Proserpine………………….Day 147

19 August 2010

Today I realised we were nearing spring. Time is passing so quickly and we still have so much to see.

The sugar crush is on as the sugar cane is harvested. The sugar mill in Proserpine is now owned by a Singapore Company. The mill was sold for $115m to Australia's largest sugar mill operator, Sucrogen, the wholly owned Australia subsidiary of Singapore's Wilmar, which bought the sugar mills previously run by CSR.  Proserpine is the fifth largest sugar mill in north Queensland and crushes about 1.7 million tonnes of cane a year, but it has the capacity to crush 2 million tonnes.

Driving around you have to be aware that a cane train may be crossing the road. we saw this one headed for the sugar mill.

Yesterday we drove to Airlie Beach about 25 kms east of us.It was crowded and for young people.. The hundreds of apartment blocks built onto the mountain and all the shops in the main street created an atmosphere of back packer partying. We saw something similar in Queenstown New Zealand.

We drove out to Shute Harbour where all the cruises used to leave before the marina was built at Airlie Beach. We were told the harbour started to look run down for a while but now some of the cruises have started using the harbour again.

This is the new marina at Airlie Beach.

On the way back we called in at Cedar Creek Falls. There was a little water falling but not as much as I had seen in photos.

Today we went out to Midge Point. On the way we saw a number of lagoons, most of which looked like this.

At this time we are moving onto Ephinstone Lake tomorrow. Watch this space to see  we do in the morning.