Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Sugar Cane Season

We are certainly experiencing some unique things living up here in Far North Queensland! This last week seems to have marked the beginning of sugar cane harvesting. You can pretty much drive in any direction in/from Cairns and pass a sugar cane field. While we were driving to Mission Beach on Friday, we saw the cane being harvested and caught a glimpse of a sugar cane train or two.

That in itself isn't really that unique or exciting, but what makes it so interesting is that the light rail tracks that carry the sugar cane train, run through our suburb, and right at the end of our street (very unsuspecting in the small, quiet area we live in!). To get to my local supermarket, I cross over the lines twice. We've gotten so used to not having to slow down because it wasn't sugar cane harvest, but the sound of the train horn (Do trains have horns? Or are they called something else?!) that we just started hearing from our house, gives us fair warning that we need to start watching for trains at the crossings.

The sound of the train isn't annoying (at least, not at the moment!), even when it toots; I'm enjoying the fact that just when things start to seem normal up here, something 'new' comes along and gets me thinking afresh about where we are living. Heaven forbid that we start to take for granted, living in Cairns! The train is a new sound and without being able to put it into sufficient words, it's giving me a fresh perspective on being up here. Praise God that 'normal' keeps changing!

I haven't seen the train in our area yet, just heard it, but here's a picture I found on the internet:

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