10th June 2011
We packed up our lunch and headed into Mackay primarily for a visit to the Botanical gardens, but we also unsuccessfully tried to purchase a few items that we wanted. Our search for these items took so long that we had our lunch in the park by the war memorials and then went on to the gardens.
As Botanical gardens go they left a lot to be desired with very few points of interest that begged for a photograph, but did give us and Foxy a 5km walk.
One of the few highlights was some of the pathway in various area where one stretch of paving had an obvious aboriginal theme with embedded pebbles in the form of animals, and the other cement path had the imprint of branches from various flora that had been pressed into the surface when it was still slightly wet. There is also a tribute to the South Sea Islanders who were brought in to cut cane in the early stages of the industry..
As Botanical gardens go they left a lot to be desired with very few points of interest that begged for a photograph, but did give us and Foxy a 5km walk.
One of the few highlights was some of the pathway in various area where one stretch of paving had an obvious aboriginal theme with embedded pebbles in the form of animals, and the other cement path had the imprint of branches from various flora that had been pressed into the surface when it was still slightly wet. There is also a tribute to the South Sea Islanders who were brought in to cut cane in the early stages of the industry..11th June 2011
One of the main reasons for moving fairly rapidly (for us) from Melbourne to Queensland was to find some warm weather again after Tasmania and Melbourne but the cold seems to be following us. We have had a few warm days and reasonable nights but it has now turned wet and cold again.
13th June 2011
The weather is no longer wet but is still cold at night despite the warmish daytime temperature, around 21 degrees.
15th June 2011
Barry and mark spent the day tearing Jeane’s car apart to replace the clutch, which is turning into a nightmare as it is quite old and doesn’t want to come apart. It took 3 hour to get the exhaust pipe off and out of the way.
16th June 2011
We drove out to Eungalla with a few distractions on the way.
The first being a stop at the road side to watch some sugar cane harvesting in progress and also to watch the variety of birds hanging around hoping to grab a feast of mice/snakes, or whatever that emerges.
The second being a pub in the tiny township of Pinnacle to have a pepper/steak pie for lunch as they were highly recommended.
However, we have rated them as number 3 after Warburton and Ross.
The third distraction was a trip into Finch Hatton Gorge which included Areluen pool and the Wheel of Fire pool that took about three hours with the walking and photo stops.
Areluen is a pleasant water hole fed by a small but attractive waterfall . The trip to the Wheel of Fire involved an uphill walk along the side of the gorge following the water course mwith many cascades and included having to wade across it at one point. If you happen to be young and agile it is possible to jump across rocks to achieve this crossing, but us not so young ones have to get our feet wet and wade across on the slippery rocks within the water. This actually caught Barry out at one point and dumped him on his bum in the drink which didn’t initially impress him, and he gained no help from Merry who was too busy laughing. The backpack camera case that Barry was carying stopped him actually landing on his back but was a concern as both cameras were in it for the crossing but the case is very water resistant apparently. We were also pleased that the car feys didn't find their way out of his pocket.
The first being a stop at the road side to watch some sugar cane harvesting in progress and also to watch the variety of birds hanging around hoping to grab a feast of mice/snakes, or whatever that emerges.The second being a pub in the tiny township of Pinnacle to have a pepper/steak pie for lunch as they were highly recommended.
However, we have rated them as number 3 after Warburton and Ross.
The third distraction was a trip into Finch Hatton Gorge which included Areluen pool and the Wheel of Fire pool that took about three hours with the walking and photo stops.
Areluen is a pleasant water hole fed by a small but attractive waterfall . The trip to the Wheel of Fire involved an uphill walk along the side of the gorge following the water course mwith many cascades and included having to wade across it at one point. If you happen to be young and agile it is possible to jump across rocks to achieve this crossing, but us not so young ones have to get our feet wet and wade across on the slippery rocks within the water. This actually caught Barry out at one point and dumped him on his bum in the drink which didn’t initially impress him, and he gained no help from Merry who was too busy laughing. The backpack camera case that Barry was carying stopped him actually landing on his back but was a concern as both cameras were in it for the crossing but the case is very water resistant apparently. We were also pleased that the car feys didn't find their way out of his pocket.
After a warming cuppa in the carpark we drove on to Eungella which involves a long steep uphill drive to the township and turned into the lookout which provides a view to the distant coast on a clear day. At 4.00pm it wasn’t at all clear but still worth the look before driving on to Broken River with more lookouts on the way.
We arrived at Broken River soon after 4.30pm and spent the next hour or so on the platypus viewing platform successfully watching platypus and turtles. The only photo success was with video rather than still photos, so hopefully we can extract some stills from the video.
We left in time to descend from Eungella with a bit of daylight left for the steep twisty road. Meanwhile, Foxy spent the day with Jeane and Mark at their beach house in Salonika running on the beach with Patch and Zoë.
17th June 2011
We visited the Sarina Sugar Cane Factory which claims to be the only working model sugar cane factory which we found to be a very disappointing visit. It started with a DVD explaining all about the cane, the harvesting and the mill processing and then was taken outside to see some of the old equipment including the original inventions of one particular the farmer, attached to tractors to harvest the cane.
These inventions were eventually sold to John Deer engineers who then developed them over the years to the current harvesters. From there we entered the model factory where we were told what each piece of equipment did but only got to see one piece operate to crush some cane. All of the pieces of equipment had names, such as Derek the Dryer, to impress kids rather than adults and of the other equipment was started up, and even if it had been you watched it all from behind a barrier. To see the whole process from beginning to end would take all day rather than the hour we were allocated, unless it is left running permanently. With the aid of another DVD we were shown the different stages of the extracted fluid in small jars in the order that it would have passed through the various equipment. This was followed by some rum based tasting and some sauces. So far a lot of Queensland has disappointed us which is rather surprising with the tourist trade being high on their agenda. They could learn a lot from Tasmania. The cane mills burn all of the waste material after the cane is processed in there furnaces to produce electrical power for the mill and therefore self sufficient with some to supply the grid system for the six month processing period, and this mill in Sarina also produces ethanol from the molasses to add to petrol.
These inventions were eventually sold to John Deer engineers who then developed them over the years to the current harvesters. From there we entered the model factory where we were told what each piece of equipment did but only got to see one piece operate to crush some cane. All of the pieces of equipment had names, such as Derek the Dryer, to impress kids rather than adults and of the other equipment was started up, and even if it had been you watched it all from behind a barrier. To see the whole process from beginning to end would take all day rather than the hour we were allocated, unless it is left running permanently. With the aid of another DVD we were shown the different stages of the extracted fluid in small jars in the order that it would have passed through the various equipment. This was followed by some rum based tasting and some sauces. So far a lot of Queensland has disappointed us which is rather surprising with the tourist trade being high on their agenda. They could learn a lot from Tasmania. The cane mills burn all of the waste material after the cane is processed in there furnaces to produce electrical power for the mill and therefore self sufficient with some to supply the grid system for the six month processing period, and this mill in Sarina also produces ethanol from the molasses to add to petrol. 
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