The Tea Lady, the Taxi Driver and a Meat Pie - Mackay Marina, Queensland, Australia
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Fri 21 May 2010 02:19
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21:06.787S 149:13.627E
On May 4, we left Northeast Percy Island as planned
and made our way to Mackay. It was a long seventy mile ride with a
slow first four hours motoring in light wind, but then the weather
gods smiled down on us and the wind came up enough for us to sail the last seven
hours.
Picture 1 - The last few hours of our
sail were spent weaving our way through the fifty or so empty bulk coal
carriers sitting at anchor twenty miles outside of Mackay's
harbor. The area surrounding Mackay is big on coal. We didn't
see them, but there are massive coal strip mines just to the north of the
city. The coal is transferred to the Mackay harbor by train and then
loaded on to the bulk carriers, most of which then head for
China. Australia likes to boast that the global financial crisis barely
touched their economy and it's true that this country never entered an official
recession while the rest of us around the world were (and still are)
suffering. Part of the reason for this is the massive amount of coal
and other treasures that are dug up out of Australia's mines and
sent to China. Australia is literally fueling China's booming
economy. Mackay's harbor is a good example of how China's demand for
coal has increased. The reason there were fifty freighters waiting to
be filled is because the harbor's loading facility can't keep up with the
demand. The capacity of the harbor loading facility will be doubling in
the near future, which should reduce the number of empty freighters hanging
around and make China happier.
Mackay is known for three things, or at least three
that we know of - coal, sugar cane, and its position which serves as
the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands and the start of the Great Barrier
Reef. As much as we would like to say that coal and sugar cane interest
us, it's really the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef that we care
about. We spent five days in the Mackay Marina preparing for our cruise
through the Whitsunday Islands and beyond - one day for laundry and
the internet, one day for boat jobs, one day for provisioning, one
day for sightseeing and one day to wait out a particularly nasty
weather system. All went per the plan except for that last bit.
Waiting out a nasty weather system is never high on our list of things to
do, but when a sailboat arrived in the marina with its stern covered
in vomit after having sailed through part of that nasty weather system, we
decided waiting was a good plan.
Our arrival in Mackay was also a milestone for us -
500 miles down, 1500 more to go on the road (or water) to Darwin.
Have I mentioned that Australia is a big place?
Picture 2 - The city of Mackay is not all that
large with only 80,000 people, but the marina is huge. It's a good
place to have a boat with the Whitsunday cruising grounds only 25 miles
away. It's a huge marina with huge tides. Fifteen feet is common,
but 20 feet or higher can happen. This is why the poles that hold the
floating docks in position are so tall. Not only do they have to keep the
docks in place for the normal tidal range, but because Mackay is right in the
middle of cyclone territory, the dock poles also have to withstand the water
height that comes with a cyclonic tidal surge. They were tested this past
March when a cyclone came ashore only a few miles north of Mackay. Glad we
weren't there when it happened. (Don't worry, the southern hemisphere
cyclone season runs opposite the northern hemisphere hurricane season. It
begins in November and ends in March - so we are in
the clear).
Picture 3 - Low tide at the Mackay Marina.
There are three of these ramp structures in the marina leading from land
down to the docks. We tried to time our arrival back to the marina after
our provisioning trip with high tide so we wouldn't plummet down the
steep ramp with our loaded carts full of precious tonic water, beer
and yogurt making mix. (Did I mention that we bought the apparatus
necessary to make our own yogurt before we left Scarborough? We figure
Southeast Asia won't be big on dairy products.) Only by sheer dumb luck
did we arrive at the dock near high tide, so no one plummeted down the ramp or
had an oversized fully loaded cart run over them.
Picture 4 - Australia is full of characters.
Quite a few of them were stationed at this pub when we stopped for lunch
in a rental car on our way through Pioneer Valley in search of
Eungella National Park. The Harley gang was out in force and it did our
hearts good to see that Australia has the same leather wearing, weekend warrior
Harley-Davidson enthusiasts that we do in the US. Bet they paid a heck of
a lot more for their bikes over here than we would at home
though...
Picture 5 - What's a pub without a meat pie?
That's John and Sue admiring their particularly fetching pies with fancy fluted
edges. Don went for the chips (fries) and gravy for an additional $2 while
John stuck with the traditional mushy peas extra. Who would willingly pay
extra for mushy peas? We're not sure, but mushy peas are a British
thing that Australians adopted (or simply brought with them when they
migrated). We can only wonder why.
Picture 6 - Pioneer Valley as seen from the 'sky
window' walking trail in Eungella National Park.
Picture 7 - The Tree Arch - another sight seen
along one of the Eungella National Park walking trails. We were happy to
see that it was labeled 'Tree Arch' - otherwise we might have wondered what it
was exactly. At the end of our walk in the rainforest, we were also happy
to see that there were no leeches attached to our toes.
Picture 8 - The Tea Lady's Garden. After our
walk, we decided to stop for tea at Suzanne's Tea House, located conveniently
between the finish of one of the national park walking trails and Broken River,
the home of Australia's revered platypus (which we did go to see, but the
platypus pictures didn't turn out well, sorry). The Tea House was really
Suzanne's home, part of which she uses for a restaurant and part of which
is a gallery for her own and her friends' artwork. Suzanne, a tiny willow
of a woman of indeterminate age, with long skinny legs covered in
tight red hotpants and dusty blonde hair tied up in a messy updo, served us tea
in china cups and an apple strudel to die for. It didn't hurt that
she is from Germany. The longer we lingered at the tea table,
the more she talked about her time in Australia and her experience living
through the recent cyclone. Later, and more reluctantly (almost
apologetically), she talked about her art. Even she
questioned whether her creations were really art, and claimed she
started her sculptures, 'just to keep busy and then it got out of
control'. You might say it got out of control. Her home, her
restaurant and the entire surrounding grounds were filled with colorful
two-dimensional sculptures made with colored glass...not beads, but buttons
- flat on one side and curved on the other. There were butterflies
and big birds and flowers and peacocks mounted on stakes and tree stumps.
There was a walkway through her garden and each area of the garden had its own
sculpture theme. Shown here is the butterfly area. The garden was
also wired with sound speakers so that when she allowed us to take a stroll
through it (a real feat since there was a big sign proclaiming it to be
'Private!'), she put on the mystical music for our additional enjoyment.
Aterwards, John and Don proclaimed her to be nuts, but a little off-kilter
might be a kinder and gentler description.
Speaking of off-kilter people...
Sid, our Mackay taxi driver made our first
afternoon in Mackay very interesting indeed. Sid is a Kiwi (New Zealander)
who migrated to Australia in 1965 after he got out of the New Zealand military
and found there were no jobs to be had near his home. He arrived in
Australia "with $1.65 Kiwi in my pocket, and wondered what on earth I
was going to do!" He ran into 'another bloke' in the same predicament who
suggested fruit picking was the answer. So Sid went fruit picking.
He picked fruit from 1965 until he retired in 1985. "At first me and this
bloke slept in tents, then I met a girl and moved into her caravan - been living
with her ever since!" This followed by a generous laugh. Then, after
we asked him to take us to a liquor store he claimed, "Oh I don't drink
anymore. Now when I go fishing I only take half a slab (case) of beer
with me!" Another chortle. He drives a taxi to pay the bills and
works five or six days a week from 3am until 3pm. We asked why 3am and he
said the taxi company splits the shifts that way "so no one driver has to take
all the drunks. I get the really, really drunk ones and the bloke who
drives this taxi the other part of the day gets the early drunks. It's no
problem though, the Pacific Islanders (Fijians, Tongans, etc.) and
the blackfellas (Aboriginals) are good about it when I ask them not to
drink in the taxi because I could get fined. It's the white blokes that
can be nasty." Mackay is a booming mining town and that means lots of
blokes come here to work for the mining companies. They work hard and play
hard and Sid drives them home.
Anne
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