Croc tears (by the EHP) for Mo the Mowbray crocodile

Our guardian angels, otherwise the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection have decreed that the wonderful 3m plus croc that lives around the bridge over the Mowbray River (and has done for years) is now a danger to the public, has been seen showing agressive behavior etc etc and must be moved (civil service euphamism for trapped and shot/handbagged (take your pick)).

This brave decsion has come about because the crocodile is now a danger to the public because the public has been feeding it.  Hard to believe really.  Mo just hangs around the area doing what crocodiles do, sleeping, hunting, mating and so on.  There is no access to it - anglers fish of a pier.  Maybe the EHP worry that Mo was going to grow legs and savage one or two passing cars on the Captain Cook Highway.

The public is in much greater danger from passing traffic than from Mo.  But don't let thousands of clearly expressed views by concerned residents not wanting the crocodile to be touched, interfere with the bumbling Nanny State.  EHP manager of wildlife operations Mike Devery said 

"Among other things, the crocodile has been observed by wildlife rangers reacting to disturbance and swimming at speed on the water's surface towards anything that attracts its attention," he said.

"People have been feeding this crocodile from the road.

"This is an unlawful and dangerous practice."

So its all our fault.  Thanks Mike we sleep in our beds more safely knowing you are there for us

The Bump Track

Visitors to Far North Queensland who enjoy walking are often surprised at how few obvious walks there are here.  But there are in fact some really good, lesser known walks and one, the Bump Track has great appeal.

The track was blazed by Christie Palmeston in the 1877 as a route from the Hodgkinson Gold Fields in the western Tablelands to the coast at what became Port Douglas.  It followed a well established but unfrequented aboriginal track from Black Mountain to the Daintree coast.

The track is about 6kms long and is quite steep in places.  It makes a good day walk, including the side trip to look at the Mowbray Falls (when its not too wet).  When the track was first used teams of bullocks pulled wagons up the track from Mowbray, with rest stops at several places.  there was even a hotel one third the way up.   When cars made their appearance, horses, and sometimes bullocks were needed to get them up the steepest parts
 
                                          up the Track in 1928

There are no signs of the hotel or the bullock pens now but helpful interpretive signs tell the story and have some good photographs.

The track starts at Mowbray, just past the Diggers Bridge on Connolly Road.  The first part, Slatey Pinch is the steepest and narowest part.  Thereafter the track broadens and winds its way through rain forest, dry eucalypt scrub and across streams to Black Mountain Road.  There are excellent views from the track to the sea and across to the Mobray Falls.  The track continues across the road but most users terminate their trip here and return to Mowbray, downhill this time!  Look out for the difficult to find orange marker indicating the narrow track to the Mowbray Falls - on the right just past Robbins Creek on the ascent.  In the wet the Falls make an impressive sight but the track can be slippery. 

The trail is used by walkers, mountain bikers and horse trail riders.

Sugar

Mossman and Sugarcane

Mossman is a sugar town.  Although sugar is the reason for Mossman’s existence, it is not the only thing that goes on here.  It’s position on the main road to Mossman Gorge makes it an important destination and travellers heading north up the Bloomfield Track to the Daintree National Park and Cape York stop here to fill up with food and provisions.

But sugar dominates the landscape.  The early settlers had to take out enormous amounts of forest to create the rolling fields of cane that now runs from the mountains to the sea.  The earliest settlers have left their mark.  Dan Hart, maybe the earliest in 1877, was responsible for the seeds of the rain trees than line the road north from Mossman by the church.  Others planted mango trees that now line the road to the Mossman Gorge – to the estate then called Mungo Park. 

Sugar is a very specialised sub-tropical and tropical grass that originated in South Asia.  In northern NSW the crop takes two years growing to reach maturity but in Far North Queensland – from around Ingham well up to Mossman - sugar is an annual crop. Early sugar varieties tended to last around three years before they need to be grubbed out and replanted but modern varieties can grow and be cut through five or more seasons.  Replanting sugarcane is straightforward.  20mm sections of cane are dropped into furrows – that’s it.  The cane sprouts just like any other grass and soon grows up to four metres high.  The cutting season starts just after the cane flowers, around late June and ends around late October, depending on the weather – too much rain delays cutting.  Around 500,000 tonnes of cane is processed through the Mossman mill annually although with new cane coming from as far away as the Atherton tablelands in 2013 the total will be much more.  The mill, constructed in the late 1890s, but heavily modified since can deal with around one million tonnes.

While the cane grows it needs weeding, feeding and chemical control of fungal diseases like Rust.  Specially designed high tractors can drive through the cane rows.  It’s a continual concern to ensure that runoff of fertilisers do not impact too much on the Barrier Reef so farmers look to ways to minimise the application of inorganic fertiliser.  Mill Mud, a by- product of the cane crushing process, is applied to new fields prior to planting.

sugarcane in Mossman

The cane is cut using machinery adapted from maize harvesters. The harvester cuts about four rows at once, topping the non productive part of the cane which is discharged through a waste shute, and cutting the cane into 20mm pieces.  This is dropped into the waiting truck that follows alongside the harvester

The cane then goes to the mill in trucks or by the narrow guage cane railway.  This railway, first set up in 1887, used also to take passengers between Mossman and Port Douglas but is now exclusively used for cane.  The tracks are cleaned up every May and long trains of many wheeled bins get to the mill through what used to be the main street in Mossman – Mill Street.  The loaded wagons make a great photo and the trains often stop traffic during the cutting season as they have priority over road traffic.

The cane crushing process starts as the trucks or trains wagons discharge the cut cane into hoppers in the ground which take the cane to be washed (producing the mill mud) and then in the crusher. The resulting juice is then boiled in enormous vats and eventually turned into low-GI white sugar, molasses and other sugar by-product.  The liquid products generally go by road to Bundaberg on the south east Queensland coast to be refined or made into rum.  The plant waste, baggasse, has use in animal feed and mulch.

Cane fires were once a regular, and spectacular occurrence.  Until machinery was used to cut the cane the job was done by hand.  Hot dirty and dangerous too.  To minimise the transfer of disease through rate droppings and to improve the sugar content of the cane it was fired just before harvest.  Today cane is still fired but more rarely, although the fields are sometimes fired to return the cane stumps to the soil as potash.  The fire is quickly over but the noise of it like an express train.  Very spectacular!

cane fire from Papillon

Coffee works for us

Papillon has lots of coffee growing in our garden so we wondered about making some coffee from the berries....Our coffee normally comes from the wonderful Bruno Maloberti in Mareeba. Bruno gave us some tips on home production. Don't worry Bruno we will stick with North Queensland Gold!! But it was fun, if very time consuming to try to produce some at home

coffee flowers are very attractive

so are the berries

green beans starting their roasting

nearly ready after 17 minutes

amazingly wonderful pot of coffee from Papillon's garden