Daintree farmers still toiling to fix infrastructure months after Tropical Cyclone Jasper flood damage
Far north Queensland farmers are facing a raft of challenges in the clean-up from Tropical Cyclone Jasper, more than two months after the weather event hit.
Bloomfield cattle grazier Ben Morley has spent the past two months clearing his paddocks of mud, fallen trees, rocks, and debris that washed in from flooding in December.
"We've got 330 hectares now under silt and some of the silt is up to 1,200 millimetres deep," he said.
Come the dry season, that lack of pasture will cause problems when feeding his 2,000 head of Brahman-cross cattle.
"We'll probably destock by around 30 per cent. I don't think we've got a choice," Mr Morley said.
"It'll be 6-12 months to get those pastures back up to where they were, so that's going to be the biggest hurdle."
Ben Morley will have to sell some cows because the remaining pasture is not enough to feed the herd. (ABC Far North: Bridget Herrmann)
Mr Morley says the flooding damage will cost him close to $2 million plus the loss of cattle production.
That figure included a $300,000 excavator he bought for moving enormous tree trunks that were scattered throughout his paddocks.
Farm tourism also hit
Twenty kilometres south in Degarra, vanilla farmer Nick Upite is concerned about the impact the closed Bloomfield Track will have on his business.
An excavator clears trees and rocks on Mount Louis Station, with silt covering hectares of pasture. (ABC Far North: Bridget Herrmann)
His farm sits at the northern end of the popular tourism and four-wheel drive track that has been closed for repairs due to severe damage from December's weather system, including landslides.
"We do farm tours. That's probably not going to happen this year," he said.
"Last year was the first year we did the farm tours. We pretty much did a third of our entire income from those tours.
"We really hope they can open the [Bloomfield Track] as soon as possible."
Authorities are working to clear the Bloomfield Track which was damaged by debris and landslips. (ABC Far North: Meghan Dansie)
Dead phones kill business
On the other end of the Daintree Rainforest, a lack of phone network access at Diwan has been the biggest challenge for tea farmer Greg Nicholas.
Vanilla farmer Nick Upite is concerned tourists will not be able to access his tours this year. (ABC Far North: Bridget Herrmann)
He has been without a landline phone for the two months following the cyclone, and while the line was diverted to mobile, the area's poor reception meant it was still unreliable.
"I rely on it a lot for orders. I probably get 5-10 phone orders a week so I've lost all of them," Mr Nicholas said.
"It has been hard."
The weather event caused many landslips in the Far North, including this in the Daintree Rainforest. (ABC Far North: Bridget Herrmann)
The lack of phones also disrupted a fertiliser order, which Mr Nicholas said delayed some farm operations by a month.
"Because they couldn't get me by phone they just cancelled the order," he said.
Greg Nicholas says he will not be able to make up the orders he lost from a lack of phone service. (ABC Far North: Bridget Herrmann)
The rainfall from TC Jasper caused unprecedented flooding in the region, but Mr Nicholas said while there was a large repair job to be done, locals were doing their best to get on with life.
"You have to move forward," he said.
He said the efforts of authorities to assist was what was expected.
"I think they are putting in a reasonable effort to try and fix things and get things going again," he said.