Community & Business
10 December, 2021
Bookstore returns to Mareeba
MAREEBA has gained its first bookstore in years with avid reader Kath Horton opening Under Blue Skies in Byrnes Street.
The Tablelands local has always been an avid book reader and after returning to Mareeba to live she decided to open her own bookstore.
Mareeba hasn’t had a bookstore that purchases and sells new books since around 2013 and Kath decided to fill that gap, providing the community with a new quaint, quirky bookshop.
“People are coming through and buying books which is great so I’m trying to keep up with stock – they’re really encouraging and happy to see a bookshop,” she said.
“It’s helps to engage kids and their parents – I love talking with parents and grandparents because some of them will come and see books and go ‘ah this is like my whole childhood in your bookshelf’ and they get really excited.
“It was really about what can I do here in this place, why am I here.”
The bookstore officially opened its doors towards the end of November and is still undergoing some renovations to introduce a lovely fiction area.
Pictures inside the store on the wall and the sign outside have inspirations drawn from Mareeba and the surrounding area.
The land depicted in the sign is Kath’s morning drive and the swallows are the same Welcome Swallows that can be found swooping up and down Byrnes Street.
“That view on the sign outside of the mountains and haybales is actually my drive into town,” she said.
Kath and her family lived in Atherton before moving to Arnhem Land and eventually onto Melbourne - however she always knew they’d “come back to Mareeba.”
The mother of seven was cautious about juggling her homeschooling duties with the store but recent community feedback has reassured her.
“If people keep buying books then we might even be able to work out that someone comes in and does Tuesday’s – because it would be good to be open more,” she said.
“I feel sad when I’m out the back putting books in on another day and people come to the door.
“I just felt like this place needed something beautiful and for me I couldn’t think of anything more beautiful than a bookshop.”
