Cape Hillsborough: A Walk with Butterflies
The morning we went to Cape Hillsborough to watch the sunrise we also stopped at the Diversity Boardwalk. I had read it was a short walk and worth doing, but we might not have stopped if it weren’t for the butterflies. We were sleepily happily driving along, wondering about all the mangroves we were seeing, and suddenly there were butterflies everywhere. This was an easy walk, about 1.2km, a forty-minute loop through woodland, mangroves, and eucalypts. The first section had a lovely boardwalk. 
Many wonderful things to see… 
And then there were butterflies! There’s just something special in being surrounded by so many wild butterflies. It’s one thing to see them in a butterfly sanctuary, quite another to see them in the wild. Pictures don’t portray the number of them, they only come out as dark specks in the photo. 
Then we came across something we hadn’t seen before: shell midden from the Yuibera people that had once inhabited the land. We paused and discussed and have mentioned it a few times since then. 
Honestly, if there hadn’t been a sign there I would have been wondering what all these shells were doing there! (An archaeologist I am not.) 
C’mon, mum. You should pick me up now. I’m done with this nature walk in the morning thing. 
We were fascinated by these spider webs. See that rolled up leaf? The spider was in the leaf, if you look carefully you can see him poking out the end in this picture. It’s called a leaf-curling spider. He pokes his legs out to touch the web so he can feel any vibrations, but the leaf protects him from any prey. We were trying to imagine the process of the spider getting the leaf into his web. Imagine him dragging it into place and using his silk to curl it up just right. So amazing. These spiders are common in eastern Australia and were in abundance on this walk. 
More butterflies. So many fluttering around but it was actually hard to get a picture. We found this one sunning himself. 
I believe it’s a blue tiger. What an awesome name for a butterfly! 
One of us may have moved this fallen cattail further along the trail than we should have. It ended up in a part of the trail where it obviously didn’t belong. 
We were lucky to find this butterfly wing on the trail. With so many around you’d think we would have seen more, but they are so very delicate. 
They think they look like they are holding the sign up. This is a new thing they’ve been doing. We’ll have to work on it. 😉 
More pretty things to see. 
In the end we survived this 40-minute or so walk, even after our already eventful morning. We’d set out thinking we’d just do the boardwalk section at the beginning since we’d gotten up so early but ended up doing the whole thing. It was quite fascinating, the landscape changed so much along the trail, and I’ll never forget some of the sights we saw on this walk!
Sunrise With the Wallabies at Cape Hillsborough NP
Just north of Mackay is Cape Hillsborough National Park where the wallabies come down to the beach at sunrise every morning, what a sight! They don’t seem to mind people watching them eat their breakfast and it makes for such a memorable morning. 
We stepped onto the beach and saw wallabies off in the distance. We made our way down there and got there just as a man walked out onto the beach dropping food for them as he went. It used to be the wallabies came down to the beach for mangrove seeds and seaweed that the tide had stirred up. At some point they must have decided to ensure the wallabies would show up each morning. They’d obviously been waiting for their breakfast, but he didn’t interact with them at all, just dropped the seed and continued down the beach, never looking back. What a lovely way to start your day, feeding the wallabies and a morning stroll on the beach! 
I am not a fan of using my camera flash, it alters the colours so much. But I got a good picture of everyone. TurboBug was half asleep. LadyBug is pretending to be a wallaby. 
When we got closer we could see that most of the wallabies were actually kangaroos. All the tourist literature talks about wallabies, I’m sure it depends on who’s hungry! This kangaroo bounded over in our direction and stopped directly in front of the kids. (I’m glad he stopped when he did!) 
I suppose he was hoping we’d have handouts and knew that kids are likely candidates. 
He just stood there in front of us for a few minutes, twisting this way and that, ignoring the giggles from the kids. 
After he left we inspected his footprints. See the trail going right up in front of the person in the background? She was busy focusing her camera and didn’t know he was coming. She got quite the fright when he jumped in front of her lens! 
Finding a mum with a joey is always fascinating. So often it’s the feet or an ear sticking out of the pouch, but this time we could see a little face! 
Here’s some classic kangaroo silhouettes! They can move so fast. [Side note: when we visited Australia ages ago, before children, we unexpectedly found ourselves in a mob of roos bounding across the paddock as we were getting into our car. It was like a stream of them coming our direction which split in two to go around the car. The sound of all those roos jumping and their speed was amazing.] 
The wallabies (or roos) slowly disappeared back into the bush. I’m sure they would be back the next morning. 
Then we told the kids we’d be walking down to the end of the beach. 
At low tide you can walk along a causeway to get out to Wedge Island. We could see the causeway so headed over for a look. While we watched the sunrise. On the beach. Have you ever watched the sunrise on the beach? It’s lovely. 
It looked like the tide was coming in, so walking over to the island was not going to happen for us. We weren’t really prepared for it anyway. But threatening the kids with a long walk so early in the morning was fun while it lasted [insert evil laugh]. 
So we made our way back, exploring along the way. 
And then as we were leaving we reached this stretch of road where there were all these butterflies in the sky, so we stopped and we really did make the kids do a (not-too-long) walk early in the morning! Yes, we are that cruel. Next post, please…
The Huge Coal Port at Hay Point
On the way back from our lovely tour of the Sarina Sugar Shed we made a quick stop at Hay Point. There’s a lookout with a great view of one of the largest coal export ports in the world. 
Look at all that coal! I can’t begin to describe how much coal we could see. They export something like nine million tonnes from this port every month. 
The coal is transported to the port through a rail system. When we left Mackay a few days later we travelled inland and drove by some of the mines and could see the rail system. This is all such an enormous operation, it boggles the mind. Look at all those huge piles of coal. 
There are two export terminals here. The coal is transported by conveyor systems out to sea to allow for loading in deep water. We could see the conveyors moving down the track to shift the coal. I think we counted fourteen ships either at sea or being loaded while we were there. Those jetties extend out for kilometres. Huge, this place was huge. 
As interesting as it was for us adults, it really didn’t hold the kids’ attention too well. 
But hey, there was a wind sock, so that helped. 
There was one of those telescope-y things they have at tourist places, so we did get a look through that to see some of the action close up. That was good, too. 
As I took a picture of this I thought it seemed familiar. We saw another of these at the Sydney Harbour Bridge, though it didn’t have the heritage designation. 
Although it wasn’t one of those great, fun, interesting stops for the kids, anytime in the future when coal mining comes up we can say ‘Remember when we saw all the coal at Hay Point?’ and it will all seem a little more real to them. I hope. So much of this trip is like that!
Sarina Sugar Shed
Seeing all this sugarcane in Queensland really made us want to find a factory tour to do. That proved hard with the various ages of our kids, many of the factories have age or size requirements which our younger kids don’t meet. So when I found out about the Sarina Sugar Shed I knew I’d found the right one for us. It’s a hands-on mini-sugarcane mill, perfect for families. We got there just as a tour was starting. The tour includes a short video, a look at some old machinery, viewing of the mini-sugar mill, and a tasting at the end. It was a hot day and when they took us outside to look at the machinery they gave us these lovely rainbow umbrellas for shade. They were so colourful, the kids loved them. They really should sell these in their shop. TurboBug had to hold one, though the thing was as big as he was, which meant one of us had to hold onto the top for him! 
They had several examples of old machinery that showed how sugarcane planting and harvesting has evolved over time. Each machine had improvements over the last. This one is a harvester. 
This one is a planter. They’d feed the sugarcane into the chute and it would chop them, spray them, and drop them. 
You know how the eye on a potato is where a new shoot comes from? That’s how sugarcane works too. Each section of cane has an eye (they alternate sides), they plant the mature cane directly in the ground for the new cane to grow from. See the eye in the picture below? 
This was a small patch of cane near the machinery to show it in different stages. See the cane they’ve laid along the front of the box? The cane is cut into pieces about 40cm long, called setts, for planting. Each sett can make up to twelve sugarcane plants. Sugarcane is harvested from June to November and they often work around the clock during those months. In Queensland the cane takes 9-16 months to grow. Further south it can take 18-24 months. 
There is a real sugar mill is next door. It had not been working that day but they were starting it back up that afternoon. That oddly shaped building had water pouring over the sides of it as part of the temperature regulation. Australia is the 3rd largest supplier of raw sugar in the world. There are 24 sugar mills, 6 bulk storage ports, and over 4000 sugarcane farmers. 
They have a mini sugar mill set up on site. It was fascinating. All the machines have cute names and they show short videos of each one in use. Look at the juice coming out of that crushed cane! He brought the cane over for us to chew on, too. 
Samples. Of freshly squeezed sugarcane juice. They told us that the sugarcane plant stores extra energy as juice so sugar content will vary from farm to farm. Farmers are paid on the sugar content in their crop. 
Mmmmmmmm. (Still recovering from that fall!) 
There were other things to try, including molasses. Most people tried the juice, not so many takers for the molasses. [Side note: when I first moved to Australia I needed molasses for a recipe and couldn’t find it at the supermarket. When I asked I was told I might need to go to a feed store! Not what I had in mind.] 
They had little jars of sugar in all its various stages of processing. Every single part of the sugarcane plant can be used. The cane that is left after juicing (bagasse) is used to power the mill. It’s the only crop in the world that can be used to power its own processing, so it doesn’t rely on fossil fuels. Other residue can be used as fertiliser. They talked us through the whole process: the cane is juiced, cleaned, boiled, seeded, boiled again, and dried. 
So with all that sugar information you may be wondering how sugarcane first came to Australia. Can you guess? Okay, you weren’t wondering but now you are, right? Are you ready? It came on the First Fleet, they brought it with them from South Africa. So sugarcane has been a part of Australia for as long as Europeans have. 
This mini-mill produces their rum and liqueurs. They don’t process their cane into raw sugar, that’s only done next door in the mill. 
Then they took us to the tasting room. Where they had a fairy floss machine that she actually turned on and made fairy floss for anyone who wanted some. I have never liked cotton candy (as I call it) but my kids did not inherit that trait. They also had tasting for the adults, various sauces and liqueurs that they sell in their gift shop. 
We hadn’t planned on getting TurboBug his own fairy floss, but he kept taking bites from everyone else’s so I asked her to make a small one for him. Small. Not one nearly as big as he is. Sigh. He ended up having more than anyone! 
In the back of the room were a couple of really well-done school projects that I just loved. 
Then my kids nearly got destroyed by fires from the cane fields. Which is funny, since they told us they rarely burn fields anymore in the Mackay area. She told us they usually let the fields rest before replanting. We’d seen some burning in Innisfail, though. 
Then they got to drive the sugar train. 
TurboBug ran over as fast as his feet would go, he could barely wait for his turn! 
One last pic of the pretty purple flowers outside! 
The funny thing about all of this is that a few months before our visit we had drastically reduced the amount of sugar we were eating. It’s snuck back in a bit, as sugar does, but we still consume less than we used to. Now we know more about it than ever! Our tour guide had such a pride and enthusiasm for their work, it was a delightful tour.
Platypus Viewing at Eungella
Finally it was the right time of day for platypus viewing! They are active at dawn and dusk. We headed to the township of Eungella where the Broken River has three viewing areas. It was a popular spot. 
The first creatures we saw were turtles. We even saw a tiny baby turtle but he didn’t show up in my pictures. The kids were excited to see turtles after our recent turtle feeding experience. 
Later in our walk I found this sign that talked about how turtles can absorb oxygen through bottoms and smell through bumps on their chins. Wow! 
We waited and watched, trying to keep quiet since there were other people around and they were all very quiet. I didn’t see a sign saying that platypuses are sensitive to noise until we got to one of the other viewing areas. We must have missed it at this first one. 
We didn’t have to wait long. Look! A platypus! (I didn’t have my zoom lens, so this is as good as it gets!) 
They only surface for 10-20 seconds at a time, then dive in search of more food. 
We had the best luck at the first viewing area we visited, and I managed to get just one on video. We followed the very nice boardwalk to the next viewing area, which was under a bridge. We didn’t see any platypuses here and there was no one else around so we kept moving to the third spot. 
The trail included a nice boardwalk and some cute decorations along the way. 
There were more people at this end, all silently watching the water for movement. A lady told me they’d seen a very large one and a very small one here. 
While we waited I learned that platypuses store food in cheek pouches and come back up to the surface to eat. They mash their food more than chew it. I also learned they hunt with their eyes, ears, and nostrils shut! 
We waited for as long as we could manage after our long day. We did see one surface a couple of times, but we still had a good drive back to Mackay so we didn’t hang around too long. 
We found this next to the trail, I’m sure it wasn’t an actual seat but it was the right size for the kids and they all wanted a picture in it. 
So, so happy we got to see some platypuses in the wild! Somewhere we were I saw a platypus crossing roadsign but didn’t get a picture, I was hoping there would be one here but no such luck. Since it had been such a long day and we were getting back into town late with no good prospects for dinner we treated ourselves to Subway sandwiches, an rare treat that we all enjoyed. It had been a long, lovely day!
Sky Window Lookout in Eungella National Park
As we made our way from Finch Hatton Gorge to Eungella we stopped at the Sky Window Lookout, we’d heard that on a clear day you can see all the way back to Mackay. Given that we were an hour from the coast it sounded like the view would be stunning. It’s also popular for bird viewing, though we were too noisy that afternoon to have much hope of seeing many. The lookout is a short loop with a couple of stops along the way. At the first we could see the road we’d just been on. 
The next offered those stunning views back to Mackay. We could just make it out in the far distance. See those patches of green? That’s sugarcane. The nearby sign said the valley had once been mainly dairy farms. 
Time for some funny poses. The kids were complaining a lot that afternoon, we were trying to distract them from their unhappiness. How dare their parents make them get out of the car after that long walk and swim! 
SkeeterBug snapped a pic of the rest of us. 
I’m including this picture because I don’t think I’ve mentioned the bush turkeys before. The first place I remember seeing them in abundance was in Sydney at the caravan park we were in. We see them all over the place, I remember them being quite noisy in Cooktown as they settled in each night. TurboBug happily exclaims ‘booosh turkey’ when he sees one. 
Right as we were leaving this little guy had a fall in the carpark. He landed hard and when I went to him all I knew was he’d hit his face. I was afraid he’d landed on his nose and feared what I’d find. No broken nose thank goodness, and before long it was obvious which part of his face had taken the full brunt of the fall. Poor guy. 
Then it was finally time to go look for that platypus…