Sugar cane , grown in an almost continuous belt between Bundaberg and Mossman, north of Cairns, is the tropical coast's economic pillar of strength. Introduced in the 1860s, the crop subtly undermined the racial ideals of British colonialists when farmers, planning a system along the lines of the southern United States, employed Solomon Islanders - Kanakas - to work the plantations. Though only indentured for a few years, and theoretically given wages and passage home when their term expired, Kanakas on plantations suffered greatly from unfamiliar diseases, while the recruiting methods used by " Blackbirder " traders were at best dubious and often slipped into wholesale kidnapping. Growing white unemployment and nationalism through the 1880s eventually forced the government to ban blackbirding and repatriate the islanders. Those allowed to stay were joined over the next fifty years by immigrants from Italy and Malta, who mostly settled in the far north and today form large communities scattered between Mackay and Cairns.

 

After cane has been planted in November, the land is quickly covered by a blanket of dusky green. Before cutting, seven months later, the fields are traditionally fired to burn off leaves and maximize sugar content - though the practice is dying out. Cane fires often take place at dusk and are as photogenic as they are brief; the best way to be at the right place at the right time is to ask at a mill. Cut cane is then transported to the mills along a rambling rail network.

The mills are incredible buildings, abandoned for half the year, with giant pipes and machinery looming out of makeshift walls. Cane is juiced for raw sugar or molasses, as the market dictates; crushed fibre becomes fuel for the boilers that sustain the process; and ash is returned to the fields as fertilizer. During operations the mills belch out steam around the clock and acquire a strange organic quality when they're lit up at night. You can get to grips with Mackay's sugar industry at Polstone Cane Farm (tours May-Dec Mon, Wed & Fri 1.30pm; $15; tel 07/4959 7298), where you get a rundown from a tractor-towed wagon; contact them for directions or to arrange a pick-up. Farleigh Mill (tel 07/4953 8400; $15), north of Mackay, is open for tours during the crushing season (June-Nov Mon-Fri 1pm), and lay on a very popular evening tour (Wed 7pm).