The Canecutter Way took us down from Paronella Park through Mena Creek, Japoonvale and Silkwood to the Bruce Highway and then we went on to Ingham (as promised when we did not have time to stay on the way up). The area around Silkwood took some really heavy damage in the cyclones and will take some years yet to recover. We bypassed the winery at Murdering Point - in part because we have been almost tee-totalling this trip.
Ingham’s Palm Tree Caravan Park is a beauty, drive through sites, and the best little amenities block we have found on the trip, free clean BBQs plus a TV of watchable size in a well equipped and laid-out camp kitchen, a laundry and a handy dump point. The town provided good shopping opportunities and a haircut for me at $17.00 (cheapest I’ve had this century). Our weekend there coincided with the Aero and Veteran Motorcar Show at the local aerodrome and as Anne had hit the usual Caravan Park Trifector (Highway, railway and aerodrome) we had free ringside seats both at the caravan park and in the Tyto Wetlands. Anne here: I could have added RAAF base testing jets + industrial area as in townsville. It was glorious to get back and clean up after the hot dry dusty tip to Undarra and back - Washing, cooking and getting clean occupied at least a day of my time and asthma did not make it any easier.
I took the camera walking through the Tyto Wetlands and took a few shots of the planes doing aerobatics, some birds, wallabies and the sunset both as it set and its colour on some distant hills. One of the locals was doing his daily constitutional walk (pretty fast walk) through the place so we had a couple of conversations and he took me to see a wagtail nest. I noticed a lot of ant nests in the trees too. They are quite large, about the size of a 1 kilo bag of muesli.
Heron at Tyto wetlands
Pretty-faced Wallaby
sunset at Tyto wetlands
Looking towards the sunset at Tyto wetlands
Lookingaway from the sunset at Tyto wetlands
Spring has sprung - Willy Wag-Tail nest with eggs at Tyto Wetlands
Another couple in the park were singing the praises of the Palmura circuit so we took an afternoon and drove down to the giant Roman arch stone bridge over Little Chrystal creek which was built in the 1930s. We also visited various waterfalls and popular local waterholes and picnic places, but Anne was in no condition to climb up and down hills due to asthma so we abandonned it after a while.
Roman Arch stone bridge over Little Chrystal creek
(This photo from visit.Queensland.com.au)
another waterfall on the road into Little Chrystal Creek.
We did our usual exploring of the beaches (Forrest Beach, Taylors Beach and Lucinda) with views out across the Hinchinbrook Channel to Hinchinbrook Island. We drove out past the Victoria Sugar Mill Ingham(where they have a collection of the old sugar trains) to Lucinda where the 6km long offshore sugar loading jetty was damaged in the cyclones so there is a lot of sugar being trucked out by road and rail.
Sugar train in operation Victoria Sugar Mill
Sugar world shuttle Victoria Sugar Mill Ingham
Victoria Sugar Mill
Another of locos at Victoria Sugar Mill
We noticed a variety of birds foraging in the train tracks inshore of the vast loading facility – even the honey-eaters were there. In the recently harvested cane fields surrounding Ingham we found flocks of brolgas and some Swamp(Marsh) Harriers.
Chestnut-breasted mannikins at the Lucinda Sugar Loading Facility
Swamp (Marsh) Harrier taking off from among a group of pied herons ( they appear to ignore each other) in a recently harvested sugar cane field
The same bird in flight over the fields
Brolgas working over sugar cane fields Ingham
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