Stormy Tambo

Sunday, 7 September 2014

 

Roadside cafe

Bore water memorial

Tree of Knowledge

Inside frame

Hanging wood

Barcaldine War Memorial, in the middle of a street junction

Thunderstorm building up

Mighty Barcoo River, sans water

Happy Fathers’ Day.

Some very happy people here yesterday afternoon – Cat is still wearing his scarf!  Two games to go …

We learnt this afternoon that there had been a catastrophic fertiliser explosion just south of Charlieville and not only had the road been utterly destroyed, but road and train bridges as well.  With our intended route south now destroyed, we will need to rethink our itinerary after leaving Charlieville.  We have decided to wait until we talk to the police about road conditions and then make the decision.  It was incredible that no one was killed in the explosion, although the truck driver was critically injured.

We have discovered a negative to the Ilfracombe Caravan Park – it is next door to the Wellshot Hotel, which has live music on Saturday nights!  After listening to the noise and having decided sleep was impossible, it was a relief at 12.10am when the plug was literally pulled in mid-sentence/tune/noise/whatever.  However, being only a very small town, everyone walked home.

The sun rose today in a clear sky, following a couple of light showers overnight; I think the rain evaporated before hitting the ground.  The temperature was a very pleasant 24 degrees when we hit the road once again, following the Tropic of Capricorn to Barcaldine.  The down side was the extremely strong head wind, with the fuel consumption above 24 litres per 100 kilometres.

We had a short stop at Barcaldine to look at the Tree of Knowledge, the birthplace of the ALP.  Unfortunately, the original tree was destroyed a few years ago and an artistic creation has taken its place.  This “tree” is like a huge wooden wind chime, and was certainly making music in today’s wind.

With the sky darkening and looking very threatening (the forecast thunderstorms building up) and the temperature dropping, we headed south towards Blackall, our intended overnight stop.  However, we were there well before lunch, so decided to continue to Tambo.  While in Blackall, we pulled into the side of the road for a short break and realised we were outside the local bowls club.  Even more amazingly, we actually knew two of the people who were playing, having played with them at home before they moved to Bargara.  We had lunch in a large camping area before continuing along a very wet road towards Tambo.  As we approached, the rain started and the thunder commenced as we were moving onto our site.  We are at the Mill Motel and Caravan Park, which is a very nice overnight stop, with blue metal roads and green grass.  It is a bit expensive, but we were given a souvenir stubby holder.  Just after we finished setting up, the thunderstorm hit with a vengeance; one lightning strike must have been very close, because our firmly locked windows even rattled and the van shook.

We saw a variety of wildlife today – live kangaroos (I think the dark skies had them confused), an eagle, emus and a number of bustards.  Unfortunately, I still don’t have a photo of them because someone wont stop so I can use the camera.  He mutters about possible traffic behind us, but they probably want to take a photo as well!