MISSION BEACH TO TOWNSVILLE
Day 15 - Tuesday 29th September
MISSION BEACH TO MURRY FALLS VIA TULLY
We awoke in the same road side patch as the night before and met a couple of other travellers coming the other way. As well as the usual trading of travel tips they were cleaning out their station wagon ready to sell. We gained a fair amount of food as well as some shoes and shorts for H. Cereal eaten, coffee drunk we made for Tully, famous for its sugar, rain and giant Wellington boot.
Helen was behind the wheel and after getting flustered at the road layout pulled over in a huff and asked where the fuck Tully's famous Wellington boot was. I pointed out the driver window as she had inadvertently parked right next to it but hadn't noticed.
Our route up and now down North Queensland has been dominated with sugar cane fields and small train lines that regularly cross the highway. Sugarcane is big business up here and dates back to the 1860s, however Tully's old sugar mill only came in to existence round 1925. I have never really given much thought to where sugar comes from and as there wasn't much else to do in this town we donned high vis jackets and trendy eye wear and followed the leader. The process to make sugar hasn't changed much in hundreds of years so the mill predominantly runs on beautiful old oily machines that look amazing as they clunk and grind round the clock.
We watched the cane train drag carriages from all over the country side into the tippler, a big round thingy that flips the carriage over and tips out all the cane. The cane is then ground up, crystallised, separated, and bagged (that is a very very basic overview and our guide would probably be very disappointed in me). All waste is collected and reused either as fuel for the furnace or topsoil that is distributed back amongst all the farmers. It was an unexpectedly fascinating hour, apparently last year they crushed 2,436,800 tonnes of cane and can crush 730 tonnes per hour. One fact that surprised us was none of the end product is available in Australia. It is all sold to countries such as China and Indonesia. Luckily we got a sneaky little bag to takeaway as a memento, but we though it a shame that vast quantities of sugar is produced here, yet the local people have to buy imported sugar probably from the countries Tully's sugar is sold to.
We had been tipped off about a beautiful camp site about one hour down the road at the foot of Murray Falls. After negotiating the rough road we found a quiet spot amongst the trees. It was a tranquil beautiful place with nothing but the falls in the distance and bird calls to break the silence. After a walk over to the foot of the falls we collected fire wood for later as there were a couple of fire pits about. This was followed by a swim in the creek, down stream from the waterfall to cool off. We lit the fire round dusk and what can I say, it was a roaring success.
Day 16 - Wednesday 30th September
MURRAY FALLS TO BALGAL BEACH
After a successful morning dip in the creek and an equally successful bacon and egg roll we hit the road south on route for one of the little beaches north of Townsville via the seaside town of Cardwell. All we had heard about Cardwell was that it is home to a giant crab and the cafe under it does amazing crab sandwiches and barramundi burgers. We drove through around lunch time and after spotting a few turtles surfacing alongside the pier we shelled out for some seafood. H's crab sandwich looked pretty epic and the grilled melt in your mouth barramundi burger was very special indeed. I think I have a new favourite fish.
On the highway south we had to stop to say hello to this guy. We also picked up some fresh Rambutan fruit to remind us of Vietnam and a damn tasty mango shake.
We parked up at a little RV park at Balgal Beach for the night. It's situated under a thicket of tall trees next to a quaint river mouth. It was a pretty little spot with a vast sweeping beach, however the crocwise and stinger signs were out in force making the prospect of an evening swim zero.
A young French couple were parked nearby and we ended up joining them for a beer in the beachside cafe. We were also joined by a bright blue and white kookaburra. It was a relaxed evening of travel tip swapping as they were at the end of a two year trip round the whole island. We now have the names and numbers of two places we can get farm work for our second year visa should we decide to go for it and they have a shiny new Hills and Waves sticker. (They are really starting to pay off). Next stop the imaginatively named Townsville.
