August 18 - 20. Pinnarendi Station Stay.

Still inland to get away from the coastal rain, Linda found a tour to see Lava Tubes which sounded interesting. The website suggested a station stay which had been suggested to us before. We have enjoyed the station stays in the past. They usually having some of their own produce on offer, they all have their own personality and are very different to a Big 4 / NRMA caravan park.

The booking site suggested a Barramundi dinner, which sounded great. After ordering, I realise that it was on the day we were leaving. I give them a call to cancel and correct it, and then ended up booking an extra night and then booking for the all you can eat pizza the night before. I’m not very good at returns.

The cave tour took us onto a national park that you can only access through the tour groups, and through a number of large caves formed a while back by lava pushing through the landscape. Some were filled with water that you could wade through to up to your knees. The three hour tour was good to see the caves, but the commentary was very much about what the European settlers had done with it over the last 150 years, and little explanation around what Undara meant, and what happened to the indigenous population during that time. Apparently, some worked on the land with the owners, but this is rarely a good story. The lack of acknowledgement of this gave a bit of a off feeling on the tour from the start. On our last trip, we went to Mimbi Caves which was run by the local indigenous people, and they told harrowing but relevant stories of how they used the caves to hide and what the caves meant to them. Stories that needed to be told, and I guess we were expecting something like that. The Undara caves tour was quite whitewashed.

The station did not have much else to do other than a 3.5km walk that we did a number of times. The last day had a little bit of rain, so we got some essential planning done. The famous pizza night dinner did live up to its reputation, with wood fired home-made pizzas coming until you couldn’t have any more. The crowd really got into the spirit of things and we had some decent chats with a few different people. The Barramundi crowd the next night was different though. With conversations bordering on the boring, and only having one course, the second night felt a bit more like get in and get it done. Whilst nice, good food still needs good people to complement the setting.

Pinnarendi station stay google review

We stayed at the station for 3 nights, only leaving for 3 hours to go to the Undara Lava tubes. The hosts are friendly, and the famous pizza night lived up to the hype and worth the stay. Barramundi night is good, but the all you can eat pizza vibe was a lot of fun. There is a 3.5km walk on the property which is great for birdwatching, and with little else to do, we got to know this very well. Facilities are good, and the café eating area has some amazing craftwork for the tables, chairs and pizza ovens and smoker. Good for a night, OK for two. 4 stars.