It is 1886 and you, sir or madam, but more likely sir, are a sugar baron, owning one or more sugar mills. Sweet as, you say, I must be a great fellow. Maybe, but you have a problem. A very sticky problem. The delicious and rich volcanic soils around Bundaberg are perfect for growing sugar cane, and by 1885 there are 166 sugar mills in Queensland, 40 of which are around Bundaberg producing 20% of the sugar in Australia.
Excellent, you say, so what’s the problem? Molasses. Not surprisingly, 20% of the molasses in Australia, and there’s nowhere for it to go – you and your buddies have kegs, casks, buckets, vats of the stuff and please, do not empty it into the river – this a sticky situation any way you look at it.
So, let’s go to the pub and find a solution. I think your mate Frederick Buss has a idea. Yes he does. A distillery. Being the late 1800s some top hats and bushy sideburns sputter moral objections to the demon drink, but these are overcome by the prospect of a solution to the molasses problem, and of course, the prospect of filthy, but not sticky, lucre. And so the good and great give birth to a healthy offspring, Bundaberg Rum. It would be rude not to visit the distillery. And ruder to leave empty handed.
So, bearing the fruits of our visit we head inland for the remainder of our journey. Is it an irony that from Bundaberg Rum we head to Gin Gin? Or more specifically further out into the wilderness to visit the rellies: Scott’s cousin Elizabeth and her bloke David. It is almost exactly four years since our last visit and we see the difference a bit of rain makes – below left, Late July 2019, right early August 2022.
We have an enjoyable couple of days doing farm related things, like taking molasses – there’s that sticky thing again – to the cattle; checking out the damage this year’s torrential/beneficial rains did to the new ford; admiring Liz’s new red tractor; doing some preparation for the installation of a new shed; and driving David’s new (old) yellow bulldozer. I did neither of the latter two activities, but did drink my share of gin and cook the green beans just right.
If you ever wondered where the attractively named Darling Downs are, I can now tell you. Not that it was ever a secret. And, somewhat alarmingly, we have been here before, but the dog ate my homework so I failed to appreciate the importance of the area.
The Great Dividing Range stretches more than 3,500 kilometres from just off the northern tip of Cape York, runs the entire length of the eastern coastline through Queensland and NSW before turning west across Victoria. The Darling Downs is a tableland covering 14,200 square km on the western slopes of said Range. It sits at an elevation of 450–600 metres and is primarily a cropping and dairying area, so we see hectares and hectares of mainly wheat and canola, with massive grain silos punctuating the landscape.
We snake down the Great Dividing Range to arrive in Toowoomba, the largest city in the Downs and, incidentally, after Canberra the most populous inland city in the country (approx 120,000). Also known as the Garden City, it is a very attractive rural town with, as you’d expect lots of gardens and parks. We are too early for the Carnival of Flowers by a fortnight, but looking at some of the plantings, I think they may bloom too late. At Laurel Bank Park in the west of town, where every year Council gardeners plant 60,000 seedlings and 18,000 bulbs, the butterfly theme has some way to go before a riot of pansy and alyssum butterflies are evident. Thomas the Tank, on the other hand, looks proud of himself regardless.
We head to Ballandean, just out of Stanthorpe, to stay with friends Tony and Julia at their Granite Belt winery, Just Red Wines. You may not be aware that there are wineries in Queensland, but at nearly 1,000 m of elevation and a terroir of decomposing granite similar to France’s Cote du Rhone, it suits Shiraz in particular. The region has a growing reputation as one of Australia’s top producers of alternative variety wines: that is a variety representing no more than 1% of the total bearing vines in Australia as defined by Wine Australia. These are known here as Strange Birds, and include varieties such as Petit Manseng, Verdelho, and Rousanne, varieties more likely to grace the labels of Northern Hemisphere bottles. It makes for interesting cellar door visits as wineries are boutique and most growers are hands on in the winery and at the cellar door.
After so long in the warmer north it comes as a surprise to need our winter woollies in the evenings. The elevation means cold nights – just the excuse you need for a raging fire, a BBQ plate laden with steak, and bottles of those Strange Birds.
