bluffs and underground caves that characterise today’s remarkable landscape. WATCH VIDEO CHILLAGOE-MUNGANA Chillagoe is a genuine outback town with fascinating attractions and abundant CAVES NATIONAL PARK wildlife. It is easily accessed by conventional vehicles via the Wheelbarrow Way. Explore an exciting underground The Wheelbarrow Way, which starts Climb the range to the remains of world of vast chambers, eerie narrow at Mareeba, was named after the the 100-year old Lappa Pub, another passages, dripping stalactites gold mining pioneers who, when famed stopover of old. On entering and stunning limestone cave work was scarce and transportation the Chillagoe region, a dramatic ‘decorations’. When you join a park limited, trudged out bearing their landscape created by massive ranger-guided cave tour, the natural worldly goods in a wheelbarrow. This limestone bluffs and rock formations beauty of the caves will leave you is commemorated each May when greets travellers. spellbound. Your caving experience runners compete in a fundraising will be enhanced by state-of-the-art footrace pushing a wheelbarrow TOU RS Billy Tea Safaris offer a fully LED lighting systems and elevated the 140km between Chillagoe and inclusive one-day Chillagoe and walkways that allow you to see Mareeba. Dimbulah, the gateway outback day tour, so why not let intricate detail as well as sense the to the gold fields, sprang up on the someone else do the driving while awesome ‘big picture’ of Chillagoe’s Walsh River to service the ore trains. you take in the history and amazing limestone cave systems. landscapes? Billy Tea departs Cairns Once mining faded, cropping became and the Northern Beaches every Learn how the caves and Chillagoe’s the focus and today sugar cane, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. distinctive landscape were formed mango and lychee plantations can be over hundreds of millions of years. seen. Almaden, Petford and Emuford SWIMMI NG The Chillagoe Weir is a great After your cave tour, discover the are all linked by the Etheridge swimming hole with plenty of shade area’s colourful mining heritage railway line, which welcomes the and picnic tables. It is only a few with a visit to the historic Chillagoe Savannahlander train on its weekly minutes drive from the town centre Smelters. run from Cairns via Almaden and Mt (the turn off is on the road to the Surprise to Forsayth. airport). www.athertontablelands.com.au 39