Ingham
Categories: holidays, family, australia
Date: 13 September 2007 12:30:40
Photos of Ingham and Townsville here. Many photos are linked in my ramblings below.
I truly had a relaxing time, though I did do a variety of things. It felt like I was away for far longer than 4 days.
Ingham is probably most-well known for its Victoria Sugar Mill, the largest sugar mill in the Southern Hemisphere. It also has a sizeable Italian-heritage population. My cousin's husband is Production Manager of the mill, and I got a very interesting tour of the mill the night before I left. It was hot, steamy, and noisy -- and the smell of sugar was constantly in the air: but it was also fascinating. During "season", as they call it, the mill runs 24 hours a day, with the cane arriving by train and the produced sugar being sent by train down to Lucinda, which has a 6 kilometre jetty to transport the sugar out to waiting ships. Lucinda also has a nice beach [though there are plenty of nasties in the water, as well as gentler animals] and park area, and you get a nice view of Hinchinbrook Island. I was also rather taken with the coconut nets under the branches of trees along a walking track just above the beach.
We also went to Big Crystal Creek, a place my cousin often takes her kids to with other families. It is a beautiful, and secluded, spot, and she told me many a happy afternoon is spent there. We stopped off at The Frosty Mango on the way back to town for lunch and a drink -- as I do not like mangoes, I stuck to a hazelnut ice-cream milkshake. Everytime we crossed a river my cousin would say, "There's a crocodile living down there" or "There's a few crocodiles somewhere down there". It's said as a matter-of-fact comment: people up there are used to them and know where not to go.
Friday morning, my first full day, I went to school with my cousin's kid and was "Show-and-Tell" for my cousin's daughter's kindergarten class. Times have changed for schools: kindy had a computer with webcam! The school, the local Catholic school, truly appeared to be a loving community: parents were talking to teachers, parents talked to parents...they even talked to me! I know I was only there a short while, but even so I felt something when I was there: that this was a loving school community. And my cousin confirmed this.
Saturday morning, before we headed down to Townsville for the day, we took the kids to a kid's club put on by the local Anglican church. While they were busy art-and-craft-ing, I took the chance to look at the Memorial and Botanic Gardens across the road. Beautiful gardens, and the botanic area was beautiful to walk through -- cool and quiet, save for the occasional screeching of the bats above.
Sunday afternoon I went with my cousin and her kids to see Ratatouille with some others: enjoyable I thought, but a bit long. Many laughs though.
As I wrote above, a great break. I'll write about the day trip to Townsville in a few days.