Tourist Attractions
This friendly country town provides all the necessary facilities and amenities for families with children, retirees, locals and visitors. Here, you can enjoy the urban pleasures of unique shops, art galleries and charming cafes with great local coffee. The Atherton Tablelands Landscapes range from extinct volcanoes and crater lakes; bird and wildlife rich forests and National Parks; peaceful dairy and cropping farms; and charming towns and villages.
Attractions
The region has a wealth of artists whose works are best seen at the Tablelands Regional Gallery. Check out the wonderful pre-war Barron Valley Hotel, browse through the town’s quaint shops like Atherton Antiques & Australiana and enjoy a picnic at Hallorans Hill. In the main street, you’ll find one of the most remarkable and novel attractions in the whole of Australia. The Crystal Caves are the fanciful creation of the Boissevain family. A spectacular private mineralogical collection with over 600 specimens, museum, the caves are a real trip where visitors don a miner’s helmet complete with a headlamp for a fun tour of this fairy-tale underground cavern, which houses the world’s largest amethyst geode, The Empress of Uruguay, and their astounding new attraction, The Magic Spheres.
Just out of Atherton is an attraction which combines the two taste sensations of dairy and chocolate – Gallo’s Dairyland. Taste the gourmet cheeses and chocolates, and let the children see how milk is made! Hasties Swamp is a seasonal wetland which has an annual cycle of wet and dry, attracting a range of resident and migrant birds. The two-storey Nyleta Wetlands Bird Hide there has wheelchair access (on the lower section only).
