116 australiancountry.net.auBut these days, her business is anything but small as
Spring Creek Mountain Cafe is open fi ve days a week and
routinely welcomes 100 guests on weekends. As well, she
serves dinner and breakfast every day to cottage guests
and caters for functions in her “spare time”. An inveterate
networker, Bev has built up a supply chain of local produce
that ranges from Killarney beef, local rhubarb, honey and
Granite Belt wines to vegetables and salad leaves from local
potato farmer, Mal Smith. Bev encourages guests to visit
the nearby sights, which include the spectacular Daggs,
Queen Mary and Browns waterfalls. But the food is the
thing, and Bev and her staff manage a menu that is both
contemporary and country, with Middle Eastern and
Asian accents.
Through the cafe, Bev connected with Teresa Cause,
the proprietor of Boonah’s camping equipment store, Far
Outdoors. The child of “gypsy” parents who built cattle
yards for a living, Teresa grew up on remote stations in
some of Australia’s wildest regions, which in turn ignited
a fascination for the outdoors. She studied environmental
science, then added education to her CV and, for many
years, taught in outdoor education centres. Following a
Rotary study exchange program in Alaska, she became a
tour leader and guided both international and local trips
to wild and wonderful places. Since opening the shop in
2007, Teresa became aware that many people wanted to go
bushwalking but needed a bit of support to fully enjoy the
experience. So these days, she also runs Horizon Guides,
which takes walking tours to wilderness spots all over
Australia, from Tasmania to the Great Ocean Road and
Gariwerd National Park in the Grampians region of
western Victoria.When Bev Ruskey announced that she was opening
a tea house high in the hills between Boonah and
Killarney in south-east Queensland, the response
was unanimous: she was barking mad and the
enterprise was doomed to fail. Undeterred, she went
ahead and started a cafe on the property she and her
husband, Bruce, had owned as a weekend getaway
since 1991. Sadly, Bruce died prematurely and never
got to see the completed project, but Bev soldiered on
and opened in 2002. “The location is off the beaten
track,” Bev says. “But it’s truly spectacular. I knew
people would come because they’d been hopping
the fence to camp on our land for years. I didn’t
mind sharing, but I thought I might as well
capitalise on the asset.”
She opened on a Thursday and sold maybe 10
Devonshire teas to passersby. By Sunday, however, the
fl oodgates had opened. “We were run off our feet,” she
recalls. “We ran out of everything. I was forced to whip
icing sugar into sour cream to keep up with the orders.
And we’ve never looked back since.”
It was such a success that a year after opening the cafe,
she added three self-contained guest cottages to the eyrie-
like site with its panoramic views to Condamine Gorge,
the Border Ranges, Wilson’s Peak and Mounts Superbus
and Barney. A hairdresser in her previous life, Bev has
always been passionate about local produce and cooking.
While she was still working days in her Brisbane salon,
she embarked on a small business course at TAFE, as well
as an intensive work experience program at a restaurant
at night, until she felt suffi ciently confi dent to take on
a small cafe.Clockwise
from above:
Spring Creek
Mountain Cafe
perches on the
mountainside;
Daggs Falls;
stepping out in
border country;
tea and treats at
Horizon Guides’
summer campsite;
Te r e s a l e a d s h e r
band of wanderers
along the Rabbit
Board Fence; an
alternative route
from Brisbane
to the Granite
Belt takes in
some spectacular
mountain scenery.