Magnetic Island (or Maggie, as the locals call it)

Whilst in Townsville, we headed over to Magnetic Island for the day. It’s a short 20minute ferry ride, and we decided to leave the car behind and hire a cute little ‘topless car’ over there.

We had a lovely and low-key day pottering around the little island. There are a number of gorgeous beaches and great swimming and snorkelling. Sadly we forgot to pack our snorkels, but the swimming was still wonderful.

There is a koala sanctuary at a YHA there, but I stuffed up reading the brochure. It clearly mentions the 3 tour times, but I figured we would just wander around at our own pace. Sadly, that’s not possible and we arrived too late to join the tour. Angus was MOST disappointed and I felt like the worst Mum ever. Luckily there was a bird feeding right after the tour we missed, so we hung around lazing on the lounges at the bar while we waited. Those parrots were ravenous! I’m sure they don’t eat all day and just pig out at feeding time.

We had a ball cruising around in the little car and recommend it as a great day out. Just remember to bring your snorkel gear…

Our Time in Townsville

We knew we wanted to spend some time with an old friend of Duncan’s while we were in Townsville. We had met up with Rob and Rosie briefly on our way north, but now was the time to reconnect properly.

 

Fortunately there was a big-rig suitable Big 4 very close by to where they lived, so it was a week of catching up with plenty of swims in their pool, dinners together and free-loading of wifi. LOL. We were finally able to update ALL devices to iOS8 and update all the apps, something we were unable to do with our usual paltry wifi allowance. We were all keen to get the updated camera app with the self-timer, having seen it on a few phones when we take pics for others. Jealousy is a curse... With 2 iPhones, 2 iPods, 2 iPads and 2 iPad minis, downloading the updates on our paltry 18gB was simply not an option. Thanks for the data, Rob!

We spent our days exploring Townsville and our nights socialising. We did most of the ‘hikes’ at Castle Hill. Considering they were all of about 200m each, that wasn’t much of an accomplishment. We went to Reef HQ and spent a fascinating morning looking at the aquarium and touring the turtle hospital there. We then spent the afternoon at the Museum of Tropical Queensland. We were rather taken aback at the $30odd entry fee, but the children spent hours doing the hands-on activities so it was worthwhile.

We went to Kissing Point and explored the art sculpture trail at the old fort there, before walking down the hill to the rockpool for a swim. They have an enormous sea pool which is filtered for stingers, and we had a wonderful swim there. (We also spent a day at Magnetic Island, but that deserves a whole post of its very own.)

And to top it all off, it was Sam’s birthday and we extended our stay so we could all go out for dinner and attend her birthday party. The kids had a ball bouncing around in an indoor trampoline centre. I’m amazed at just how many ‘proper’ birthday parties we’ve managed to get to this year, let alone the amount of ‘on the road’ birthdays we’ve had!

Having sucked their data and eaten their birthday cake, it was time to bid farewell and hit the road again. Thanks for the hospitality Rob - it was wonderful to catch up!!

Torrential Tully

While in Mission Beach, the Beeson clan joined us on a day trip to Tully. They have one of the only tours of a working sugar mill that can still be taken, and we were keen to go and experience it before the insurance companies shut it down! We started the day by climbing the big gumboot, which illustrates Tully's annual rainfall in a VERY visual way. They get over 7m a year, which is the height of the gumboot! It's contained to a very small area though - the town that is only 20km down the road gets half their rainfall.

After marvelling at such a quantity of water, we made our way to the Tully Sugar Mill. They were still running 1 tour a day, down from the 3 that they run in peak tourist season. We are now all experts at donning the PPE, and the kids were pleased with the (slightly) smaller sizes for them. After a rather long introduction in a quiet and blessedly air conditioned room, we were off on our trek through the factory site.

It was fascinating seeing the process, having watched the first part so often in Port Douglas. We saw the headers harvesting the sugar cane, and spitting the billets into some haulouts. We saw the trucks emptying the billets into the carriages. We saw the little locos trundling off to the mill, and now we were able to see what happened next.

The mill was huge and I was intrigued to hear they generate electricity as a by-product. Bonus!We learnt that the reason sugar cane is burnt in other areas, is to neutralise the rat urine which can kill farmers. They don't do it in Tully as they have a different process.

The billets are rotated and weighed on arrival so the farmer can be paid. 

Then they travel along a conveyer belt to be shredded and crushed, which creates juice and bagasse (the fibres). The bagasse is burnt to fuel the mill and create the excess electricity, while the juice is processed further. 

It is heated and clarified, concentrated into molasses and spun, heated and dried into sugar. They need to seed the sugar crystals with teeny tiny existing sugar crystals, and Tully creates export-quality sugar which is kind of half raw sugar and half not. You can't buy it in Australia and it requires further refinement to turn into white sugar, but ALL of Tully's sugar goes to China.

I found it really interesting, but again it was a little too detailed for the kids. They did well though, especially considering the tour went for 2 hours and 1 of those was lunchtime!

As soon as we were let free, we hightailed it to a local swimming hole where there were BBQs to cook our sausage and bread lunch. If only there was gas in those BBQs... Fortunately Marty had a couple of cookers and pans in their car and the boys were able to rustle up lunch while we watched the kids swim. Phew!

We had a really great day, made all the better with great friends to spend it with. I partiularly liked the way the tourguide assumed that Angus was Belinda's son as he was sitting (fidgetting) next to her during the introduction. LOL!