A Labour of Love, Ready for Its Next Chapter
Some properties are built. This one was grown.
Set on 1.62 hectares in the green heart of the Johnstone Valley, this is a place shaped by two decades of patient, deliberate restoration.
What stands here today - a canopy of replanted native rainforest running down to the flowing waters of Bora Creek - exists because someone chose to put it back, tree by tree, season after season. You can feel it the moment you arrive.
The land tells its own story. On one boundary, tropical rainforest greenery and the soft sound of creek water. On the other, a hill, rising green over the open plains and fields - history and horizon in the same view.
Between them, gently manicured tropical gardens wrap the home, and raised vegetable beds sit within arm's reach of the kitchen door. The orchard reads like a wish list: mango, avocado, soursop, star fruit, macadamia, orange, lemon, lime, ruby grapefruit, lychee, Brazilian cherry, chocolate pudding fruit, banana, finger lime, jackfruit, papaya, passionfruit, pineapple, dragon fruit, rambutan, mangosteen and guava. A food garden - genuine, established and year-round harvest.
Enter on the ground level, tiled and cool, with a living space that opens to the rear yard, a main bathroom and separate toilet. Stairs rise into the true heart of the home: a light-filled, open-plan kitchen and dining space with beautiful, original timber floorboards. The refurbished kitchen is a quiet showpiece - stone-look bench tops, a generous preparation space, Bosch oven, gas cooktop and dishwasher, and a wall-length pantry that flows around to a second dining area. It comes fully furnished, right down to the utensils. Simply arrive.
Beyond the central lounge room, a light-filled, open study or third living space unfolds, alongside the second bedroom with built-in robe, and the front balcony, which is finished in eco-decking and overlooks the property entrance. Both bedrooms have built-in robes and air conditioning. The home has been refreshed internally with new ceiling fans, plantation shutters and roller blinds throughout. A rear undercover patio for the long, easy afternoons.
What sits behind the home is just as considered. A large shed of approximately 6m x 12m, with a small office ready for final fit-out. In-ground irrigation running rear to front, solenoid-controlled with a computer controller and in-line fertigation system. Two 27,500-litre rainwater tanks on a concrete base with pressure pump, gravity-fed to the gardens. A bore. A rooftop solar system with a large inverter. The home is wired for generator backup on a single switch and can run on a 3kVA unit - genuine resilience, this far into the green. Gutter guards to house and shed. Storage everywhere you look. Even the maintenance equipment stays, including a near-new John Deere ride-on mower.
This is Mamu country, and the valley that gave Australia its tea industry - Nerada was where the nation's first commercial plantation took root in 1960. It is rich, generous, high-rainfall soil, minutes from Innisfail's services and on the doorstep of the Palmerston Highway, Wooroonooran National Park, the Millaa Millaa waterfall circuit and the Tablelands beyond and just over one hour to Cairns.
Live in it, retreat to it, or hold it as the holiday home you never want to leave. Everything here has been finished with love, by people who wanted it done properly. It is ready now - ready to be walked, harvested, swum in, slept in, and loved all over again.
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