A two day drive – brown, grassy plains and eucalyptus trees reeling past the car windows. The same image repeated, over and over. At the end of day two, we reach the landmark we’ve been looking for – the ‘Silver Link’ Burdekin bridge. This road-rail link carries us over the near-dry, sandy bed of the Burdekin River, and we finally reach Ayr, our home to be, driving through the town centre for the first time in the hot, January sun. The old town clock on the roundabout tells us we’ve made good time, as we pass the terrace of art deco era buildings, cream with faded blue trims, flaking with heat & age.

Ayr has a population of between 8 and 10,000 over a space of about 29 square kms, and outside of that are mostly sugar cane farms, some cattle, mango orchards, and other crops. The next major stops are Townsville, 88km north, and Bowen 116km south on the edge of the Whitsundays. There are many tiny farming communities dotted around the Burdekin Shire, covering over 5000 square kms in North Queensland’s dry tropics, all for which Ayr is the main hub.

My thermometer under the porch reads 50°c, and the blistering sun scorches the grass. It’s Australia Day, which we don’t celebrate, but boredom drags us to the Queens Hotel in town, where I witness my first Cane Toad race. Cane Toads are an introduced toxic pest, which North Queenslanders have learnt to live with by using them as entertainment! Toads with silly names like ‘Frogzilla’ and ‘Donald Jump’ are released into the centre of a big target drawn on the floor, and the first one to leave the target wins, as punters place their bets. These toads are not particularly cooperative, and we spend a good five minutes watching them sit there, not moving!

While my partner gets stuck into his new teaching job, which brought us here, the days drift by slowly and monotonously for me and I quickly realise that finding work here is about who you know, not what you know. There are a few cafés, but most of them are run by small family teams, or hire kids from the high school, who are much cheaper to employ than a seasoned barista such as myself. Everyone says, ‘There’ll be more when the wet season’s over, that’s when the town really comes to life.’ Opportunities may be easier to come by in the industrial trades, but I hear that even the sugar mills can be cliquey, despite the fact they’re always advertising for work. The locals seem friendly and welcoming, they love their Burdekin and they want you to love it too, but it’s not easy to break past their pleasantry façade and become a trusted member of the community – there are people who have lived here for decades who are still considered outsiders.

I look forward to the afternoons, when we drive fifteen minutes to the coast, through wide, grass plains like an African Savannah, where tall cabbage palms litter the landscape, dusty mountains silhouetted behind. Sometimes you can spot Brolgas in the fields. Alva is the tiny community on the beach, surrounded by wetlands and abundant with birdlife. Massive sand dunes roll around the muddy banks of Lynch’s Beach, creating an inlet of calm water separated from the waves of the Pacific. We’re in crocodile and stinger territory, so it’s unusual to see people swimming here, but the locals love to fish from the shoreline, and will always give a wave as they zoom by on their quadbikes. Hot wind stirs up the sand and burns your skin, while the palm trees along the coast flutter their leaves. Kingfishers dart to and from the trees; kites and ospreys glide high above with gulls and terns, and for the first time I hear the coughing call of a stunning Blue-winged Kookaburra. The shallows play host to egrets and oyster catchers, and in the park behind the beach a Pheasant Coucal hides in a bush, while a Yellow-spotted Monitor catches grasshoppers. Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos squeak high in the canopies of the Almond trees, eating the seeds with their claws. In summer, the sun sets perfectly over the wetland behind the beach, like a postcard of Country Queensland. There isn’t much of a walk here, but it’s always nice to see the nature.

On a wet Friday evening, I find myself sitting in a hot tin shed in cane country, sipping homemade beer while a cyclone brews outside. This is the Iron Works Micro Brewery in Brandon, just five minutes up the Bruce highway, where they make a handful of different beers and do pizzas and cheese boards on Friday nights. The historic Delta iron works shed is set up with a hand built bar sporting the beer taps, with the brewing equipment in view behind. It’s dark and dusty, but cosy chairs and tables fill the space, decorated with vintage farming paraphernalia on the walls.

The soundtrack of thunder plays constantly over the land, and as the days go by, black clouds with electric blue luminance linger on the sky, drawing out the light like a veil being pulled across the window. An aggressive gust of wind shakes the power lines, and two or three fat raindrops stain the asphalt. Then it comes, in one heavy gush, the rain drenches everything. Ferns dance as the downpour tattoos their leaves, glimmering glass beads rolling along a green slip ‘n’ slide. When the rushing of the rain stops, and the pitter of the drops on the tin roof eases, crickets gently fill the quietness. A Green Tree Frog chirps somewhere close by, and the trees shiver their leaves, shaking off the rain before the next deluge. By the time February arrives, the entire town is cut off from its neighbouring communities, as the river rises and the creeks spill over the Bruce highway. The community tunes into the local radio station for emergency updates, which sounds like it’s coming to you live from 1945, and plays old Italian music between weather reports. Meanwhile, the stock on the supermarket shelves wanes, and printed out notices begin to appear apologising for the shortage because the deliveries can’t get here. Eventually, a morning comes and a fresh brightness lifts the sky while a Butcher Bird whistles from a rooftop aerial. The trees are still, the ground washed from the night before, glistening in the daylight, and somewhere, the hum of a lawnmower grumbles.

Easter comes quietly, and I’m running out of places to drop my resumé, when I’m finally offered a job as the food truck driver for a small café/convenience store. Just like that, I’m spending my mornings prepping hot dogs, breakfast wraps, steak sandwiches and roast meat and gravy rolls, and driving around the industrial businesses in town to sell them for ‘smoko.’

It finally becomes cool enough (around 30°c) to climb Mount Inkerman – the Burdekin’s only walking track just south of Home Hill. The Mount Inkerman Nature Trail is relatively short and steep, about 3km return. From the base of the mount, steps rise up from the grass plains, into the wooded hillside. Rainbow skinks scatter on the rocks, cocking their tiny orange heads to fix you with their beady stare as you climb. Eucalyptus trees frame the view of the vast landscape below, where cane fields stretch further than the eye can see, towards the vague shape of distant mountains. Shrikes and drongos call from the branches, while tiny martins and Rainbow Bee Eaters flit about. Dragonflies hover, their black and white fluttering wings a blur as they play in a patch of sunlight that pours through the trees, and the dry grass rustles, perhaps a skink, or a Brown Snake. At the top, the Rotary Lookout draws your eyes north across the sugar canes, and east to the cape in the haze, surrounded by the glittering glare of the ocean. Black-shouldered Kites swoop and dive above the trees, and in the evenings, little Allied Rock Wallabies hop about the rocks.

Winter draws closer, and on a fresh, clear night at the end of May we join the crowds at Home Hill showgrounds for the biennial Sweet Days Hot Nights Festival. This celebration of Burdekin culture and sugar cane features the first cane burn of the season, a tradition the region holds onto. The showgrounds are decorated with red streamer art flowing in the breeze above us, depicting fire and sugar cane, and a drumming circle jams on the grass while we browse the array of worldly food trucks. In the entertainment marquee the Iron Works Brewery have a bar set up next to the Burdekin Rum stand, and behind it, a crowd of people gather beside the cane field in anticipation. The farmer walks along the perimeter of the crop, lighting it with a flamethrower. The flames rise quickly, crackling and sending bursts of cane trash into the air like fireworks. The atmosphere is reminiscent of bonfire night, with the fire shedding a warm glow across the crowd with flames in their eyes. Cane burning is a dying tradition, because while it gets rid of the excess foliage efficiently, which could otherwise clog up the machinery and slow down the harvest, many cane farming regions have stopped doing it because of its bad impact on the environment. When the fire is done, the entertainment stage lights up with local cultural performances; Italian music, Indigenous dance and didgeridoo, songs and dancing from the local Pacific Islanders, Scottish bagpipes and Highland dancing, Greek plate smashing, and Afro-Cuban performance.

Day two of the festival brings a dry heat, and the Cane Cutting Championship is well underway. There is a category for everyone, and they dive in the freshly burnt off crop with their machetes and compete to see who can cut their section the fastest. The competitors come out covered in black cane trash and sweat, and the freshly cut cane goes straight into the shredder for Burdekin Rum! Meanwhile, the street food stalls continue to trade in the neighbouring field, and families enjoy a local pop-up petting farm, complete with a dotto train.

It’s not so much ‘winter’ as it is the dry season, or the slightly-cooler-and-calmer-than-the-wet-season. It’s the bearable-to-live-in season. If you’re really lucky, you might see the temperature drop below 10°c for a night or two, but I wouldn’t bother digging out the winter quilt. The sky is a rich sapphire, glazed with a smoky haze. The horizon is red and black with fire; smoke clouds grow like giant mushrooms over the town. The air smells like toasted marshmallows and burnt grass, and everyday it snows; gentle, black ash tumbling like feathers out of the sky – cane burning season is in full swing. The sun hangs low in the sky, gathering warmth slowly as it rolls along the top of the sugar canes, little cane trains trundle along the network of tracks, carrying trailers full of freshly harvested sugar cane to a nearby mill. A freshness blows in on an unfamiliar breeze after the humid months. Kookaburras laugh somewhere on a power line, drifting through the open window on a scent of liquorice and treacle from the sugar mill.

Giru is one of The Burdekin’s major cane farming communities. Despite the town’s tiny population of less than 400 people, and its semi-remote proximity to anything, Giru is home to Australia’s largest sugar mill, and provides more than 2000 jobs each year. The Burdekin is home to four sugar mills in total.

Driving up a dark road on a Saturday night, seemingly to nowhere but cane fields, you reach the sign for the Stardust Drive-In Movie Theatre pointing up a long driveway. A little old ticket booth covered in fairy lights stands half way up and a man sticks his head out and trades you a paper admission stub in exchange for cash. You drive on and the big screen appears before you, on a backdrop of cane fields and endless night sky. Posts stick out of the ground in rows, each with a little old-fashioned speaker attached, playing 1950s music. You can reverse your ute up next to one of these speakers and cosy up with the family in the tray, or you can tune your radio to 95.1 and watch the movie inside your car. You pull up in your spot and head out to the café for burgers, hotdogs, popcorn and choc tops. The café is painted with bright murals and decorated with all manner of vintage things and movie themes. More twinkling lights line the fairy garden and mini golf course, all centred around a big old Gum Tree. The movie begins with local adverts from years gone by, and the stars in the Milky Way above shine as bright as the movie stars.

We’re well into June; the heart of winter, (29°c) and the region has a public holiday for the Burdekin Show. Now, I am expecting some significant cultural festival to warrant a public holiday for everyone, and instead I am baffled! Giant trailers travel from show to show, with target practice games where you can win an enormous plushie hanging from the ceiling, or fishing for rubber ducks, or selling candy floss and Dagwood dogs, or playing loud sound clips from Michael Jackson’s Thriller to entice you onto the fold up ride that looks like it might fall over! These funfairs are reminiscent of 1980s teen horror movies, and as we stroll around, every single stall holder heckles us, trying to force us to play their game. These Shows happen all across the country, and apparently the goal is to get a Show Bag. Again, I imagine this to be a fun souvenir you get, either as a prize or on the entrance gate. I think it’s going to be a locally branded bag saying “Burdekin Show” filled with miscellaneous things relevant to the Burdekin, or at least branded specifically for the Show. I couldn’t be more wrong. These are more like gifts you buy from the Disney Store. More than half of the trailers here are simply selling Show Bags, thousands of them, with every fictional character you can think of. Some of them just have a school backpack in it with your favourite character on it, or a Frozen drink bottle, a Harry Potter replica Quidditch set, or a Simpsons lunchbox. And these Show Bags are around $50! I don’t mean to offend anyone who grew up with these fond memories, but it looks to me like gross, unnecessary consumerism and I don’t get it. A public holiday and a day off school to go to a dodgy funfair to get heckled and pay $50 for a bag of landfill? I need to get my introverted, non-thrill-seeking butt out of here!

Groper Creek – The Burdekin’s tiny fishing settlement with colourful dwellings on very tall stilts due to its annual flood risk. Groper Creek is a popular camping and fishing destination for many North Queenslanders during the dry season. Just watch out for crocodiles!

Work is a struggle – each day is identical, from the timings and route of my round, to the customers I see and the items they buy, and even the things they say – if they speak at all. The same one-liners are made each day, as the same blokes buy their sixth Red Bull of the day just to try and feel something. No one laughs, as usual. I work alone on my smoko rounds, so other than that there’s no conversation. Even the radio plays the same thing every single day. I don’t know if it’s Tuesday, Thursday, May or October, it’s all the same.

The Burdekin Water Festival is an annual celebration of the region’s abundance of natural underground waterways, which is part of what makes the Burdekin ‘The Sugar Cane Capital of Australia.’ This festival was first held in 1958, which makes it one of Queensland’s longest running festivals. There are many ticketed events held throughout July and August; performances, dinners, etc, all fundraising in the lead up to the main celebration, The Grand Parade, which occurs in early September. Queen Street lights up with marching bands and carnival floats, followed by a ‘Mardi gras’ with lots of street food, local craft stalls, music, funfair rides, games and entertainment. The whole community comes out, and the town centre turns into a lively, bustling street party.

‘Summer’ approaches – the land is dry; scorched, the air is dusty. There is no respite from it, no countryside trails to clear your head. You don’t go outside for fresh air because it’s smoky; there’s ash falling from the sky, and the heat is relentless. It’s not the clean, fresh countryside like I am used to, it’s industrial, dirty, rugged and its beauty is dangerously striking in contrast. Between unimaginably vast stretches of private farmland, where you risk being shot for trespassing, and wild grasslands where you might collapse from sun stroke or be torn apart by dingoes, lie great, uninviting dirt yards with broken machinery or abandoned cars strewn about them. Even the river is inaccessible to those who don’t own high clearance 4X4s and boats. We’re in a time capsule; living out a Stephen King psycho-thriller, trapped in a snow globe filled with black cane trash, separated from the rest of the world, and nobody on the outside understands.

By November, the bushes and trees around town are covered in flowers, and the temperature is climbing rapidly. We start to see some rain showers and the odd thunderstorm as the wet season creeps up again. The sugar mills are on the home stretch as the harvest draws to an end, and soon the town will be very quiet again as the workers leave. Across the river in Home Hill, we sit under a tall eucalyptus in the park and watch a country music band warm up for the Harvest Festival. Behind us a twister funfair ride whirs, and the scent of a sausage sizzle lingers under the hot afternoon sun. The final grand parade of the year comes down the Bruce Highway that runs through Home Hill, showcasing the Burdekin’s businesses and sponsors, along with school debutantes and prom kings and queens. My favourite float is the person dressed as a prawn standing on the back of a Ute, and of course, it wouldn’t be a parade without a few old tractors and a Scottish marching band!

December brings bright glimmers of hope in the form of mangoes! The atmosphere all over town feels relieved; we’ve survived! The workers are finished for the year, most of them preparing to leave town; many businesses are getting ready to close for the wet season, and the mango trees all over The Burdekin are brimming with fruit. There are so many mangoes, not even the bats can get to them all! We manage to harvest some from the trees in our yard, and their sweetness is like nothing I’ve tasted from a supermarket. As the next season’s sugar cane begins to grow, closing in the town once again, Cane Beetles flood the place, like stone scarabs tacked to every wall and pavement. Our house is bare, as the removalists transport our belongings to our next destination, and there is nothing here now but the orange sun shining through the mottled glass windows, making rainbows all over the white tiles of what was once our living room.

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