Its a long way somewhere: Sugar Cane Lots of it!!!

Up in Queensland we are in the tropics, it is winter right now and the day time temperature is as high as 25c so that means they grow things like bananas mangos pineapples and sugar cane.

I think from what we have seen that sugar cane is the biggest and easiest crop to grow it is everywhere.

I take a ride between the cane fields

Between all the fields there are access roads to get the equipment in and most are just grass lane ways Great for a quick ride off the blacktop.

Crossing one of the many railways

There is a very extensive rail system in place to move the cane to the many factories around these parts

The Cane railway runs along the side of the Highway
all around in these parts

Its not until you venture into it that
you realize how big this stuff is

When you see how big this crop can grow and what they actually need there is a lot of grassy stuff that just gets in the way. So what they like to do is just light it all. This stuff goes up so fast that all that is left is the cane.

After a night of burning the smoke fill the
air in the morning and the ash covers everything

This is great for the farmer but the new locals are complaining about the smoke and ash that is in the air. The problem with not burning the stuff is that they are getting over run with rats and snakes.

When they don't burn the stuff before harvest
there is a lot of stuff they have to deal with

And one of the main things the make from all this sugar cane
BUNDABERG RUM

So it turns out that rum is made from the waste product off the sugar production and that would be molasses. There is so much of this stuff that it was just to much to handle so back in 1888 some smart guy thought he would make some rum out of it. Now they make several million litters a year all of which is consumed here in Auss.