Syrup, hot damper and sapotes: Characters, cream and horny ends

Still grumpy at government the next morning, we decided to head across to take a look at the Mary River valley which was once almost drowned as the site of the controversial Traviston dam. The predictive text on my computer keeps trying to write ‘travesty’ for Traviston. I should let it. It is simpatico.

In another botched decision state government paid out hundreds of Mary River farmers to quit their land in this quiet valley, so that a dam could be built at a time when water was much needed throughout the state due to drought. Nothing wrong conceptually with the thinking. Water has to come from somewhere, and in drought times we must have supply. All very real. But local residents could make no sense of the solution the government came up with. Just a kite’s flight away was a dam, already in existence. All it needed to store all the water the Mary valley could offer was a raised wall. Moreover, it was on land the government already owned. No expensive payouts were needed. Problem solved, they argued.

But no. The state government quickly processed the land resumption notices, paid the farmers a mighty compensation settlement, and acquired hundreds of acres of Mary River land to flood. But, just at the pointy end of all that decision-making and expenditure, the federal government stepped in—no doubt thinking of their re-election chances—and put the kibosh on the state plan, declaring the site should not, would not, a dam make.

Red-faced and severely short-in-the-pocket, the state government then had to sell back all the Mary River acquisitions to anyone who wished to buy them. For a song. Losing heaps of tax payers money in the process. Both ways. An absolute debacle. Allowing billionaires like Gina Rinehart to move in and acquire great swathes of this productive valley cheaply, in order to set up production for massive exportation of dried milk to China. Becoming obscenely richer in the process.

The valley, today, looks little different than it likely ever did. Imbil still has charming old-fashioned buildings lining its quaint main street. Some of the local homes are still very eccentric, uninhibited by paint, exposing many original features: such as a beautifully arched entrance; lattice veranda screens, iconic rusted corrugated iron roof, and high wooden stilts—along with the occasional metal jack, to keep the upper story aloft.

Many of the locals we see are characterful: wizened, long haired, sporting gap-toothed grins. Life has not been easy for them. Their economy was decimated. But, it is said, things are on the mend.

The local butcher is doing well. Running when we were there he was so busy. One of his regulars was ordering a hunk of silverside. His wife wanted “the horny end”, he specified, gesturing to the pointy bit of the meat laid out on the butcher’s block ready for the knife. She found it tastier than “the butt end” — the square back piece, he meant. This culinary tip I tucked away for future reference. I can just see myself sending Pete off to the butchers for a 'horny end' of beef.

Further up the valley we came to the pretty hamlet of Kandanga, which would now be underwater if the flood plan had gone ahead. Here, at the heritage railway station, we saw our first ever cream shed. One of the rare ones remaining. Today it is brightly painted with a dairy mural.

These sheds were built at relevant rail sidings throughout Queensland in the early twentieth century to enable dairy farmers to quickly move their cans of thick cream and milk to markets. They were built in a particular fashion to maximise airflow around the cream: set on low stumps, with a gable roof, and a 10’ x 10’ platform with double doors on either side to load and unload cans. Hardwood boards separated by a small space clad the interior and exterior walls — the interior boards offset to further improve air circulation. Amazing service offered by the railway.

Even more amazing, that each dairy farmer having carefully labelled his cream cans for rail transportation, would later receive his own cans back after the cream had been delivered and the cans washed and returned by rail to the owner. That would not happen these days.

Before we left the Mary Valley we visited Amamoor, where we spied another cream shed at the railway. There are only a few of these left in Queensland as most have now been sold off and removed. Amamoor is a neat little place where many of the old time stores have now been renovated and converted into homes, their frontage directly onto the footpath. We even saw a new home, designed along the lines of an old time store. And when designer homes move into town things appear to be on the up and up.

As we headed out to Tin Can Bay for the evening we passed hundreds of acres of reforestation and saw for ourselves the dense layer of lantana underbrush growing undeterred.