Sugar mil and cassowary

At last we've seen a real cassowary (we were thinking of photographing the statue outside the information centre).  This one was just standing by the roadside, watching the traffic pass by.  We'd seen them in the zoo at Rockhampton but this was much better.


At the time we were on our way back from a tour of the sugar mill in Tully, which proved to be quite interesting. We had to wear hard hats and goggles , trudge up and down stairs, but it was worth it.  This mill is very eco-friendly, almost all of the emissions are steam, everything's recycled and all the sugar is exported to Japan and the US.  The byproduct molasses is 70% exported (someone said it's used in licorice, don't know about that) and 30% used locally for stock feed.


Chris and I did the tour in the morning, meeting up with John and Marg at lunchtime for dog handover so they could do the afternoon tour.  We took Ruby back with us and she soon learned not to bark.  We were sitting around reading when another dog started carrying on and howling, Ruby looked at me as if to say "May I?" but I pointed at her and she didn't make a sound.  She's not stupid, just spoilt, she knows when she's with us she's not allowed to bark, so she just doesn't. She sat quietly near us and didn't even bark when the others returned, though she was certainly aware of them, waiting eagerly for them to come and talk to her, but still no barking.  It will be a different story tomorrow, though.


We drove around South Mission Beach and another beach with an odd name, Wongalily or some such- they are pleasant areas with some really nice houses but some have sustained storm damage, shown by tarps still on roofs.  It's 16 months since Yasi, perhaps they have insurance problems.  We saw quite a few tarps in Tully, too. 


You can see where the cyclone ripped through the bush in many places.  Large plots of advanced pine plantations, probably 20 years old, have had their tops completely stripped, leaving just a bare trunk- others have toppled.  You can imagine how the sugarcane and banana plantations fared, if big trees can be felled or killed by the cyclone.


We had a shower of rain this morning but in view of the high rainfall here, we've been lucky and the sun came out later.  Here's a sunrise photo.

           Taken this morning in the caravan park.
We've decided to stay here longer, perhaps for a week.  We don't have to be in Cairns till next Friday and it's only 130 kilometres away.  This place is cheaper than anywhere else around, and the Qld school hols start tomorrow so places will be in short supply so staying here makes a lot of sense. It's not the most salubrious place we've stayed, but it's OK at the price- we have our own amenities anyway, we don't have to  use theirs if we don't want to.  


Ruby is barking as I type.Should I go and point my finger at her?