FELLOW islanders, whilst travelling to the mainland during the cane crushing season (June-Dec), one notices to the south a smoke stack that appears to be in the mangroves.
It’s the Rocky Point sugar mill at Woongoolba.
Years ago when my son Lance was younger and we were out in our steamboat, I’d say to him ‘There’s another steamboat over there, hiding in the mangroves’.
But it’s Heck’s sugar mill, one of the oldest in Queensland and the only mill privately-owned.
It’s been owned by five generations of the same family since 1879, when German immigrant Carl Heinrich Heck founded the mill.
The mill’s annual crushing has gone from 400 to 40,000 tonnes of cane.
It’s very swampy country, and the German wagons had trouble on the wet ground. The Heck’s put in a rail line in 1920 and bought an English locomotive built by John Fowler & Co, Leeds, West Yorkshire. They had about 100 cane trucks for the loco to pull. The line went out to Norwell, with a branch to Jacobs Well. The old loco is in the Beenleigh Historical Village.
As motor trucks became common after WW11, the line was used less, closing in 1951. I know when I came to the district about 50 years ago, the line was ripped up but the full cane rail trucks were still shunted into the mill with a tractor. Each cane farm had a short length of line. The rail trucks were winched onto motor trucks to get to the mill.
The Hecks ran a butcher shop for the mill workers, plus accommodation. There was quite a village around the mill.
There used to be 40 mills in the district, albeit small. But as transport improved they gradually closed, with Rocky Point the last mill still working. The remnants of the mill at Ageston can be seen from the Logan River at Ageston Sands. The brick footings for the steam engine are still extant.
The engine in my steamboat LOUISA came from a sugar mill.
A trip down through the cane fields is a good day’s run. The road passes right beside the mill, and if it’s crushing season there’s steam wafting about and lots of noise and activity.
There’s a couple of old Queensland pubs to slake one’s thirst after their travels.
So there we have it. It’s not a steamboat in the mangroves, but it’s a whole different world away from Redland Bay and district. Check it out one day.
Cheers
Steamboat Ken
