History of the Sugarworld Parklands

In today’s modern times, Sugarworld Parklands is known for its waterslides and open landscape. However it has an interesting history, outlined here by President of the Friends of Sugarworld Botanic Gardens Inc, Fran Lindsay.

The year of 1881 found Cairns at its lowest ebb and when all hope of revival seemed to be at an end, Mr. Swallow arrived, and, like the wonderful alchemist of industry that he was, brought order out of chaos. He selected land on the Mulgrave road (now known as Sugarworld Parklands) and soon had the axe busy felling scrub, men active in planting cane, and others hurrying onward the erection of a vast sugar mill.

Mr Swallow set up his own sugar mill and tramway to Trinity Inlet to a point now known as Swallows Landing. The last steam locomotive to be used in the Edmonton Sugar Industry can still be seen at the parklands today. The Hudswell Clarke was built in England in 1924 and carried cane from Trinity Beach, Smithfield and the Barron River area.

For over 100 years Hambledon Mill processed sugarcane grown on the fertile lowlands around the city of Cairns. In this immediate area there were staff houses and facilities, including well maintained parkland and some well-established trees. The mill provided employment to around 250 workers (many more in earlier years) and processing up to 600,000 tonnes of cane annually. Hambledon was an historic site with a very proud heritage. The Sugarworld area is well regarded for its magnificent rain trees. Many of these date back 100 years and a storyboard at the Thomas Swallow Park gives some early history of the Swallow family and the area.

From around the early 1970s the development of Cairns and district as a popular tourist destination, particularly for the Japanese market, resulted in a very significant shift in focus and in the demography of Cairns. The tourist industry was becoming lucrative and the developers were eager to exploit new opportunities. The accompanying population growth led to large-scale urban expansion which inevitably encroached upon the cane lands. Well -located land owners were richly rewarded by selling to developers, with the resultant contraction of land area suitable for the production of sugarcane.

Minimal opportunity existed for relocation of cane assignments to new areas in the valley so the commercial viability of the mill, operating in a long-established agricultural-based enterprise, was being put to the test by a new and fast moving push into tourism. Unfortunately, Hambledon as a sugar milling operation, was simply located too close to the centre of this new business activity for it not to be placed at considerable disadvantage.

Against that background, there appeared little to be gained from continued resistance to land re-development, and opportunities were canvassed that might help regain some advantage in the changed circumstances. In 1987 it was decided to make use of the mill’s proximity to Cairns and its involvement with sugar by extending into tropical agriculture generally and creating an extra dimension of tourist interest in the Cairns area. Sugar would be the core interest offered, with mill and cane land tours during the season, while tropical fruits and plants would be on permanent display year round. (It is noteworthy here that for many years tour operators from Cairns had been bringing busloads of visitors to Hambledon for mill inspections during crushing. These had proven very popular with no entry fee charged.)

By 1988 extensive plantings for display had been completed in the Sugarworld area, with particular emphasis on the rare tropical fruits collection. All the sections were made easily accessible and were well labelled with both common and botanical names. It was decided the attraction would need to be entertaining as well as educational, and a train, a coach, water features, small animals and food/souvenir outlets, were included. The facility was designed essentially as a family destination not dissimilar to some overseas theme parks, but initially on a small scale. An interpretive centre was created where information would be available and opportunity to taste fruit in season would be offered.

The trees and plants generally thrived and good fruit yields were achieved in a short time. The deep rich soil in the area had proved highly suitable for this type of tropical agriculture.

The owners of Hambledon Estate, CSR Limited, decided that the mill would cease operations at the end of the 1991 season, as projected profitability from sugar milling was in decline with no prospects of turnaround. An agreement was reached for the cane farm assignments to be transferred to Mulgrave Mill. The Hambledon land, consisting of some 300ha, would be allowed to pass on to redevelopment, with the exception of some hill slopes and most of the Sugarworld precinct, for which ownership would pass to Cairns City Council. The Council purchased a section of land as freehold, where the waterslides are situated, with the remaining tree areas coming across as public open space, with Council as Trustee.

In the subsequent redevelopment, a large proportion of the rare fruits displays were sadly destroyed and what remains is a mere token measure of what it could have been – a botanical display of great relevance to the tropical north. For good practical reasons, however, it is unlikely that the growing of rare tropical fruits could be displayed successfully in any unsupervised public open space.

Post 2000

In February 2007, Friends of Sugarworld Botanic Gardens Incorporated was formed with the objective of stimulating interest and community awareness in the activities of the Sugarworld Botanic Gardens; to promote and support horticultural and botanical science in Cairns; and to raise funds for use in furthering the stated management aims of the Gardens.

This group meets monthly and assists with general maintenance and gardening such as weeding, mulching and planting under the guidance of Council staff and the Green Space Our Place volunteer program.

Sugarcane

In 2014, several varieties of sugarcane were planted. These plantings are behind the stage area beside the pathway. Sugarcane, the sweet grass, belongs to the genus Saccharum. Many of the wild species have little or no sugar content but are used in plant breeding. Other sweet canes have been selected by the native people of Melanesia and over the centuries grown in gardens for food. From there it was taken to other tropical countries and became important in their cultures. In the tropics, sugarcane is an annual crop, grown in the summer wet season and matures and ripens in the cooler drier winter, when it is harvested and crushed for the commercial product we buy in the shops.

Some kinds of sugarcane:

Badila: Introduced from New Guinea (where it had been grown in native gardens) by Henry Tryon in 1896. parentage unknown.

POJ2878: Introduced from Java by Bureau of Sugar Experimental Stations (BSES) and Colonial Sugar Refining Co (CSR) in 1928. This cane has been important in the cane breeding program.

Q57: Bred by BSES, now SRA, at Meringa in 1945. Produced good sugar content in the wet areas of the State.

Trojan: Bred by CSR at Macknade in 1933, became a leading variety with a good late season sugar. All these varieties have been superseded.

Thanks to Harry Soloman (Hambledon Sugar Mill retired manager) and local cane farmer and Friends committee member Jim Hill for their invaluable information.

Currently Sugarworld Gardens are open seven days a week from 7.30am to 6pm with free entry. The Waterpark occupy about 2.7ha and the Parklands 5.8ha. The tropical fruit orchard produces many diverse and interesting fruit such as the Jaboticaba, Miracle Fruit (which turns bitter taste into sweet), Velvet Apples and Breadfruit to name but a few.