Whitton

Today’s adventure off the train is to a Cotton Gin and Malt Brewery. The cotton gin was set up by five families to process the cotton being grown here in Australia rather than overseas, This venture has been highly successful and brought both  employment and training opportunities to the area. The gin is just outside the country town of Whitton which boasts an impressive  laser cut on its water tower.

The Gin is called Southern Cotton.It processes all the  local cotton grown in the area for farmers.  Technology is used to trace the product from the farm all the way to the actual end fabric.Farmers are allocated a number that indicates collection of the cotton plants. The number is then attached to the cotton through the whole process. Collection and processing is from May to November. Having the number and knowing cotton plants from seed to picking is 120 day also allows the farmer to plan planting and soil preparation.

The process is automated. Pick up by truck. Delivery to storage field at gin. Pickup from storage field.

It is loaded into the chute in the gin to be cleaned, deseeded, dried and finally compressed into bales.

One bail of cotton provides many products. The seeds have been genetically modified for Australian conditions and use 40% less water than similar crops while being 98% pest resistant. This makes Australian cotton high quality and sought after by Indian and Chinese manufacturers.

These enterprising families were also asked to grow a heritage grain for a brewery. This lead to the developing their own distillery for Whisky. What do you need if you are going to drink…..a restaurant. And if you have a restaurant, why not build accommodation and create a venue for functions. There is now a beautiful complex that is still expanding as the owners explore different ideas for the area,

Time to return to the train so it can move to its nighttime siding out of the way of freight traffic. An Aviation museum tomorrow so be ready.