25 July 2011 - Palm Tree Caravan Park, Ingham, Queensland

All the hard work of sitting up late and still having to cope with the daily grind of traveling and sightseeing paid off last night when Cadel Evans stood on the podium in Paris, winner of the 2011 Tour de France. Our routine and sleep patterns can return to normal. We are now only slaves to Masterchef which will wind up in the next week or so. What would we do without our television!

Before we headed off for our day’s adventure, Chris popped over to the office and paid for a further night. We then drove in to the centre of the town and I went in search of an open hairdresser’s salon to deal to my unruly locks, now uncut since the first week in Goondiwindi at the beginning of May. How bad is that! The only hairdresser who could fit me in wanted too much money, so I decided I could manage for another day or week or even month.

I stood in the queue at the Post Office, head and shoulders taller than five women and one man ahead of me and was reminded of how I used to feel all those years ago standing in the queues at the markets in Spain, when I seemed to tower above most of the other women (bearing in mind that I am only five foot five and a little bit). I then twigged: these were all Italians or Italian descendants, not too different for their Latino cousins in Andalusia.

It was already about 11 am so we drove on out of town, heading north east, past the Victoria Sugar Mill, busy sugar cane plantations, sugar trains chuffing up and down, across the roads, and through to Halifax. There we stopped to read the informative History of Halifax signs in the middle of the town.  I was delighted by the story of how just one year after the bulk of the land around the town was allocated by the government, it was auctioned off to interested parties in the mid 1880s. A map of the plan was printed on to handerkerchiefs so that all interested bidders could have a reference as they worked through the auction process. Quite a novel plan!

We wandered off along a gravel path through dense tangled scrub that led to the Herbert River, obviously repaired since the earlier floods and cyclone. There were no signs and as we wandered, I did hope we would not find ourselves wandering in circles. Chris was more concerned that we might find ourselves face to face with a crocodile; that possibility had slipped my mind. However the momentary concern was unfounded and we were soon back to the main street which was pretty much deserted except for the pub, a small supermarket cum post office and a few other caravanning tourists like ourselves.

Halifax’s raison d’etre these days is that it is home to those who work in Australia’s oldest working sugar mill at Macknade, situated just a few kilometres down the road. It is quite surprising that this Herbert River Valley supports two mills, and that there is another about to be built on the Townsville side of Ingham. The resource consents, or the Australian equivalent, are currently being sought. This planned mill will also manufacture ethanol from the sugar waste and offer tours; hopefully this will work in their favour. Once this is built, the mill at Macknade will close. 

Lucinda is just less than ten kilometres further on toward the sea and home to a bulk sugar export port and the long loading wharf jutting far out in to the Coral Sea, with the largest conveyor belt in the world. Bulk sugar is transported from the mills at Victoria and Macknade, then transferred out to the deep water berth on the conveyor at the rate of 40,000 tonne per hour. The facility was opened in 1979.

Lucinda is also home to a very small store and a caravan park absolutely packed with southern Australians camped up for the winter months.

Lucinda's long long jetty

Before lunch we checked the beach out and the surrounds. The jetty dominates the foreground, with the high rugged peaks of Hinchinbrook Island, home to the world’s largest island national park, covering 39,350 hectares.

Walking barefoot in the sand

While checking out the interpretive panels about the jetty, we chatted with a chap who lives just down the coast at Taylor’s Beach, at least when he is not doing his week long stint at a copper mine west of Mount Isa. His kind who are flown in and out for their shifts are known as FIFOs and there has been much controversy surrounding this work practice in the newspapers recently. One of the complaints relates to the fact that these workers bring all their pay home with them, injecting none of it into the rural communities where they are working, and the mines themselves are often bulk buying the supplies for their workers out of the district. As a result the small towns are shrinking and dying despite the wealth that is being extracted from their very neighborhoods. Another complaint is that workers are being pulled out of rural jobs to take up mining jobs, and then the employers in the rural areas have no one to fill the vacancies.

This chap we were talking to, way past the regular retirement age, is earning about ten dollars an hour more than he could get here, driving in the sugar cane industry. The Planters here are desperate for workers, and I do think that if we were not heeding purposefully toward Cairns to collect the duplicate registration sticker, Chris would have been tempted to find out more.

The loading plant is currently un-operational due to cyclone damage. Apparently at the peak of the storm there were ten metre waves breaking over the end of the wharf, and the damage sustained will be very very costly to repair. With the sugar harvest now underway, there is no way it will become operational for this season. The future of the jetty is in fact under question because it has passed its construction use-by date. If it is not repaired it will have to be totally dismantled because the powers that be now consider it to be a maritime hazard.

There on the shore, was a propeller blade mounted on a concrete plinth which was explained by our informant so much better than the words on the plaque. Back in 2002, two locals agreed to have a race to the top of the mountain on Hinchinbrook Island. When they got there, they found the wreck of a B24 Liberator bomber that had disappeared in 1942. Just like the discovery of the S S Yongala south of Townsville, a long unsolved problem was no longer so.

We were enthusiastic about Ingham and the Herbert River valley, egged on by the proud Taylor Beach resident. So much to see, we said. But it was a shame that the access to the Broadwater State Forest was still closed. We were then informed that the official story of storm damage was a great big cover for the fact that the forestry fellers were in there milling and did not want the hassle of dealing with tourists.

The last and final gossip was highly entertaining and revealed great rivalry between the Mafia of the area and The Others. The Mafia own the land, the contracting companies, are the councilors and call the shots. I imagine the fact that so many of the Italian immigrants all those years ago came from Sicily has given rise to this misnomer. I would also suggest that the “Mafia” are very hard working go ahead people and have been resented for their success. And certainly there is great evidence of success for these people; so many of the homes in the area are grandiose as is so oft the story of these Mediterranean people who "make-good” in the new land, and of course there are all those palatial mausoleums. Our informant was of Irish heritage.

After lunch, we went for a walk along a path back from the beach past pandannus and palms, then back along the sandy shore. The tide was out and it was evident why the jetty is so long. The tidal flats extend for miles and miles. It seems they extend as far as the islands of Pelorous, Orpheus and Fantome, and then in the distance, Palm Island, the famous Aboriginal Community.

We came upon a chap with a strange pipe-like apparatus, pointing it into the wet sand, and then pulling it out. On investigation we found he was operating a vacuum pump to extract yabbies. In a paint pail, there were dozens of live critters swimming about, oblivious to their fate as bait. We had never seen yabbies before nor seen such  hunting methods. This fisherman was one of the many campers parked up in the caravan park. He is from Gippsland in Victoria and recounted his flood story to us, having lost his caravan in Emerald. Unlike so many of the flood victims in Brisbane who are still waiting for their insurance companies to pay out, he had his payout within a couple of weeks of the deluge and was able to replace his van. It is good to hear positive stories!

Further along the beach, as we marveled at the art work created by sea creatures on the sand, we came upon another couple doing the same. Neil and Judith are from Christchurch, having spent about three years doing what we are. We spent some time in the sun and bare feet swapping travel stories and sapping their knowledge of places we have yet to go.

I marveled to Chris how many Kiwis we seem to have run into just lately. We decided that we are perhaps becoming more sociable, but hopefully that is not a sign of needing to seek the company of others rather than be content with just each other! God forbid that should ever happen!

When we returned to Ingham, I spotted another hair salon, devoid of customers and checked out availability and price. Jo decided I was a pensioner and seeing that I had climbed out of a caravan pulling vehicle, a grey nomad to boot, and quoted me $22 for an excellent cut that will take me through the next couple of months.

I also noted that the Australian – Italian Festival was to be held the first weekend in August, contrary to all the other tourist literature that is about. Although we have not missed it, we will not be hanging about to attend what is most likely a wonderful celebration.