Looking a little like Autumn

We've had some Autumn like looking days here this week, the fog has arrived. Monday morning the fog was thick enough to ask the sunrise but by the time I made up my mind to go and take some photos, most of it had cleared south of the city.

All links are to previous related posts.

Walsh's Pyramid

Can you spot the chimney from the sugar mill?

Sugar cane fields around Walsh's Pyramid

After having fun with dew drops and fog I headed into Gordonvale, to get a photo or two of the mill before they start work. Well they were working, working getting the mill ready for the beginning of the sugar cane harvest. Once the cane starts to flower, things will be full steam ahead.

Mulgrave Sugar Mill operating since 1896, services around 300 farms.

When I arrived there were passengers waiting to catch a train off the single platform at the station, next to the mill. The Spirit of Queensland was due in at any time, on its way south.

The train was way too long for the platform so they stopped to let the guard off and then moved forward to let the passengers on.

Once the train was gone the station went back to being quiet and deserted, well except for me. We don't have many trains through in the Far North, just this one and ones with all our food and other goods, that I know of.

I then headed to find some pretty flowers which I used for a belated Mother's Day.

What has it been like where you are?

Tuesday's Treasures

Hazy Mountains

Humidity, part and parcel of living in the tropics. 

It is a parcel I would prefer stayed unwrapped, personally.

We've hit the time of year where the air conditioning goes on at night and we spend half the day deciding whether or not it is hot enough to warrant using it. Actually, what I want to know is, how an earth did people live up here before air con. I know suck it up. You would never think that I lived for years on a cattle station in the dry tropics, where humidity in the lead up to wet season is also a killer, without air con. We only had our trusty pedestal fans to move the hot, sticky air.

I know it isn't summer just yet, but it is certainly around the corner. I've swapped t-shirts for sleeveless shirts most days and dread putting on long pants and shoes for work of an evening. 

What a whinger I am.

Well yesterday afternoon, I wasn't having to put on the dreaded long pants for work, so I went for a bit of a drive. More to get out of the house than anything. Getting out and about and taking photos just makes my world smile. It wasn't too bad of an afternoon with fairly clear skies, air con in the car and humidity blurring everything in the distance.

Today dawned like that too, that hazy look over the city. That is maybe because at 5:30am it was 98% humidity. It is always muggier then but then the temperature is cooler so you don't notice it as much.

Do you know what is the craziest thing about this weather? It was just snowing again in Tasmania. You see we, up in the north aren't the only ones getting some heat. My Grandparents, a few hours from Sydney copped 42 degrees C yesterday and down on the Darling Downs they are getting some rather hot weather too. In fact our temps up here are pretty low really, compared to that anyway. So I really do need to stop whinging.

So, I was saying, I went for a drive.

I was too early for sunset so I decided to find some sugar cane, farm kind of stuff to take photos of. Actually, I never really decided, I was just driving along, I took a random road, saw a nice view and stopped to take a photo.

So sugar cane, mountains, cows and trees it was. I realised then that I miss taking pictures of cattle.Who would have thought you would find all this rural, farm-y goodness only about 1/2 an hour from the middle of the city.

I found a really great spot that looks back across the Gordonvale and Walsh's Pyramid. It is the opposite direction to where I was at the river. Now I think I have covered all four directions from this cool looking mountain.

The haze softened the mountains, making them blend in to the sky and clouds. Very pretty really. The people who live on the other side of the road have an awesome view to wake up to every day.

I could spot the sugar mill, hard at work, which was looking pretty tiny in comparison to the Pyramid.

I could also see lines in the sugar cane. I really do love the lines in crops. It looks like they ran out of cane to plant here, right at the end.

Ugh!! Dinner time! I better go eat so I can head to work so I'll leave this post here and let you enjoy the hazy mountain view in silence.

Have a great weekend!

Lines, Feathers and Changing Colours

Sometimes it is quite easy for me to get bogged down or overwhelmed by city living. 

That might sound a bit strange, especially to city slickers out there, but well other than the first couple of years of my life (which I don't remember) I'm country bred.

But then, as Mr Sparky says, I've kind of gotten used to living here. So I should think so after two and a half years. I've adjusted and adapted.

With nearly constant traffic sounds and close neighbours it is easy to forget that just on the edge of the city are farms. That the country, as such, is just there beyond the city limits. Even if it is a lot greener than the rural landscape that is always in my minds eye.

The other morning I headed south rather than north, to more copious cane paddocks rather than to the beach.

Why haven't I done this before? Wide open skies and paddocks as the sun greets the sky ... ahhh. Mind you being so close to the city the traffic is still there, even off the highway, although not as much.

 I took photos from a few different places while exploring roads I had never traveled. The clouds and mountains had slowed the sunrise.

 

I even found a barbed wire fence. Little things that excite me.

I also thought the towering, metal giants, the high voltage towers looked pretty cool in the sunrise. Something a bit different.

As the morning brightened I could see masked lapwings in a freshly planted paddock. I think there must have plenty of tasty treats for them there.

The morning sun made the feathery flowers of the sugar cane shine gold.

I saw sugar cane at many different stages from newly sprouted to standing tall to chopped in carriages ready for pick up and transport to the mill.

I did a bit more exploring down skinny roads. Quite a few suddenly ended, very inconvenient of them really.

Most of the time I could see Walsh's Pyramid and often the smoke from Mulgrave mill rising into the sky.

The lines of sugar cane growing in the morning light with mountains behind was picture perfect.

By then I was feeling the need for some breakfast and it seems I wasn't the only one with kites looking for their breaky above the cane.

At the moment we are having the perfect, tropical winter weather. Cool mornings, lovely days in the mid 20s with a breeze and mostly blue skies. The stuff of dreams.

The Mulgrave Mill at Gordonvale was hard at work. I think it is going 24hrs at the moment and there is something about that rising smoke that fascinates me. Maybe I am a bit obsessive about getting photos of it.

I saw a cane train engine go out and collect some carriages.

Despite enjoying the morning sun my tummy was getting a bit demanding so I decided to head home.

I did of cause take the scenic route rather than just heading straight to the highway.

I also found that cane train again with empty carriages in tow.

It was certainly an interesting morning, not only did I get to fill part of my sugar cane season obesession but I learnt some new roads, making a new map in my head.

Are you the kind of person who has to drive roads to get where they go stuck in your head?

What is happening in your part of the world?