Mackay & Sarina

Ok, we are back online for a moment so I will update what we have been upto. As I said before there wasn’t much to do at Mackay, seeing as it kept raining the whole time we were there.


But we had an interesting afternoon at the Sarina Sugar Refinery. We learnt all about how sugar cane has been planted, grown and harvested using different technology over time. They then took us through the only mini operational sugar mill in Australia, showing us how to turn sugar cane into sugar. Aidan and Cody got to eat fairy floss at the end while Jaime and Shell got to taste the spirits and liquors that they also make in the distillery section of the mill.

In the Sugar Mill watching the cane being crushed to get the water and sugar out

The Uninvited Hitch Hikers Story:


Two nights before we arrived in Mackay, Jaime had opened the bonnet of the car to check the battery and saw something thin disappear under the wheel arch. We wasn’t sure what it was, but was hoping it wasn’t a small snake because there was a fellow camper back at Monduran Dam who had a green tree snake decide to set up camp inside his car! So he waited a couple of hours and checked under the bonnet again to find a rat sitting up on the engine. The rat disappeared before he could do anything but said we didn’t have to worry about it as it can’t get through into the car.

Well, when we were arriving in Mackay Jaime asked to have a mint which we had in the glove box. When Shell went to get him one she discovered that the package had been chewed up and there were teeth marks in some of the mints!! Obviously Jaime’s assumption that they couldn’t get into the front of the car was incorrect!!

So we headed straight to Bunnings and picked up some rat traps. We ran out of the shop through the car park (in the pouring rain) to jump in the car, Jaime had jumped in first and just as Shell was getting in passenger seat, Jaime opened the glove box and here was a huge rat inside!!! Well Jaime yelled, the boys yelled and Shell screamed as she tried to get of the car as quick as possible. Meanwhile Jaime grabbed the tail of the rat as it tried to run back inside the dash and flung it out of the passenger door (towards Shell!), luckily it died on impact with the ground, but Shell was still doing a dance around the car park in the pouring rain!!

Shell got back in the car, and we all calmed down and were laughing about what had just happened, but as we were laughing and talking through what had just happened Shell opened the glove box again to find another rat staring back at her! Well she slammed it shut again and was out of the car into the pouring rain screaming and dancing around all over again and the boys were up on top of their seats!

We don’t know what happened to our second rat in the end, we think (we hope!) that it left the vehicle in search for its partner. It hasn’t appear in the glove box again(thankfully) and Jaime couldn’t find it in the engine etc anywhere – although it did stick its tail out of the speaker in front of Shell straight after leaving Bunning car park, which had Shell and the kids sitting with their feet up on their seats for a while!!