Chris pulled us out of bed early one morning to go fishing at Kinchant Dam (about 10 mins away). As you can see from the attire it was a bit chilly early on, but we soon warmed up once we got a few bites and had a few fish in our bag. We lost a couple, let the turtle and massive eel go and ended up with 4 lovely sooty grunter for our tea, yum!
These photos below may give you some idea of how much land in this region is planted in sugar cane. As far as you can see in almost all directions there is cane. Even houses are hidden and tractors are dwarfed by it.
The kids have been wondering what Chris actually does at work so last week he took them for a ride in the tractor to see how the sugar cane is harvested. They really enjoyed it and Laura wants to go every day! Hopefully you can see from these photos and videos how the process works. The harvester drives up the row of cane and cuts the stalk of cane into little short lengths. The driver needs to make sure he stays nice and straight because he can't see where he's going. Chris is driving the tractor/trailer beside and catches the cut cane, making sure he fills to the top of the trailer but doesn't let it overflow. The leaves and other waste get blown out over the top onto the ground. Some of the farmers burn the paddocks after harvesting to clear the rubbish. It's amazing to see, but the smoke gets very thick in the air for miles around- cough, cough.
Chris is in the red tractor with the trailer. His boss is in the harvester which is almost hidden behind the cane.
At the rail siding Chris tips up the trailer and directs the conveyor belts to shoot the cane out whichever side the bins are on. In the first of these two photos you can see the full bins on the right and the empty ones which Chris is filling are on the left.
The little red engine on the left is coming to collect the full bins to take to the mill. In the background Chris is still emptying his trailer.
Chris is in the red tractor with the trailer. His boss is in the harvester which is almost hidden behind the cane.
At the rail siding Chris tips up the trailer and directs the conveyor belts to shoot the cane out whichever side the bins are on. In the first of these two photos you can see the full bins on the right and the empty ones which Chris is filling are on the left.
The little red engine on the left is coming to collect the full bins to take to the mill. In the background Chris is still emptying his trailer. So that's how the cane is cut, collected and sent to the mill to be processed. We hope to do a factory tour soon to see the remainder of the process. I will keep you posted. Take care and love to you all. x x x
No comments:
Post a Comment