Guide to Ayr Queensland Australia

Ayr is the business centre of the Burdekin, a broad river delta of cane fields about 88 kilometres south-east of Townsville on the Bruce Highway. It is a prosperous, tidy country town with wide streets, a handsome clock tower and a claim to be the sugar capital of Australia. Its twin, Home Hill, lies 12 kilometres away across the Burdekin River, and the coast at Alva Beach is the departure point for one of the world’s most celebrated wreck dives.

Known For

• The heart of Australia’s most productive sugar district
• The closest town to the SS Yongala wreck dive
• Cane fires lighting the sky in the crushing season

What sets the Burdekin apart is water. The delta sits over a huge underground aquifer, topped up from the river and the Burdekin Falls Dam, so farmers irrigate all year under almost constant sunshine. Cane here grows heavier than anywhere else in the country, and the district also sends mangoes, melons, capsicums and beans to southern markets. Four sugar mills work the harvest from about June to December.

During those months the Burdekin is one of the few places where cane is still burnt before cutting. The fires are lit at dusk, roar through a paddock in minutes and can be seen for kilometres.

Things To Do in Ayr

Queen Street and the clock tower

The main street is divided by gardens and palms and centred on a memorial clock tower. The Burdekin Theatre, at the eastern end, has a striking bronze fountain, the Living Lagoon, in its forecourt, and the visitor information centre is in Plantation Park on the southern approach to town.

Plantation Park

A highway rest area with lagoons, boardwalks and a bird hide, and the best first stop in town. Its centrepiece is Gubulla Munda, a 60-metre sculpture of a carpet snake, the totem and protective spirit of the Juru people, the traditional owners.

Diving the Yongala

The passenger steamer SS Yongala sank in a cyclone in 1911 with the loss of all 122 people on board, and lay undiscovered for almost half a century. The wreck, 109 metres long and resting in about 30 metres of water, is now covered in coral and crowded with giant groper, rays, turtles, sea snakes and schools of trevally. A dive operator at Alva Beach runs trips of about half an hour to the site, far shorter than the journey from Townsville. Divers need an advanced certificate or a guide, and conditions are often strong.

Alva Beach

Sixteen kilometres north-east of town, Alva Beach is a long, wide stretch of sand with a surf lifesaving club, a small holiday settlement and good beach fishing. Four-wheel drives can follow the beach towards Cape Bowling Green.

Fishing and wetlands

The creeks and channels of the delta are renowned for barramundi, mangrove jack and mud crabs, with boat ramps at Groper Creek, Ocean Creek, Plantation Creek and Barratta Creek. The wetlands north of Ayr, part of Bowling Green Bay National Park, are internationally recognised for their waterbirds.

Where To Stay

Ayr has a number of motels on the highway and in the centre, a couple of hotels and caravan parks in town and at Alva Beach.

Hostels in Ayr and Home Hill cater for backpackers who come for seasonal farm work. Divers can also stay at the lodge run by the dive operator at Alva Beach.

Eat & Drink

Queen Street has cafes, bakeries, takeaways and several pubs serving large country meals, and the clubs welcome visitors. In season, roadside stalls around the district sell mangoes, melons and vegetables straight from the farm, and local prawns, barramundi and mud crabs appear on menus and at seafood outlets.

History

The Burdekin is the country of the Juru people. Explorers reached the river in the 1840s and cattle runs followed, but it was sugar, planted from 1879, that made the district. Ayr was laid out in 1882 and named after the Scottish birthplace of the Queensland premier Sir Thomas McIlwraith.

Floods and cyclones have tested the town repeatedly, and the river could only be crossed by a low bridge that went under in every wet season until the high-level Burdekin Bridge opened in 1957.

Getting to Ayr

Ayr is about an hour south-east of Townsville and two and a half hours north of Airlie Beach on the Bruce Highway, with Bowen about 115 kilometres to the south. The Spirit of Queensland train and long-distance coaches stop in town.

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