Unfortunately since we needed to start making serious inroads into our trip down to Brisbane, today was going to be a big travel day which meant an early start in the morning. Tom and Declan decided yesterday they should take their tent down while it was dry to make our exit in the morning quite fast. This worked really well and as we had booked a tour of the Mackay Sugar Mill at 9:30 we were on our way by 7:45.
We arrived at Mackay with about 10 minutes to spare and quickly changed to cover our legs and arms and put on enclosed toe shoes as this is now an OHS requirement. Linda remembers jumping into a massive pile of sugar when she visited a mill 30 years ago but times have changed.
The mill tour took about 2 hours and our guide ran through the whole process of converting sugar cane into raw sugar. The boys really enjoyed tasting the products at the different stages of the process of the conversion to raw sugar. It is amazing that the mill uses a lot of the same machinery as when it started it's life in the late 1800's although every part of the sugar cane is used now. In more recent times the mill has been upgraded to use the by-products of producing sugar rather than dispose of them.
We arrived at Mackay with about 10 minutes to spare and quickly changed to cover our legs and arms and put on enclosed toe shoes as this is now an OHS requirement. Linda remembers jumping into a massive pile of sugar when she visited a mill 30 years ago but times have changed.
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| Emptying the cane train carriages |
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| Declan tasting sugar |
The rest of the day was devoted to travel. After stoppping at a bakery for lunch we continued our drive to stop at a free campsite on the Calliope River. There were plenty of other campers who regarded this as a great campsite and, after a fast overnight setup where the boys sleep inside the camper trailer rather than their own tent, we had a quick meal before retiring for the night.
Tuesday 23 July
As we didn't have a lot of gear to pack up, we were back on the road quite early making our way to Hervey Bay. The roadworks on the Bruce Highway were really annoying - they seem to be repairing or upgrading the road every few kilometers and this added at least half an hour to our trip.
We arrived in Hervey Bay and after setting up the camper trailer wandered down to the main street for a bite of lunch. The boys were very happy with the cafe we found and each devoured a very big lunch. To work off the big meal we continued our walk down the street looking through the many shops before taking a stroll along the beach and returning to the caravan park.
We are looking forward to the next couple of days as we have booked at tour of Fraser Island tomorrow and whale watching for Thursday.
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