Mackay

Mackay

Mackay is a large, bustling industrial city with massive building work in the industrial and residential areas. The sugar and coal industries sustain this city although the area of sugar cane is decreasing.  The city has several beaches, a harbour and a large marina area.

While in Mackay we took a tour of the Farleigh Sugar Mill which gave us a better insight into the production of sugar. Sugar has been grown in this area since the mid to late 1800's and was originally harvested by the Kanakas, workers from the South Sea Islands. The story and history of these people in this area has been well documented and celebrated with monuments, museums and meeting halls all in their honour.
Crawf was keen to do the "Paddock to Port" sugar tour but it was cancelled as the tour guide had to go to Brisbane.

The township of Eungella and the Eungella National Park approximately 80km west of Mackay was a great day excursion for us.
Eungella has a platypus viewing area and is a very pretty small town set high in the hills of the national park. The platypus area is best visited early in the morning or late afternoon.
We didn't see any platypus but were lucky enough to see at least a dozen turtles.

Unfortunately, the area was shrouded in fog for most of the morning but after lunch we were able to walk to a lookout to view the valley below.

The National Park has the largest area of rainforest in Australia.

We then visited the Finch-Hatton Gorge in the nation park and walked the scenic track to the cascades but didn't venture to the waterfall, the "Wheel of Fire" as the creeks were flowing and we didn't think it wise to risk getting too wet on a cold day.

The drive back to Mackay was interesting as cane harvesting was in full swing with harvesters, tractors and cane trains all in action. The cane fields are also quite beautiful with some cane in full flower (white), some not flowering (green), and the contrasting ploughed paddocks forming a patchwork effect across the countryside.