The Malanda Dairy Museum and Cafe...

Recently I've been going through photo files on both my phone and iPad and have found quite a few photos which I've taken previously with the idea of using them in a blog post. Today's post is about our visit to the lovely town of Malanda last November, and of course using some of those photos.

 This town is on the Atherton Tableland to the west of Cairns in Far North Queensland. Cairns is in the tropics, but because of its elevation, the Tableland enjoys cooler weather. This meant that a dairy industry was a viable proposition and Malanda is very proud of its rich dairying history. Malanda Milk factory still produces dairy products to this day. Despite the declining number of dairy farms on the Atherton Tableland, the area produces a million litres of milk per week.

Outside the museum is a tableau representing those early pioneering days...small family run farms, milk churns rather than milk tankers, the little sheds where the filled churns  were placed ready to be taken to the factory, the farmer's children wearing old hessian bag rain 'capes' etc. ( I didn't grow up on a farm but those hessian bags were used for all sorts of things even in suburbia!)

Inside the museum there was lots to see...
The magpie pecking the foil top of the old milk bottles and drinking the top of the milk...I'd heard people talk about this when I was a child, but far as I know none ever stole our milk as the milkman brought it up on to the covered veranda...

To one side of the museum was an old red, wooden railway carriage...we had fun walking through that! And I took that photo of the ornate overhead luggage rack. Again, I'd heard stories of people climbing up and sleeping on those racks on long distance journeys...obviously a bit more agile than me! lol

There was old farm equipment adjacent to the carriage...all beautifully restored.

And from that side area of the museum, the modern factory was visible.

After a cuppa, we went through more of the exhibits.

During WW2 this area became a huge army base and this is reflected in the history of the area...

I never miss an opportunity to be photographed with statues...this soldier is dressed in the uniform of more like the time of the Vietnam war...

And of course there were thousands of US army personnel stationed in the area during WW2 and I just loved this tableau of 'milk bar' complete with a serviceman (airforce?) and an Aussie army nurse...and I 'pushed in' to get my photo taken with them. :-)

We spent a very pleasant couple of hours here.