Travelling north , in reflective mood, by rail and road from Townsville in the dry tropics of North Queensland , the massive cloud formations encountered along the way brought back a memorable schoolboy episode about 60 years ago when an English teacher in Sydney read a passage from Under The Northern Lights , by Canadian poet and short story writer , Alan Sullivan (1868-1947) , with the striking imagery : "Into the crispy air climbed forty pencils of pearl grey smoke ." Those pencils have stuck in my mind and behind my journo ears ever since.
However, the clouds seen along the way were rarely like pencils-bloated , distorted , tumbling , although a dazzling coastal glimpse along the Captain Cook Highway of thick vertical white plumes against a deep blue sky were reminiscent of volcanic eruptions seen coming from White Island , off the North Island of New Zealand.
The fisherman shown above at Port Douglas said the spectacular banks of clouds looked more like the build up to the Wet than what was nearly the end ; much rain had fallen recently thereabouts .
However, the clouds seen along the way were rarely like pencils-bloated , distorted , tumbling , although a dazzling coastal glimpse along the Captain Cook Highway of thick vertical white plumes against a deep blue sky were reminiscent of volcanic eruptions seen coming from White Island , off the North Island of New Zealand.
The fisherman shown above at Port Douglas said the spectacular banks of clouds looked more like the build up to the Wet than what was nearly the end ; much rain had fallen recently thereabouts .
The further north the train progressed, the bigger and more impressive the clouds , at times presenting a picture across canefields like Indonesian rice paddies , a towering , shrouded volcano seemingly in the Great Dividing Range.
It is fitting that Tully , which experiences so much rain-a record 7900mm (310 inches ) in l950 - has a golden Giant Gumboot as a tourist attraction , there was a sign for a brand of rice visible from the Spirit of Queensland .
As the train slipped into Cairns it was reassuring to see through the window that the city , parts of which are subject to flooding , is well equipped to cater for a wide range of water problems as the splashy sign , below , much bigger than the Golden Gumboot, clearly indicates .
