There’s no need to pack your skis for this journey through our fields of white but a thermos and smoko might be a good idea! This 94km lap, with interpretive signage, will make you a cotton expert in no time.
Learn all about our local history and the development of the cotton industry. In spring you will see paddocks freshly planted with seedlings, which grow into green, bushy shrubs about a metre in height. The plants briefly grow pink and cream coloured flowers that, once pollinated, drop off and are replaced with fruit, better known as cotton bolls. Inside each cotton boll is the fluffy white lint that we’re all familiar with, as well as fuzzy cotton seeds.
Cotton requires irrigation every 2-3 weeks, dependent on the climate, and this tour will lead you through parts of the St George Irrigation Scheme, which was approved in 1953, along the mighty Balonne River. You’ll visit the Jack Taylor and Buckinbah Weirs, Beardmore Dam and plenty of irrigation areas. Keep an eye out for our wonderful birdlife and flood markers, showing how high the water can rise.
The cotton harvest is in full swing during autumn and this tour will take you past the St George Cotton Gin where round bales coalesce in hectares of their own.
Call into the St George Visitor Centre to get directions.