27.09.07

AYR

Up early and showered by 0700 as Debbie (Ness’ friend from Adelaide) who lives in Home Hill was calling to see us on her way home from working at the local hospital. She duly arrived and is very pleasant and invited us to the farm later in the day.

We went for a drive out of the town and finished up in an area known as Rita Island, though you couldn’t recognise it as an island it is one a few that are formed in the delta of the Burdekin River. It is very rich river flats soil with mostly cane farms with some other crops, we drove a lot of by roads and came to a very pretty billabong with large mauve waterlilies on it, unfortunately the road crossed over a ford but Di was not keen on crossing. Turned back and then spoke to a chap living there who pointed out another route which was lucky as we then saw cane being cut into trucks which in turn took the bins to the rail siding and rolled them off onto the tracks, picked up two more and then back for another load. There are hundreds of kilometers of rail tracks.

After lunch to the farm at Home Hill( I am being suitably vague about its location as you will understand later), there I had a guided tour of the property which is predominately sugar but some of the surrounding properties have green beans sweet corn and millet. I was shown how they water the crops with long lengths of plastic fluming; they have an unlimited supply of water.

They were going to show us a burn of the cane or take me to the river to catch a barra, as I have seen fire before I opted for the river. This is where it gets a bit cloudy but suffice to say we fished at a place where we shouldn’t. My offsider got one with his third cast and later caught two more and I didn’t get a BLOODY THING!! Back to the house for a lovely roast lamb and barra cooked on the BBQ and home by 2200, a very pleasant day.