One sleep to go!

The penultimate kip at Goondiwindi was pretty good, although hearing rain a couple of times in the night was ungood.  No biggie however.

We were on our way before 9 and bought breakfast in the town.  We didn't hang around much as it was raining again.  I didn't even see a statue of Gunsynd to photograph.  The Home Hardware store did provide some rat sized glue traps: here is hoping!

In passing I noticed a sign for the "Goondiwindi öff-road race" next weekend.  I'm glad we aren't in town for that revhead special.  On the road I saw several trucks laden with buggies and in Coonabarrabran a bunch of utes with many trail bikes. Good we're outtathere.

The weather was basically horrible as we crossed the State border - surprisingly only about 500m past the end of the town - and drove down towards Moree.  Lots of trucks coming towards us and quite a few caravans (all Vic registered) going, slowly, our way.  The Newell Highway is after all the direct route from Melbourne to Brisbane.  At one point we were held up for about 10 minutes by some unemployables talking about roadworks.

On the one time we had been to Moree in the past it seemed rather suave.  This route took us through the industrial outskirts, so not suave.  On on towards Narrabri.  The country to the West of the road was MBF: Mind Bogglingly Flat.

 Some lumps were visible to the East.

As we neared Narrabri they turned into Mount Kaputar.

 A bit further down the road I noticed a flagpole and a bunch of brass plates on rocks.  Surely a War Memorial.  Nope done on the 100th anniversary of founding the village and the rail service to the NW.  Interestingly they gave everyone's name and when they lived in the area.

I then found another plaque referring to Lone Pine.  I reckon this is a War Memorial even though the pines seem to have died.

 Between Moonie and Goondiwindi we saw a few signs to "rig ##" but no Lock the Gate material.  Once South of the border this was a common message as we went on to Narrabri.

 They had a War Memorial!

South of Narrabri the anti CSG message changed to protecting the Pilliga.  Still basically sticking it to Santos and their ilk.

We wondered if it was worth stopping for another night or just press on.  After an interesting drive from Coonabarrabran on the Google shortest route (with some rather wet and ordinary dirt roads) we got to Wellington at 3:15 and decided that (apart from the tiredness issue) getting home at 7:30 pm or later to a cold dark house was ungood.  So we are at the Riverview Caravan Park in that town.

• Bird of the day: Cockatiel gets the individual award, while a mob of about 80 Little Corellas get a flock guernsey.
• Vegetation of the day:    The epicormic growth in the Pilliga.
• Memorable moment:  Posting our Census form back at Boggabilla!
• Comment of the day: "Please pick up the mess." Apparently the owner of the van park at Wellington has a few 'pon my sole' issues.  I assured her we would collect.
• Pie of the day: A steak and kidney item from Narrabri.  Quite sound: the crust was a tad moist and the kidney taste was not strong, but a lot better than most offerings in QLD!  8/10
• Troppo moment of the day. Waiting for 10 minutes at road works, which mainly consisted of 5 fat bastards standing around talking.  (In contrast in a couple of cases guys were filling in potholes, ducking out in gaps in the 110kph traffic: go figure the OHAS mentality! )

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On, on while one feels like it!

As we set off I realised we might gt to our planned destination (near Miles QLD) about 2pm.  If we felt like it, and pressed on, we could get to Goondiwindi and make the last two days much easier.

Here is the sign for the park in daylight.

The owner was a very conscientious guy and was trying very hard to do the right thing by the Census.  He had thought that 4 pom backpackers were out of scope and when I said they were in, he went to give them a form at 7:30.  He was astonished that they had already left - apparently the usual backpacker model is to get up at 10:00am (unless checkout is at 12)!

On down the road heading along the A3 towards Mount Morgan/  There were signs about "caravans take extreme care" and "roadworks 30 minute delay" but we got straight through the works.  It was one of the more interesting roads I have driven but with chunderpooch in back, and a nervous Frances in front, I didn't have too much fun.

Mount Morgan was an old mining town which looks pretty well maintained.  This mural is on the theatre.

Here is the railway station (now a museum).

We eventually found our way to a lookout giving a great view over the mine workings.

They had found a large ichthyosaur fossil in the area and we could have viewed that in the museum if we had wished.  We settled for this indigenous depiction of it.

A rather impressive fig tree.

When we got to the lookout a Pheasant Coucal (aka Flying Haystack) flew off and got itself photographed and elected as Bird of the Day.

Some distance down the road we got to Banana Shire  and then Banana township.  The shire was named after the town which was so-called after a bullock of that name.  Shades of Captains Flat!  That explains the bovines on the town sign!

We crossed a number of small ranges, on one of which we were directed to pull over by cops on escort duty.  This is about the most oversized load I have seen.

In fact there we both halves of the house on separate trucks!  At least 3 cop cars were escorting them and we saw another just up the road: it will be costing the house owners a lot to shift it!

We took a comfort stop in Tamoor, with a nice mural on the bog.

I'm not sure how big road trains get, but this one, full of Brahman cattle, was pretty impressive ...

.. especially as it pulled away.

Our next stop was Miles, where we had planned to stop for the night.  But it was, as expected only 2pm and we felt good , so after refuelling and taking a walk along Dogpound Creek (a more PC name that that on one road sign "Chinaman's Lagoon") 

where we photographed some flowers ....

it was on on to Goondiwindi for the night.  As an example of the daftness of grey nomads those in van 1 below were having a chat with those in van 2.  Did they go over - of course not just yell back and forth!

As night fell the bugs came out.  Some friendly ...

.. others possibly not.

I retreated but Frances stayed outside and didn't get savaged.

As darkness really came down other wildlife appeared in the trees along the billabong behind our site.

Much quieter than the night before.

• Bird of the day: Pheasant Coucal.  The flock was again Apostlebird as we saw hundreds of them in groups of up to 15 once we passed Miles.  On the way up it was from Walgett to St George (about the same longitude).
• Vegetation of the day:   Massive amount of lantana around Banana.
• Memorable moment:  The house being moved.
• Comment of the day: "$4 please."the shop owner in Tamoor selling me a sausage roll!  They are usually about $2.50!
• Pie of the day: Non existent.
• Troppo moment of the day. Being deluged by bugs.  It turned out this was barely troppo as we were only about 3km from NSW!

Happy Census Day!

The chaos continues: I am so glad I am not involved other than as a respondent. I've just completed our form at Rocky (ie Rockhampton) and it was OK, but a few strange bits of design.

When we got up it was a very dewy morning and the humidity was evident in these clouds.

 What about the rat you ask?  It had cleaned out one of the traps without firing it.  Tonight I will try to set them very sensitively, and donate some more Ratsak to the cause.

The coconuts look a bit threatening.

The caravan park was a tad basic but having a resident flock of PWDs  is a bonus.

When we left I called in to thank them for allowing Tammie (despite signs to the contrary).  The two ladies on deck were very pleased that I took the time to do so.  Given their evident low occupancy rate they need to get every punter they can.

It was still humid and quite cool over night , so lots of dew on the camper.  Also attractive clouds over the mountains a bit South of Mackay.

The drive was strange as it seemed to take forever to get anywhere.  For the first 80 or so kms this was because of continual small settlements and/or roadworks.  After that the speed limit went up to 110 but it still seemed slow.  At one point a B-double came past us and had to cut in a bit, but no biggie.  We then followed it for about the next 100kms.  Still time went slowly - was it because we were going through sclerophyll woodland?

Eventually we got to Rockhampton.  It was huge.  Lots of flashing lights resolved to cops (1) escorting this massive load (2) - no idea what it was.

After dropping the camper off we went back to Rockie to look round the Kershaw Gardens.  Generally good, with this palm clad pool the highlight.

They have solved the problem of how many trees by painting a number on them!

On the way back out to the camp we took a look at Shanessy Park.  Another huge aggregation of Plumed Whistling Ducks (this time I guessed 2000).

Back at the camp a moggie was evident.  Physical warfare didn't happen, but neither looked likely to back down until I intervened on Tammy's side.

I like this night shot of Frances preparing an excellent tea.

Here is the entrance to the camp at night.

I'd gone to the gate to photograph the passing trucks, but they were too fast.  They were also continual through the night, as were the coal trains (ie trains carrying coal, not carrying miners as per Hugh Masakela's song) across the highway.  Each train took ~70 seconds to pass so my guess is they were about 1km long.  Despite this continual racket we slept quite well.

Update: in daylight a few of the trains were gereal freight and others passenger carriers.

• Bird of the day: Little Lorikeet pulls down the prize as most everything more interesting has already been used.  Nope: Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo got the nod.    Flock is (again) Plumed Whistling Duck at Shanessy Park
• Vegetation of the day:   Palms at Kershaw Gardens
• Memorable moment:  It was actually many moments following a truck for about 60km!
• Comment of the day: "Someone just refused."  The poor Census Collector at our campground.  She is damn lucky in the circumstances that anyone has cooperated.
• Pie of the day: Non existent.
• Troppo moment of the day. Misinterpreting the signs to the Rockhampton VIC  and doing an exploration as a result.  This meets both definitions of troppo: bloody stupid and becoming angry!

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How to think well of Gungahlin?

Visit Mackay in Queensland!  I will expand on this towards the end of this post.

The morning began with a walk to the beach through the sand dunes.  These attractive fertilised flowers were a highlight.

On the bird front a Rainbow Bee-eater was cooperative.

I had hopes of getting a photo of a Blue Triangle butterfly, but unfortunately a White-breasted Woodswallow had (fulfilled) visions of a snack rather than a snap.  The insect had displayed some interest in these mistletoe flowers before its attention span was terminated.

The mistletoe was growing on this eucalypt.  Nice to see that genus in flower.

Even nicer to see these very colourful and huge Pandanus fruit.

We than had an interlude (from the Latin meaning "between games" I think) after Tammie started trying to dig through the back seat of the car.  It was obviously going to be impossible to travel with that going on, so the car was completely unloaded.  Sure enough, there was Mr Rat in the boot.  Tammy was loaded in, but the rodent got the jump on her and disappeared into the rear footwell.  No trace found, but Tammy was very disturbed for the next several kilometres.

No Bustards were evident as we left Alva but a fair bit later as we crossed the Burdekin Bridge Frances glanced into the huge (mainly dry) River and spotted a Black-necked Stork (which would be called a Jabiru if the South Americans hadn't claimed that name first).  A series of complicated changes of direction followed and some photos taken.

The photos were taken from the pedestrian element of the bridge.  This I think cantilevered out from the roadway and was somewhat below it.  In combination this meant it bounced rather more than desirable.

After a pie-free diversion through bits of Bowen we finally scored some baked goods in Proserpine.  We ate these in a roadside parking lot which was graced by these bottlebrushes,

My pie is covered in the official summary below.  I purchased what I thought was going to be an egg and bacon quiche for Frances.  It turned out to be a steak pie with an egg and bacon covering, plus a whole boiled egg in the middle.  Most unusual.

We then got to Mackay.  It looked a rather industrial town.  After getting to the van park - also rather industrial looking - I went to try to find some rat traps for the car.  The first Bunnings I found was closed.  Que?  So I searched a huge shopping centre and no-one sold rat traps.  The place was full of screaming kids and fat persons!  I eventually found my way to the replacement Bunnings (about 5km outside town, next to the Masters store) and got what I needed.

After returning to the van park we went a walk around the Goose Ponds.  An excellent civic park with many interesting geese and ducks (as well as a lot of feral Muscovies and domestic ducks.

This Muscovy had a nice brood of young.

• Bird of the day: Black-necked Stork an easy winner of the individual comp.  The Woodswallow got a mention for the feeding frenzy.  Flock was the wide variety of fowl at the Goose ponds.
• Vegetation of the day:   Pandanus fruit at Alva Beach
• Memorable moment: Bouncing around on the Burdekin Bridge!
• Comment of the day: "How did you get that allowed?"  Comment on Tammy being allowed into the park.
• Pie of the day:.  Steak and kideney in Proserpeine.  Pretty good but a not a great deal of kidney.  Perhaps 7/10.
• Troppo moment of the day. Finding that a Bunnings store had closed!

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