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Published: November 30th -0001
Cane
This cane is still about two months away from being harvested In 1860 John Mackay ventured north from Brisbane found the Pioneer river and its natural deep water anchorage and travelled in land and built himself a homestead which is now called Greenmount on the edge of the town of Walkerston which is close to Mackay.
Cattle were introduced to the area and did well in the relatively lush pastures around the Mackay area.
It was decided that sugar cane might be a good crop so it was planted and it thrived. Sugar mills dotted the landscape in the late 1880- to 90's and Mackay was booming.
The fair skinned settlers of European descent found it hard doing the manual labour required of cane farming in that era, with hand harvesting and planting so it was decided to hire labour in the form of South Sea Islanders who could be persuaded to leave their own countries and come to work in Australia. Many came willingly enticed by promises of money and houses, many more were tricked onto large sailing schooners and kept in iron chains and forcibly made to come to Central Queenland and work as slaves for white plantation owners. This was called blackbirding.
These people came
Typical
What you see if you are driving in North Queensland from many islands such as Vanuatu, The Solomons, Papau New Guinea, and The New Hebredies. Each of these islands had their own language and customs.
In 1904 Australia introduced a White Australia policy so this forced the removal of the black labourers so they were herded onto ships and just dumped back to whatever island the ship came to. Many managed to stay, Mackay has the largest population of South Sea Islanders, sometimes refered to as Kanakas.
Sugar cane is still grown from north of Brisbane all the way to Cairns, almost along 1500 kms of the coast line. It is harvested from June to December, sent by train or truck to sugar mills who refine it to the raw sugar stage and then stored and shipped overseas or further refined to white sugar. It is replanted each year, all these processes are now mechanised with mostly green cane harvesting being used.
Prior to green cane harvesting it was harvested after being burnt with cane fires a common site each night around Mackay and burnt cane trash floating through the air and settling on your white washing on the line.
Mackay is also one of the
Cane burn
A friend who grows cane burns a couple of paddocks which the green harvester cannot get to easily. cities associated with the coal mining boom in Central Queensland. House prices are sky rocketing, money is evident with page after page of jobs in the paper, and the new areas such as the marina are booming.
It is a lovely tropical city small enough to find your friends easily if you are out and about but big enough to have many schools, a university and loads of other facilities.
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