Lesson in cane belt
REDISCOVERING the glorious Ordinary! We see it, we know it’s there, but do we think it’s ordinary because it’s there whenever we want?
Why worry about it, then time escapes as it always does, and we realise too late, that it was quite ‘Extraordinary’, and we missed it.
We could see the big kettle in the distance, the Misty Mountains providing a magnificent backdrop, and unusually enough, the sun glistened upon the cane cutter statues, Tully. This great little town knows exactly who it is, how wonderful. Instead of trying to be everything to the visitor, Tully leaps out of the curtains of green, crying we are cane, we are wet and we are friendly, welcome.
None of this trying to be what they’re not, kidding themselves into a dream of popularity for some other reason of which some southern research has suggested, oh no, you drive into Tully, you know what to expect, or do you?
I didn’t expect such fantastic gift shops, menswear, every sorta wear, and happy people. I even found two tropical shirts that I’d never seen before, and a few that didn’t fit … hang on … that should read, a few I already had! OK OK, is that time of the year, and I’ve been bitten by the Belly Fish, I’m working on it, well I was, it’s coming into Christmas. Back to Tully, it was their Tullyween, and there were stalls lining the street, it’s one way and I reckon they could have made it, no way, just for the morning.
Buskers and battlers, and all smiling, even the dogs on the back of the utes seemed happy. This is another example of a great North Queensland town with character, and a spark to show themselves to a new generation of visitor and local alike.
The once giant green gumboot, is now a proud gold, signifying the winning of the famed Golden Gumboot award for a deluge of drips. Not that one would want to meet the canie whose feet would fit the gumboot, let alone have the green frog that’s on the side of the boot jump into your dunny.
Tully has an average rainfall of four metres, fair dinkum, and to really show off, in the wet season of 1950 had a fall of 7.93 metres, near 8 metres of rain!
Perhaps the green frogs are that big after all. I guess that’s why the Tully mill’s stack is so high.
As you drive in, past a shunting sugar train, the incredible cane statues, and the golden gumboot, you know where you are, and you know its going to be wet, after all having gumboots on the rubbish tin is a bit of a giveaway.
I look at our magnificent city, and is it just me, I feel we are in a slight disarray and not quite sure of our place in the world, yet we have so much to offer.
There are no statues or artworks really, and no not a statue of a stolen car, more so a statue of James Morril, maybe a statue celebrating a military and university city, the science and protection of the Great Reef, our adventure hill, our quiet beaches, there’s more than you can poke a thong at, and that’s before you meet our incredible people, you.
I reckon we could learn a lot from our mates in a wonderful small and wet sugar town just off the highway and a little further north. We are indeed anything but ordinary.
Happy days.