Leaderboard

Regarding the bridge, the local mill stopped running locos some time before the mill shut down and relied on road transport during that interim period. As a consequence, it fell into disrepair and was eventually dismantled due to public risk with people using it for fishing and jumping off it into the water. Eventually the company who owned the mill (Bundaberg Sugar I think it was at the time) came to the decision that their assets had more real estate value than they could make from crushing sugar so the sold it all up so developers could grow houses instead. Sad really to see one of the district's biggest industries vanish after being part of the place since the 1800's. The area had a lot of character when the cane industry was still solid. I live up on a hill and the old tram track used to go past the bottom of my property. Lots of good memories sitting on the verandah at night, listening to the locos rattling past and watching the cane fires out on the floodplain. Burning was not a very sustainable practice but it was very visual. For five to six months of the year it was like having cracker night every night. Over the years they ended up breeding varieties that produced less dead leaf trash and most burning went out of practice. What trash produced was left in the paddock to act as mulch in a way. Obvious benefits like more moisture holding ability, less weeds etc., but they had to develop machinery to be able to work it. There's not much cane grown here these days as it needs to be a high price to break even on trucking it some hours north of here to the nearest working mill. The only time they burn now is if they are harvesting what they call standover cane which is cane that has been left over to the next season or even longer. The more years it grows, the thicker the stalks get and the more trash and leaf growth there is, so it has to be burnt so the harvester can handle it. The sugar content drops as well with old cane. I miss the cane; these days instead of looking down over nice green cane fields, all I see is thousands of acres of weeds. It puts a lot of people out of work when a whole industry collapses. Farmers aside, a lot of the mill workers were multi-generational in their history there. I used to work occasional cane seasons harvesting cane and a lot of mates are local cane farmers or ex mill workers so I have a personal connection to it. I was born and bred in cattle, sheep and grain country so the cane was a big novelty to me when I first moved down here to the coast. Also here there's plenty of salt air to create rusty bits for making rat bikes (just to stay on topic).