Townsville via Bowenwood

Today we left Mackay at about 9.30am and headed north to Townsville. It was a fairly easy drive although most of it was on single lane highway at 100km, not dual or triple lane freeways. We stopped along the way per chance at the seaside town of Bowen. It is the location for Baz Luhrman’s latest movie, Australia starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. There are white letters on a big concrete water tank as you come into town saying, “Bowenwood” Here is an article I found from the Courier Mail telling about it. http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,21884967-5013015,00.html Fin tried to get a Beefy Hugh Jackman pie in the bakery but they didn’t have them despite having a sign up advertising them. They had photos of the staff with the crew & cast etc. And thank-you certificates from the company too. It must have been exciting in Bowen when they were there filming. It’s quite a nice little town and I can see why they used it.

We went over the Burdikan Bridge south of Ayr as well and I took a photo. Here are a couple of links to explain more about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burdekin_bridge

http://www.abc.net.au/northqld/stories/s1955534.htm

The country side along the way was full of cane fields at first then changed for a while to no cane fields but later more cane and it seemed even taller than before. Of course along with the cane fields comes the mills, train tracks and cane trains although they didn’t hold us up at all today. Sugar certainly is ‘life force’ for Queensland and in turn Australia being our second largest export.
As we approached the Townsville area we were struck by the mountains on either side of the horizon. I took some photos to show what we mean. We got to Townsville by about 3.30 pm, settled into our cabin then called Fin’s cousin Sharyn and arranged a visit to her. She was only 20 minutes away and Tom navigated there without any trouble. It was great to see her after all these years and to see her lovely house which she has been renovating too. She’s done a great job and even converted much of her electricity usage to solar. She has a huge mango tree in the backyard and ironically hates mangoes! Sharyn also had something that we haven't seen for a while – a sprinkler... and it was going! Yes, we certainly haven’t seen one of those in Melbourne for a while. No shortage of water here it would seem. Sharyn has a nice green lawn and garden and the bottom of my jeans got wet on her lawn! Another thing I was interested to see was the Cairns Birdwing butterfly chrysalises on a tree in the yard. They were huge compared to the little ones we get on the citrus trees at home from our Dainty Swallowtail butterflies. It would be wonderful to have such big, colourful butterflies going through their lifecycle right before my eyes in our own backyard! I have included a picture taken from Sharyn's backyard that shows a beautiful tree on the nature strip next door but when I asked her what it was she said, "A nuisance. It drops stuff everywhere." but I still think it is beautful and they were all over the place. That is one thing I noticed about being in Queensland; that there are more flowering trees and lots of trees with huge seedpods too.

Tomorrow we have an even shorter journey than today’s from here to Cairns.

Sugar Farming

Today we went to Polstone Sugar Farm Tours to find out what happens on the cane farms. It was a really interesting tour with Cec Brown, our guide who has been in sugar farming all his life and has seen changes from hand harvesting to the current day machine harvesters. He took us for a drive around on his tractor drawn carriage and stopped at points along the way to show us different aspects of cane farming and explain how it all works. The first stop was to show us how the cane is planted using sets (cuttings) using one of the special planting machines. He told us that the cane we see with the plumes on top is just flowering which means it is ready to harvest. It needs to be harvested when it has the highest CCS (Commercial Cane Sugar) content. Some varieties don’t get these flowers but it seems more around this area do. Cec then disappeared into the cane field and came back carrying some sugar cane he had cut then quickly chopped it into smaller pieces which he sliced the outside hard skin off and then gave us to chew on. It is surprising how much sugary juice you can chew out of those pieces. I felt as though I had sticky cane juice all over my face since you can’t bite off the pieces because the fibre of the cane is too tough so you have to just chew down the length. It was very sweet and yummy though! Next we stopped at the harvester and Cec gave us an explanation and demonstration of how it works. Now, not being the mechanically minded one of us I cannot tell you really how it works except to say that it cuts off the top leaves, strips off the leaves down the length of the cane and then cuts it into billets which are lengths of about 45cm (18in) in length. This is the size that the mill likes to go into the crusher. Following this we went to the mini mill or crusher and Cec put through several canes to extract the sugar juice for us to drink. It is just like a sweet drink such as apple juice but not so appley! It was amazing how flat and dry it leaves the canes. What is left as I mentioned in my previous post is known as bagasse which is what they use at the mill to fire up the furnaces. It is also used to make paper, mulch and the Japanese have recently started using it as a healthy fibre powder which is produced in Proserpine in Queensland also. The tour finished off with a drive around the farm back to the shed where we were offered tea, coffee and homemade biscuits and shown a video of the sugar growing, milling process etc. It was a good tour; Cec is an interesting character who has a lot of information and experience to share.
While we were travelling to the farm today, we stopped at a little local town called Eton for some lunch and ate it in the park. A cheeky little black and white bird came and hopped around on the ground near us. It found a stale piece of bread and kept bashing it on the concrete floor to break pieces off to eat. I tried to scare it off so I could crush the piece for it but it cleverly took its find with it. I consulted my bird field guide and found out that it is a Pied Butcher bird. I didn’t even know they existed up until then. We also saw a bird of prey that had swooped down on something near the road so, because it was a quiet back road, Fin stopped and I took a few photos of it in flight since it was circling around looking for whatever it was after when it swooped down but obviously missed. I identified it as a Black Kite, probably a juvenile from the colouring. I was fairly happy with my photos since it is not easy to get shots of birds in flight and I had to be quick. I will put photos on Webshots when I have broadband connection again. Think I’ll have to start a bird album!
Tonight we went to the Pacific Hotel in Eimeo for dinner based on a recommendation by a guy from the Information Centre at Mackay. He told us it was on the point and had superb views so we thought why not try that instead of one of the many clubs around town. It's about 30 minutes drive from where we aere staying and we would never have come across it without being told about it. We found it without any problems and it was not jam packed with people like the clubs seem to be up here. The food was quite good and the view was indeed lovely, overlooking the sea with lights shining across the water. We had one small problem while we were eating, sitting out on the balcony, and that was a persistent possum that got on our table almost immediately and quickly took one of my chips then came back for more. We had to push it away, push the chair it was climbing on, kick our feet at it but it was so doggedly determined to get some more food. Fin got quite aggressive with the chairs to make it leave! A little while later, the people down further got their meal and I thought it would hassle them but whether we put it off or it heard a call from somewhere else I don't know but it went away after a while and eventually came back with a baby on it's back. Well, we think it was the same one but Fin said it was after sympathy, trying to get food by bringing it's baby. However, it walked right on by on the other side of the iron fence. The animals up here, usually birds, all seem to be very quick to take advantage of humans eating food in their territory!
After our meal we found our way down onto the beach and took a walk along. It was pretty down there too looking back at the lights from the hotel where we had just been. In fact, with the water right there I think the view was even prettier. It is right near Dolphin Heads which has a resort and I believe is quite popular for those of you wondering where on earth Eimeo is. It is said, I-Me-O by the way.
Off to Townsville in the morning so I had better go and pack!

Through the Mill

We have been through the mill today, literally and physically. We went to the Farleigh Sugar Mill here in Mackay in Central Queensland and were shown how the harvested sugar cane arrives in the long cane trains at the weigh station and then is tipped into the crusher for the beginning of the process where the liquid sugar is pumped away for processing and the remaining fibrous material, known as bagasse, is kept and used as fuel in the mill boiler furnaces. Following this it goes into a boiler with lime juice to clarify it and the clear juice runs off from the top of the clarifier and the muddy juice extracted from the bottom and mixed with the fine bagasse to make fertilizer. The clear juice is concentrated to a syrup by evaporation under vacuum in the evaporators then it is boiled again in vacuum pans and more water evaporated. When the syrup is sufficiently concentrated, raw sugar crystals grow. When the crystals reach a predetermined size, the mixture of syrup is released through the bottom of the pans. The syrup is separated from the raw crystals in centrifuges which spin at high speeds. This is done several times and the liquid that spins off is now molasses which is used as stock feed or to make alcohol. Finally, the sugar crystals are dried by being tumbled through a stream of air in a rotation drum and transferred to short term storage in bulk bins. That’s the process explained briefly.
The factory was quite warm inside and this is winter; I would hate to work there as the weather warms up since you have to wear long sleeves, long pants, goggles, hairnets and earmuffs. The sugar milling season goes through until December. Toward the end of the tour the floor was rather sticky and there was a strong molasses smell. Before they take you through the mill, they show a video explaining how sugar is such an important product in Australia both for us to use here and as an export. The statistics are pretty impressive and it sure explains why we are seeing so many cane fields up here in Queensland. I don’t have the export figures to hand but it is a big export. Also, the number of farms supplying the Farleigh mill is 395 and the number of farms supplying all 4 Mackay mills is 1540. When you see the fields of cane along the way you realize that sugar production is the life force up here for many people. Actually, we saw a sign saying Mackay is the “sugar and coal capital” which is something we didn’t realize but apparently there are coal mines and there is a coal terminal (dock or wharf) at Hay Point.
We had to stop on our travels today for one of those cane trains to cross and it took forever! They are very slow and, as I said before, very, very long. It was interesting to see one fully loaded and then to hear how they go straight to the mills after being loaded by the farmers into the truck with their special barcode which has been assigned to them by the mill. This way the mill knows what each farm has supplied and can pay them appropriately. They need to be processed within about sixteen hours of being harvested we were told so I guess the system has to be very efficient. The rail system is all controlled and monitored on computers so that they know exactly what is happening with each train and its load. It’s far more high tech than I would ever have imagined actually.
Tomorrow we go to a farm and see it from that end of the business.

Rockhampton - The Beef Capital!

We had a later start today as we knew we didn’t have a really long drive to Rockhampton. We left Hervey Bay just after 10am and following Tom’s directions got onto the Bruce Highway(No.1) which is the main road to Rockhampton. On the way we stopped off at Childer’s (loo stop) and got some information on Flying High, a big flight aviary, in Apple Tree Creek about 6km north of town along the highway. We decided to have a look since we were not on a tight schedule today. There were lots of beautiful parrots and other birds such as finches, quails and canaries. Some were in large cages but others were flying ‘free’ in the huge aviary. It was good to be able to get so close to them and the camera got a workout again. I could have spent quite a long time there trying to get photos as could any keen photographer, especially one interested in birds, but we didn’t stay too long since we still had a fair way to go and we needed to eat lunch too. There was a conveniently located park/rest stop across the road from the aviary so we went over there and got out our thermoses etc and had our lunch. The weather was quite mild and Fin made the comment that we have left ‘coat country’ behind now. Hooray!!
The drive was a fairly easy one except there was a huge, I mean really huge “Wide load” going along in front of us in a section of fairly narrow, windy road and we, along with a stream of other vehicles, were stuck behind it for quite some time. Two of the other vehicles stuck in the traffic were carrying half a house each but the load that was holding us all up was much wider. Eventually, the police stopped the traffic coming in the other direction so our stream of traffic could finally pass the extra wide load. Once we got past this we had an uneventful trip but were careful not to stop for too long in case they caught with us and got in front again!
Tonight’s holiday park is right on the Bruce Highway so it was easy to find. We joined the Top Tourist Parks’ Club since this is one of them and we can only get a place in Mackay at one also so the membership fee of $25 for 2 years will be covered by our 10% discount almost straight away and we will no doubt use TT again on this trip if we are not using Big 4 which has well and truly paid for itself and more since we got two night’s for the price of one in Yamba as well as our 10% discount!
We just got back from having dinner at the Rockhampton Leagues Club. We both had steak but Fin had the ‘Surf & Turf’, which as you can guess has seafood with it. It was good tucker and very filling. Driving around town, you can’t help noticing that it is a very beefy place. That is, there are bulls up on signs all over the place and many of the businesses seem to have relevance to the beef cattle industry. The Leagues Club has a bull with rugby jumper on (of course) above its main door. The cattle up here are often Brahman but there are Brafords too which are crossed with Herefords. I am not sure what we had for dinner; suppose it was local but anyway it was very tender. We saw a lot of cattle farms and cattle trains on our way here and also what we assume was a cane train; it was a long train with four engines pulling lots and lots of cars on narrow gauge tracks.
Tomorrow we intend to leave early to be in Mackay in time for a tour to see a Sugar Mill in action.

Hervey Bay - Whale Watching

This morning we got up at 7am and after a quick breakfast ( I didn’t eat much because I was worried about getting sea sick), we headed off to the marina to go on our whale watching cruise on the Quick Cat 2 catamaran. I took a Stemetil tablet which the doctor prescribed for motion sickness, hoping that for the first time I would be able to enjoy a boat ride. After parking in the wrong car park and asking for directions at the shop we found near the ferry terminal, we made it to where the Quick Cat was moored. We had to wait a little while until all the people on the list were accounted for or dismissed as not coming and then we headed off. We went slowly at first to get out of the harbour and then to wait for the spotter boat, the “Awesome” to catch up and go past since it is faster and will let our captain know where the whales are sighted. It took a long time to get out to where the whales are usually spotted and then finally we slowed down. Along the way we could see Fraser Island in the distance; it’s bigger than I realized and is definitely the sandy island as they describe it. When we slowed, a pod of dolphins came along and rode the bow wave for a while. It was so cool to see them weaving in and out under the bow. I have taken photos as best I could but you just had to be there! Later, some more came and joined us and when we were in shallower water near Fraser Island we saw a pod of what are known as inshore dolphins. They are a smaller species, a hump backed dolphin known as Sousa chinensis. By the way, we didn’t see any whales – they saw them the day before and all previous days in the season so far apparently but we lucked out! They gave us an open ticket to come back any time, any year to try again. There were some people using their ticket that they got in 2005.
After the cruise which took over 3 hours we stopped off at one of the cafes on the Marina and had some lunch and I rang my brother and wished him a happy birthday too. Following this, we got some shopping and petrol and headed back to our holiday unit. We organized some accommodation for Rockhampton, our next stop and Mackay, the one after that. Next, we took a walk down to the beach and along it for a fair way. There were a few people fishing and many walking like us. Along the shore lots of coral pieces had been washed up along with some shells and some odd pointy pieces of wood which we guessed might be pieces of tree root, maybe mangroves? The sand is very fine but darker than the sand on our Victorian beaches. From the constructions we saw, it is good to mould into shapes. It was a good long walk that kept moving so I had quite a sweat up by the time we got back to the unit. By this time it was time to go out again for dinner. Asian tonight we thought. What a life!!

Yamba to Hervey Bay - thanks to Tom!

Today we had a quick look around Yamba in daylight since we hadn’t had time to do that before. It is so flat with a marina full of fancy boats and then you come to the town and go up a steep hill where one would suspect the original shopping area was and there are still shops and restaurants but they have Yamba Fair shopping centre earlier on now. If you drive around at the top of the hill you realize it is a cliff with the ocean below. It was quite a view! I took some photos of course.

Well, we had a long way to drive so without further ado we headed off toward Ballina again since that is the way to Hervey Bay; back on Highway Number One! I took some photos through the windscreen of the cane fields flanking each side of the road and of the Big Prawn in Ballina. Yes, they really do have a big prawn. We saw the Big Banana in Coffs Harbour on our way through the other day and today we saw the Big Pineapple in Gympie but it looked rather closed.
The drive was OK except for when I decided to offer to drive since we were on the motorway and it was ‘dummy driving’, that is set the cruise (we love cruise control!) and steer basically, but then we got to Brisbane and I had to drive through town and the traffic was rather heavy there and onto the surrounding roads. Then we were back on the motorway saying, now where can we stop for lunch and a break? In the end I said we just have to stop ASAP so we pulled off to somewhere called Morayfield which is part of Caboolture I believe. By luck we found a little bakery-cafe with good food in one of those big complexes with furniture stores like where Spotlight is in Moorabbin. We got some petrol then Tom directed us back to the motorway. Yes, I haven’t mentioned our navigator up until now but he is fantastic! His real name is Tom Tom One Regional but I just call him Tom. We rely on him for not only directions but travel distance and times as he is by far the most accurate measure we have. If you are going to do a bit of travelling we would strongly recommend you invest in a navigator such as this. You won’t be sorry. Occasionally he doesn’t know where we are because there are new roads and sometimes we show up as travelling off the road then appear back on it which may be some programming or mapping problem but it doesn’t get us lost or cause any problems. I think some of the remote areas are less well mapped and so you can’t put in a Point of Interest (POI) because it just isn’t in there but you can get around that by going to the road or street instead. Apparently there will be new maps released in September to download and update it.
So, we got to Hervey Bay by about 5.15pm and it was still light. The temperature outside for much of our drive was between 18 and 19 degrees and it was up to 20 when we got here which is a great improvement on our 5 degrees at about the same time in Lithgow! We got our gear into the holiday unit then went for a walk to the Esplanade where we were told the restaurants are. We found a pub on one corner which was open on the street side and had patio heater and lots of tables etc and decided it looked OK. We made a good choice again. I had a very filling chicken, sundried tomato & spinach risotto and Fin had chicken breast with asparagus & brie encased in it. We both enjoyed our meals then went for walk along the esplanade. (Without jackets!) We were looking for the mariner because we have to be there at 8am to go on our whale watching tour. We didn’t find it but got a map at the office where we are staying and found we will need to drive there from here.

Yamba & Ballina

Today was a rest day. We slept in (compared to travelling days) then got our washing done at the on-site laundry, had lunch and took the hour or so drive to Ballina to see Fin’s Uncle Finlay and Aunty Valda. It was an interesting drive with many fields of sugar cane along the way and the sugar processing plant Sunshine Sugar in Broadwater puffing out steam from it's stack. As well there was a lot of water in a fairly flat landscape, with much of the drive being alongside the Richmond River and occasionally crossing a bridge over it including a swing bridge to allow for taller water craft. We were surprised at how big Ballina is; there is quite a big shopping centre with all the well-known shops (Big-W, K-mart, Target etc) and quite a large residential area. I think the sign said Population 33,900 for Ballina Shire. Finlay and Valda told us it has grown substantially since they moved there 22 years ago. For some information about Ballina, I found this site: http://www.tropicalnsw.com.au/aaa_site/places/towns/ballina.html
The Clarence Resort here in Yamba is very nice with, as I mentioned before, a pond or two and ducks, kangaroos and micro bats. They say not to feed the wildlife but obviously people do as the ducks came racing over when I emptied the teapot onto the grass and even wandered up onto our patio right to the door of the cabin. (So that's what the gate on the patio is for! Not just keeping little children safe.) Both nights on our way back from dinner coming down the road to the resort we saw the kangaroos grazing on the side of the road near the sugar cane plantations. The laundry room is fine and it has a big games room with video games, TV & videos and an Internet kiosk. My only annoyance is that it is supposed to provide wireless internet but it didn’t work for me even after I spoke to the lady at the office. Lucky my Vodafone 2G connection is working OK!
We had a very nice, but huge meal again tonight. We went to the same restaurant (Pelican Restaurant, Yamba Shores Tavern) after looking around because we knew we would get a very yummy, quality meal and didn’t want to risk a not so good one. We both made the mistake of having the soup tonight and then struggled through our main course. The soup bowl was humongous and we they gave us herb bread with it so we were really not very hungry when we got our main course.
Tomorrow is a big driving day to get to Hervey Bay where we stay for two nights and go on a whale watching tour. I hope we see some. It is a little early but apparently they are starting to appear.