The tour took us through the whole process from the unloading of the cane trains via a rotating tipper (the boys' favourite bit) to the finished product, complete with a bunch of take-home doggy bags of brown sugar for the boys to dip their fingers into for the rest of the day.
Unfortunately, there was a minimum age limit of 7 to go on the tour so Fletch and I missed out on the tour but did go for a special morning tea as compensation. Strangely enough, we found this quaint little café inside the florist shop!
The Tully Sugar Mill produces over 3 million tonnes of sugar each year. That's a lot of tooth cavities! It has been around since 1920 and it looks like it. Most of the original milling equipment and machinery has been changed over the years but some of the original stuff remains, and the place looks like a WW2 ammunition factory.
They mill the sugar cane from May to November, except on Tully Show Day. Apparently, there were so many sickies taken on show day that the management of the mill decided a few years ago to make it an official day off and be done with it. Only in Australia!
After the tour we treated the boys to lunch from the local bakery and a climb up and into the Tully Golden Gumboot.
Tully is local known as "a pretty wet place" and they're not joking. This boot represents Tully's highest recorded annual rainfall of 7.93 metres in 1950. The most rainfall recorded in one 48 hour period was 52 inches (1.32 metres) in March 1967. Tully's average annual rainfall is 4.17 metres. It rains 150 days a year here! Incidentally it didn't rain today!
Then it was off to the Tully Gorge and the fast-flowing Tully River. It was a beautiful 45km drive through the countryside to the Gorge, only to find that you can't get to the Gorge the way we went. You have to go around the mountain range to get to the Gorge - about a 240km round trip. Doh!
Anyway, we checked out the Tully River where the white water rafting companies take their thrill-seeking back packers for their dose of adrenalin.
The river is beautiful and was certainly flowing fast! Despite all the usual safety warnings and physical restraints along the way, Jack managed to fall into the river after slipping on a rock that we had warned him would be slippery..... After a minor heart attack and some quick reflexes, we managed to get him out before the current could grab him and take him downstream. Phew!
We got back to the caravan (or care-van as Fletcher calls it) in time for happy hour and some deluxe pea and ham canned soup and Cheerio breakfast cereal for dinner. MOTY! Finish that off with a can of Ricecream for dessert and an episode of the TV series"A Fortunate Life" and life just doesn't get any better.
Note: MOTY = Mother of the Year
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