Cape Hilsborough

Farleigh Sugar Mill

Cooper holding his nose!

Mackay Marina

Wedge Island

View of Wedge Island from Andrew's point

At the caravan park reception we had seen advertised sugar mill tours so after breakfast we rang them and they said we could come and do the 9am tour which was the only one running. We quickly got ready and headed out towards Mackay, a good 40 mins away, to the Fairleigh Sugar Mill.  The sugar growing industry is huge in this district and includes the growers, harvesting, transport sector and millers. The sugar mills operate continuously throughout the crushing season which is from mid June to mid November. The tour started with a short, outdated video before we had to gear up in all our OH & S gear so we could walk through the factory. The tour was quite interesting and we were surprised to find out a lot of the equipment was over 50 years old - over the last 20 years it had become fully automated. We were shown through the whole process from when the huge cages of freshly harvested sugar cane arrives by rail and is weighed then tipped onto a conveyer to a shredder. From there it goes to a series of crushing mills, clarifier, evaporators, vacuum pans, centifugals and then driers. Cooper found the smells a little overbearing and was only keen to taste it towards the end when it looked like something he recognised. After the tour we drove into Mackay and went for a walk along the marina and had fish and chips in the park nearby. Back at the van we got changed and did the walk over to Wedge Island which is only accessible at low tide. Rick took the kids back for a swim in the pool and I continued walking the Andrews Point track which was quite a steep climb to several view points.