Sugar has been grown in Queensland since the mid 1880s, the mill at Sarina was registered in 1894, and sugar cane is now grown on farms stretching over a 2,100 kms of coastline. The harvest begins in June and lasts for about 6 months and when we drove through the area it was in full progress, machines cutting the cane, and trucks and small trains with baskets of cut cane heading to the mill. Sarina, which is just south of Mackay, has a miniature sugar mill and distillery which is used for educational and tourist purposes so we stopped off for a tour and learned some of the history of the industry and the innovations over the years. We were able to follow the whole process from planting the “sets” through to the finished product and then sample some of the finished products, fairy floss for the children, alcoholic liqueurs for the adults! The record production was in 1977 when 248,771 tonnes of sugar were produced from this one mill - that’s a hell of a lot of the sweet stuff.
We are spending only 2 days in Mackay and opted for a cabin stop, we needed to do some shopping as our ancient gas camping stove has bitten the dust and we don’t have any cooking facilities. This morning we went to the camping store and now have a shiny new model which even has a toasting facility, what luxury! Speaking of luxury, the cabin has a TV and last night we sat up and watched Lleyton Hewitt slug it out with the A-Rod.
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