Taste my banana away

For some people, to name a town Chillingham, is just to good to be true. For me on the other hand, it really just sounds right. So finally, after a week of little half day trips here and there, we were headed into Queensland via the Natural Arch, which only meant that we would be driving through the edible village of Chillingham.

You should first of all know that there are endless, rough around the edges kinda villages in the whole area. The whole area being the Tweed and Byron Shire, venturing into the South East Queesnsland Hinterland. Once you arrive, you can pull to the side of the road, open the door, stretch your legs and head into the infamous Chillingham Banana Cabana.

           

This is a place where travellers seeking that something a little bit different, can just wonder amongst the plantation where tropical fruits thrive, afternoon thunder storms erupt in the skies, and of course, the washing  on the line, for all to observe, drying before the rains set in.

Before we decided that we needed to buy every kind of fruit and vegetable, homemade jams and spreads and other delicious snacks, we headed out back where I realized that we were indeed in Australia and the snakes were quiet happy to tell me to piss off if I were to step on one. Luckily there were no snakes, just massive black ants that were sleeping on their backs and enough mozzie's to give me and the rest of northern NSW Ross river fever.

This quiet massive piece of tropical heaven in the midst of mountainous, rural mecca, is where one grows bush tucker. Bush tucker, for those who don't speak authentic Australian, means food grown native to the land. Foods such as Lemon Myrtle, Yuzu Fruit and Buddas Hand just to name a few, are all grown here, hand in hand, making this place a shrine for anyone who has even the slightest interest in food and the land.

Gerald 'Buck' Buchanan has been at this for over 25 years, not only serving as a home for hundreds of tropical fruit trees and plants, but decided to throw in a couple of bottle trees all those years ago and see how they took to the wetter than usual climate they like.

I guess they like it since we got to see them, though they had probably seen better days. There was only one left fully standing, the others had eventually given in and just toppled over in storms. Bottle trees are characters to say the least, especially when you're walking down the street in the middle of a city and there is this stumpy, prehistoric looking tree beast in close view.

Being from a land where you have easy access to banana paddle pops, I was pretty excited when the Banana Cabana had mass produced by hand, FROZEN chocolate covered bananas, ON a paddle pop stick. Attractive? No. Delicious? Yes.

I wonder if Glenn is OK with me posting these photos?

                         

He looks too happy not to be.