A few kilometers from Atherton is the very pretty small town (we would call it a village) of Yungaburra.According to the guide books it's supposed to be 'picture postcard pretty', but actually we thought that description didn't really do it justice.Whilst it does have some picturesque buildings and is in a magnificent setting among the mountains, it's also very much a working, living, 'real' town.We arrived in the middle of the very popular monthly Saturday morning market, which highlighted the excellent and varied produce of the local area.We enjoyed a browse around the stalls and bought some of their very fresh vegetables and herbs.Wandering around the village we were looking out in particular for a good place to have a meal that night.Given the size of the place there were quite a few promising eateries to choose from, but eventually we opted for Flynn's as it has French menu, we fancied something more European for the first time for over a year and was recommended by a couple of locals.But before our night out we had to find our campsite, the LakeEachamTouristPark near LakeEacham in the CraterLakesNational Park, a few kilometers outside Yungaburra.It's a quaint little park set among trees with loads of birdlife, and with its on billabong and array of hens, ducks, emus and pet pig, so we decided to stay for four nights. Mind you, it wasn't a good start when E insisted upon a particular pitch with hard standing with a canopy and its own wooden table and chairs.This is the first time we've parked in such a site and as sods law would have it, the canopy was exactly at the height of Annie's awning. Guiding E in, M forgot about the canopy and got him in too close, to the extent that the canopy was touching the van and E could move neither backwards nor forwards!However, after much shouting followed by a few deep breaths a bit of nifty maneuvering E managed to extricate Annie from a difficult and potentially damaging situation. In the end this turned out to be a really good pitch on a really good site, and we had our first interest in Annie, a chap from Perth who spotted the adverts in Annie's windows.He's been for some months travelling in a 4 wheel drive but now feels in need of something with a bit more comfort. Although nothing came of it, it was good to have some interest and some questions which gave us a few hints on how we can handle future enquiries (hopefully there will be more!).After a wash and brush up, we headed into Yungaburra for our meal at Flynn's.However, we were advised to take longer, but faster, route avoiding the many speed bumps on the road through the National Park.Before parking for the evening though, we paid a visit to the famous, and very impressive, Curtain Fig.It was good being there late in the day when there was no-one else around.We then stopped for a while at the platypus look out hoping for a sighting (no luck) before heading to the Lake Eacham Hotel for a pre-dinner aperitif (well it was actually just a beer but thought aperitif was an apt description as we were to dine French style).And it was very much French style in a small, intimate restaurant with a great atmosphere - unlike most Aussie barn-like 'restaurants'.E had lamb sweetbreads for starter followed by confit de canard then crème caramel and cheese platter.M had poisson grille avec duchesse potatoes.Everything was delicious and rounded off at the end with the locally grown coffee. On Sunday we headed to nearby LakeBarrine where we took a very pleasant and peaceful boat trip round the lake, which is the crater of an extinct volcano.The guide pointed out lots of interesting flora and fauna including snapper turtles, brush turkeys, ducks, coots, thousand year old Karri trees etc.There's a delightful tea house in lovely gardens on the edge of the lake where we had a fine coffee.We certainly are a world away from the Red Centre and the Far North - no lush greenery or tea houses there. The scenery around this part of the Tablelands is stunning. Driving down to Malanda we were surprised to see a road sign for the Nerada Tea Plantation.Following Jean's example, this is the brand of tea that we've been drinking since we arrived in Oz, but we didn't know it was grown here! The plantation is in a fabulous setting and looks over Mount Bartle Frere, the highest mountain in Queensland.Although the plant wasn't in operation, Myra gave us a really interesting and personalized tour around the plantation and processing plant. After the insight into the coffee we felt it was appropriate to learn about the tea producing process and were surprised to hear that it only takes two hours within the plant to turn the fresh green leaves into tea for the cup.Afterwards we had a taste of the factory fresh tea, thanks to Kylie for making us a good cuppa, and of course we bought some. Myra gave us directions for an alternative route back which tooks us along narrow country lanes.It was getting cloudy (so far we'd only had lovely hot sunny days and refreshingly cool evenings) and we were sure we spotted rain in the distance.Monday was a bit cloudier and cooler which allowed us to do a little business in the morning (booked tickets to see Clive James in Cairns at the weekend), before setting off on the waterfall circuit.The clouds provided a moodier day but the four falls that we visited - Milla Milla, Zillie, Ellinjaa, Mungalli - were all a real treat to the eye.The locally made cheeses at the Mungalli Creek Dairy were a treat to the taste buds and we couldn't resist taking a couple of them home to enjoy later.Tuesday was a warmer, sunnier day again and we didn't move off site.We spent the time catching up with downloading some photos and cleaning the van - the site next door was empty so we took the carpet out, gave it a good beating, laid it on the hard standing and gave it a shampoo.We also washed down the floor in the van to get rid of all the red dust from the Red Centre that everybody had warned us would get everywhere - and it did!