Charleville to Mitchell

Monday, 8 September 2014

 

Bottle tree

Caravan park sign

Even the police use Jayco's

Camp kitchen

Keeping warm

Bushwalking

Still looking for birds

Didn't quite make it

Beautiful butterful

Find the ant on the bottlebrush

Happy hour around the camp fire

Happy campers

As the sun set in the west ...

... the moon rose in the east.

Last night’s storm had disappeared and the skies were clear this morning – for a while!  As the morning wore on and we drove further south towards Charleville, the clouds started to build up, but the thermometer stayed about the 20 degree mark.  Time to find the long pants!

The country today definitely had a very green tinge to it, following the heavy rains in the last few weeks.  Green bush also means less roadkill, as the kangaroos don’t need to come to the road edges for food.  We saw quite a few emus today as well.

We are staying at the Evening Star Caravan Park, with is on the Thurlby Station, about 10 kms from Charleville.  It really is a lovely park, well maintained and clean, with extremely large, gravelled drive-thru sites.  A walking path has been cleared through the scrub so that guests can have an easy half hour walk.  As the tourist season has now officially concluded, we had to amuse ourselves around the campfire tonight.  I have come to the conclusion that it doesn’t matter how much one takes notice of which way the wind is blowing (and where all the smokers are sitting), one will always be enveloped in wood smoke.

After visiting the police station this afternoon and enquiring about road conditions if travelling west to Quilpie and then south to Cunnamulla, we still were undecided about which direction to head when we leave here.  However, we discovered at the campfire that the Birdsville Races were held last weekend and Quilpie will be over-run by people returning from Birdsville.  We have now decided to head east to Mitchell, Miles, Goondiwindi and towns further south.

 

Tuesday, 9 September 2014

Mulga scrub

Camels on a cattle station

Original dam

Is it dead?  No, just sleeping like a baby.

Instruction in water management

Turkey nest

Flower of the arsenic tree

Someone isn't paying attention

Flood plains

Spot the kangaroo!

A beautiful, clear, sunny and windy day.  We were fortunate that a tour of Thurlby Station had been organised for today, specifically at the request of an American family.  Five minutes after the tour was due to commence, a phone call was received to say the family wouldn’t be undertaking the tour after all.  Therefore, the four remaining passengers set off in the mini bus with Neil, for a very interesting and informative tour of the 33,000 acre cattle station.  We started in the 5,000 acre mulga scrub paddock, with its brilliant red dirt – and two camels, along with numerous cows.  A stop at the breeders’ waterhold/paddock had Neil quickly checking on a small calf which was breathing rapidly and not moving.  Poor little fellow was just sound asleep and didn’t appreciate being woken up!  We continued on through the mulga, with a stop at a turkey nest (a fancy name for a bore water hole) and learnt that windmills are no longer used because of OH&S issues; all water is raised to the surface using diesel pumps nowadays.  Then it was on to another waterhole on top of an escarpment, with a view across the station to the west.  The distant black soil flood plains were quite green following the heavy rain during the last month.  Down the escarpment to the gibber plain – and lots of kangaroos sharing the new grass with the cows and calves.  (This was when my camera battery decided to go flat.)  We stopped at the stock yards for smoko and being after 1.00 pm, the fruit cake and biscuits didn’t last long.  We were all rather thankful that the Americans were no-shows!  We then walked through the stock yards (some with less enthusiasm than others!!!) to stand in the dirt, and the cow poo, and the bits of horn that had recently been cut of the calves, and the dust, listen to the recently weaned calves bellow, and wee, and poo, while Neil explained how the yards worked etc.  Very enthralling.  Our return to the caravan park was over the still slightly soggy black dirt flood plains; we even saw some emus as well as many, many more kangaroos.  The Americans really missed out!  Then it was back into the mulga and red dirt before arriving back about 2.30 pm.

It really was very interesting, probably more so for the couple of farm boys on the bus.  It also really brought home how bad the drought is in this part of the country.

We were very pleased to receive a message in the early evening that our grandson, Michael, was doing well after four and a half hours of surgery on his foot.

Wednesday, 10 September 2014

Kerosene tin hut

Road bridge over the Maranoa River - the 2012 flood was a good metre above the bridge

River wildlife

Maranoa River

We said a fond farewell to the Evening Star this morning and turned east towards Mitchell, just over two hours away.  The road was good, the wind was at our backs (fuel consumption was fantastic today), the sun was shining and the temperature quickly rose to 28 degrees.

We had a short stop at Morven, with a quick look at some of the historic displays which lined the road – the kerosene tin hut in particular.  During the Depression, many dwellings were made from flattened out kerosene tins, but very few remain today.  There was some roadkill today, but not as bad as we have seen – the countryside was quite green today.  We did have to make a quick detour around a shingleback lizard which seemed intent on either committing suicide or getting to the other side of the road.

We arrived at the Major Mitchell Caravan Park well before lunch.  This is a very nice park on the banks of the Maranoa River, which actually has water in it.  Adam directed us into position right at the front of a very long site and remained chatting for some time.  After he left, we reversed to the back of the site so that our cords and hoses could connect with the appropriate outlets.  We are directly across the river from the town’s artesian spa and with Adam’s promise that Les would look like Hugh Jackman after 30 minutes of soaking, we promptly headed across the bridge after lunch.  Adam was wrong.