What is sweeter than sugar?

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Is there anything sweeter than sugar?
Driving through North Queensland today, bound for Airlie Beach, the so called ‘Dry Tropics’ are not all dry. Having endured the driest November in a hundred years, most of the landscape is painfully parched. Dust seems to be the only outcome for a farmer ploughing her fields in the midday sun.
Approaching lunchtime, however, the picture changes in an instant. Brown is replaced by green. Water flows through deep channels. Pipes carry moisture into thirsty fields. The Burdekin Shire boasts wonderfully fertile irrigated land. Green acres as far as the eye can see, disappointingly, boasts just one crop, sugarcane.
There is one thing sweeter than sugar and that is water. The Burdekin is blessed with a vast underground aquifer that brings the land to life. The western diet is increasingly criticised for including too much sugar. Sadly, this incredibly fertile district, which could be producing vast amounts of nutritious food, is only satisfying our sweet tooth.
Thankfully there are also many, many mango trees. A quick stop at a roadside stall provides the juiciest, ripest, richest mango imaginable.
No big day on the road would be complete without encountering an Aussie big thing. Fortunately, it was the Big Mango not a big sugar cube.



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