Mackay Region

We left Tannum Sands and headed north for Mackay. The countryside is fairly bland coastal scrub, so a pretty boring drive. We are in cattle country, with our coffee stop at Rockhampton, the proclaimed Beef Capital of Australia. There are statues of cows at every corner! Our coffee stop is, you guessed it, Sexie Coffie!

North of Rockhampton, we soon find the fields changing to flat farmland, planted with sugar cane. We have entered Australia's sugar bowl, and it is a huge area stretching along the coastal plain to Townsville and beyond. More on the sugar scene later.

The world's last fully operational
kerosene powered lighthouse
at Mackay harbour 

We arrive in Mackay mid afternoon and are immediately surprised by its size and urban spread. It is much bigger than Gladstone. Thanks to Polly, our sat nav, we work our way across town, to the Andergrove Top Tourist Park, situated on the northern beaches of Mackay. It is a nice park, set among playing fields, with lots of palms and banana plants, and lots of birds, mostly lorikeets and a pretty waterbird that looked like a duck but sounded like a lorikeet. They were very friendly, and Carol was soon feeding them. I must buy a book on Australian birds. I did inquire at a book shop, but the volume she showed me required two people to carry it, and my comment "do they have a pocket version", went straight through to the keeper!

It is an impressive harbour at Mackay

We headed off around Mackay. First to the magnificent harbour, which won an award last year for "Best Harbour" in Australia. Who gives out these awards? Who really cares which is the best harbour? Anyway, it is very impressive, and passed the only real test, it has a great Fish 'n Chip takeaway, next to the lighthouse!

Like Gladstone, Mackay's growth is driven by the coal industry. The blue and yellow flouro uniform is every where.
Unlike Gladstone, all the heavy industry happens away from town, with separate coal loading facilities about 20km south of town at Hay Point. According to the lady at the Visitor Information centre, current population for Mackay and surrounds, is 120,000 and expected to double in the next 15 to 20 years as the coal industry expands.



Dragon Boat races at Eileo Beach

We drove out to the beach side communities of Bucasia Beach and Eileo Beach. These are extremely popular with the locals, though we can't get used to the fact that the tides recede so far! At low tide you can walk a mile before you get wet! We drove up to the beautifully located Eileo Pub, and looked down on the beach and dragon boat races. The poor bastards doing the racing, were getting most of their exercise dragging the boats out to the water!

Sarina Sugar Shed Tour

Tasting the sugar products

As usual, we relied heavily on the recommendations of the Tourist Information Centre. We look for the big "I" in every town. Staffed mostly by volunteers who are usually passionate about their area, we headed out to the Sarina Sugar Shed. Sarina is a small town about 30 kms south, and is home to the Sarina Sugar Mill. With all the changes to Occupational Health & Safety making it extremely difficult to do tours of the mill, these clever people have built a miniature working sugar mill! It is called the Sarina Sugar Shed, and we loved our tour, at the Seniors price of $15.00 each. We were shown every facet of the sugar industry, from planting the cane to the final bi-products of ethylene and fertiliser. It is an industry that has no waste. Everything is used. At the end of the tour we got to taste some of the products made, such as liqueurs and schnapps, and sauces, and of course sugar! It was an excellent tour.

Lunch with Jen & Dave
at Airlie Beach

On Sunday, we took a drive to Airlie Beach, about 1.5 hours north. Airlie Beach is the gateway to the Whitsundays, and is backpacker heaven. We plan to stay a few days on our return down the coast. This visit is to meet up with John's sister Jenny, and hubby Dave, who are presently doing the round Australia cruise on board the Dawn Princess, and as luck would have it, were spending the day at Airlie Beach. It was fantastic to catch up over a lazy lunch at the pub across from the beach. We hadn't seen Jen & Dave since Christmas, so it was a real treat. Seemed strange though, dropping them off at the tender and waving them off on their 5 mile journey back out to the Dawn Princess.

The sugar trains.

Back at Mackay, our next day is a spent doing a wonderful drive up into the Pioneer Valley and the Eungalla (pronounced Young galah) National Park. Initially we travel through fields of sugar cane and passed sugar mills, that are all working flat out, as it is the middle of the harvesting season. We are enthralled by the miles of narrow gauge railway, that is still used to move the cane from the fields to the mills. We stopped to take a photograph of one of the trains, and to our surprise, the train slowed and one of the engineers came down out of the engine, and walked straight up to us for a chat! He had a huge smile and was really proud of the rail network, which he told us is the largest small gauge railway in the world, with over 11,000kms of track and some 25 - 30 engines, though we did laugh when he told us not to drive too close as track maintenance was not all that flash, and the little trains had a habit of jumping off the tracks!

The climb up to Eungalla

Further up the valley we started an amazingly steep climb, to the top of the range at Eungalla and Broken River. We now enter one of the longest rain forests in Australia, and the contrast to the cane farms is dramatic. This is also one of the few places you can regularly see platypus, but our timing was wrong, you need dawn and dusk, but the walks to the river viewing platforms were great. Along the top of the ridge are a number of spots to walk through the rain forest, to some amazing views of the Pioneer Valley below.

Pinnacle Hotel Pie & Peas

After checking out a number of lookouts, we return down the hill and head for the iconic Pinnacle Hotel. We were told about this as a must do. It is famous for its pies, which can be simply purchased, or served as a meal in the traditional way with mushy peas, chips and gravy. Not hard to guess which we choose. Steak & Black Pepper pies with the works, washed down with a schooner of the local XXXX ( remember that Queenslanders cant spell beer!) Well this is about the tenth "best pie in Australia" we have sampled, and whilst it was good, it didn't make our top 3. No.1 still remains the pies from "Creme della Creme" in Camden, but the experience was great, and very popular for a weekday.



Cascades at Finch Hatton Gorge

To walk off lunch, we headed back down the road to the Finch Hatton Gorge. We had read about this spot, with its beautiful walks through the rain forest to the waterfalls and swimming holes at Araluen Falls and the Wheel of Fire. The drive in is beautiful, with a number of water crossings and the river beds full of boulders and rushing waters amid the rain forest. We did the walk to the Araluen Cascades, about 45 minutes each way. The walk is moderate and beautiful, and the falls at the end are well worth it. We didn't have enough time to do the other walk, but this is an area we will come back to and spend a lot more time in the rain forest.



The sun sets over our caravan park at Mackay.

Back to the caravan park and more feeding of the birds, who are all waiting when we get back. It doesn't take long for them to remember where the daily feed comes from! The drive back is through the cane fields, which are still a hive of activity as dusk approaches. It is a beautiful evening, so we open a bottle of wine and sit down to watch the sunset. they are spectacular up here. Tomorrow we head for Townsville.