Charters Towers to Winton

 

We left Charters Towers and our great, quiet caravan park up spot at the showgrounds. Rifter had a visit to the vet this morning as he's itchy so tablets and back on the fish oil for him.

 

So many things to remember to do. One day we'll get everything done. So far we haven't forgotten anything too drastic just a mildly embarrassing aerial left up or a hatch open. Today we forgot the mirrors, hardly need them though as there us NO traffic!...but they're. On now!Then headed for Hughenden with the country out the car window SO dry and has been declared drought affected. Al the creek crossing were dry. There were a couple of small settlements before Hughenden. We stopped for a coffee, that where the van is so handy. It's all there. Plenty of sign posts to stations out of sight but not much else.

I

I am writing this as bounce along the road from Hughenden to Winton. Oh we just went through a flood way. The road is double width bitumen with a road verge that is about 150 metres wide. The soil is fertile grey or brown cracking clay soil that apparently springs into life after rain. It's called channel country.

There are lots of water courses, dry now though.  The highest tree would only be two metres. They look more like dry sticks and they're sparsely distributed. At the moment  it feels like we are right in the centre of it all as the road is lower than the dry, barren almost treeless plains around us for 360 degrees.

It's 27C the music is cranking, no radio here, and the windows down to keep us cool. Not a car in sight, very few animals...only the odd dead kangaroo and live, hard-to-see, emu. A sign tells us that road trains 53 metres long use this road but we've only seen a few going in opposite direction. They manage to fold our mirrors in and the smell of cowsh is potent. Ten kms back there was a mob of cattle on the edge of the road that required some serious braking. A beautiful blue sky full of fluffy clouds above. It really feels very isolated; however running side the road are huge power poles.  The road is straight and looks like the Nullabor. It's 214 kms to Winton.

Ahhh sheep on the road... They aren't as road savvy as the cattle and unpredictable. One just ran across our bows with a long tailed lamb running beside her. Good little car brakes!

Finally we see some hills in the distance, Winton is close. A walk through the main street, running into the tooth lacking evangelist musician in the park, finished the day.

Charters Towers

Cowboy country!

Thought I would write up my blog while I am downloading the photos as tomorrow we head off so that involves a bit of a pack up. Plus we have Rifter booked in at the vets at 8.30 so we'll have to get going. He's not sick but has been crazy itchy...probably allergic to some of the different grasses up here. Thought it might be best to get something to help before we head further away from civilisation ...and vets. From here we go west to Hughenden and Winton, then the next day south to Longreach. I know nothing about these places apart from the fact they are station country, so no doubt we will see more cows....and bush.

Charters Towers was built after the accidental discovery of gold by a 12 year old Aboriginal boy searching for horses who bolted after a flash of seeing lightning. That started a rush which peaked in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.  The population increased to about 30 000. At one stage it had 65 hotels. Currently the  population is about 8 000. The gold was found in very rich seams, 34 grams per tonne, which was double that of Victoria and much much higher than Kalgoorlie. I continue to be amazed at the impact that gold discovery had on the development of Australia.  What a rush of building, population growth and development ... probably never to be repeated. Anyway Enough of the history lesson!

First stop was the lookout. There are two and it was at the second that Greg realised that his glasses were missing and then rethinking remembered he'd left them on the bonnet of the car.  An anxious return to the show grounds where we were camped and luck was smiling on us today as we found them intact lying on the road. Phew!! The workmen who were driving about hadn't , managed to drive over them

We checked out a couple of the local parks. Rifter likes that bit. There were lots of flying foxes hanging around in the trees in public gardens, they are a nuisance and stink. Later on in the evening we saw hundreds and hundreds fly over head. They streamed past on dusk for about twenty minutes.

We walked up and down the main street which was full of elegant heritage buildings. I really loved the shop that is now used by Target with display windows, fancy glass and pressed tin ceilings. There were so many beautiful buildings.

After lunch we went to the cemetery which contained 5000 graves of pioneers from 1872-1895. A new cemetery was built after 1895. Many are unmarked and are just a ring of stones. Others indicate just how hard life was.... Like the family where Mary died ..probably giving birth to twins at 31 and prior to that she lost William (2 and a half) and Robert (11days) within two months of each other. The twins lived for 8 months and died in the month of March.

We drove out to the Burdekin Weir. The Burdekin is Australia's fourth largest river by volume and provides water for the town. Plenty of bird life about. On the drive out we almost skittled a pair of bush turkeys who wandered onto the road.

Lots of the homes here have an interesting vent on the top of their roof and the shire had a drawing as it's symbol so took a few photos to remember it. 

The Road Trip to Charters Towers

We had a big day in the saddle/car seat and travelled 530kms. We are now in Charters Towers.
The first big effort was getting the van out of its tight parking spot without scraping it on the concrete base for the annex or hitting one of the large trees around...or rolling down the hill.  That negotiated successfully - in one go. Good job Greg!

It was amazing how quickly the countryside changed. We came off the tablelands and twisted round and round, up and down out of the misty mountains, through patches of rainforest and very quickly we were in a different landscape. Last look at sugar cane, rich red/brown volcanic soil, tropical fruit orchards, roadside stalls selling avocado, peanuts, strawberries and lush grass everywhere.

The rest if the journey we were in the outback travelling through cattle stations. It was pretty dry looking and at one stage noticed bottle trees dotted about the bush and they were dead. There were no towns along the way ..well only a couple of settlements and we didn't stop. It wasn't totally flat, at times we could see mountains in the distance and we went through hills and some nice breakaway country.

The road itself was good for the majority of the distance- and pretty quiet. There were stretches of roadworks with the stop and go man. There were a couple of stretched of single lane bitumen and of course we met the biggest road train there ( three trailers loaded with copper from Surveyor Mine) and you don't share the road with them....you pull right off!!

The day actually went quite quickly with a couple of leg stretches/ lunch stops. That's where the van is great. Greg walks the dog, I make the sandwiches or coffee, we eat, walk some more then off again. I fire off some more photo shots out the window at 100 kmp. Stopped at one truck stop as an oncoming truck had noticed we had a flapping hatch and contacted us on radio. Duct tape fixed the issue.

Tried to read a bit but there is always something happening out the window and had to be on the lookout for cattle as there were brahmans grazing right on the edge of the road. They just look up as we trundled by but saw a few that hadn't fared so well and were stiff and blown up like balloons. Lucky the windows were closed. Also we went over some river crossings with wallabies hopping about. Plenty of ant hills and the size and shape varied with the soil type.

Arrived at Charters Towers only to find all the caravan parks were full so we have been sent to the show ground. I'm happy about that as it's quiet, we have heaps of space and all the facilities we need. I'm about to test the showers. Today is a day exploring this city.

Yungaburra

More exploring around the tablelands. It was cold but out of the wind was OK. First stop the curtain fig tree

and then on to Yungaburra and a walk through the main street with its craft shops, antique and trash and treasure shops, book shop and a great looking old wooden pub.

We went down to the platypus viewing spot on a swinging bridge but it was the wrong time of the day. Rifter balked at the bridge.

Look Left

Look Right

No way I'm walking over this bridge!

At Yungaburra on the  edge of Lake Tinaroo there is a moving memorial to soldiers killed in Afghanistan. It is set in an avenue of flame trees. It lists the soldiers who lost their lives on duty, those who were awarded a VC, a list of dogs killed in action and some moving poetry. A very reflective place. 



Then we went to Lake Barrine, a volcanic lake for lunch at the tea rooms. It made us think of Vissavouri in Finland. Lovely wooden tea rooms on the edge of a lake. In WW2 it was used for the recuperative of personal from the armed forces and has been run by the same family since it opened on the early 1900s.   It is now in National Forest (we left Rifer sleeping in the car and came back to see rangers in the car park..but Rifter continued to snore on). There were beautiful gardens and lovely birds in the flowers including the yellow bellied sunbird and an eastern spine bill.  Spied an eel and a turtle in the water.



We tried to find a lookout on the Gillies Highway which was the most twisty steep road we’ve travelled on. Eventually turned back and spied it on the way back. Great sweeping views.

 
We went past Lake Eacham, another volcanic lake and more wet tropical rainforests. 

 

On the return we tried all the little back roads and saw 1000 Plumed whistling duck on a dam bank.

The Atherton Tablelands

 

We are in the Atherton Tablelands staying in our van at Lake Tinaroo. This lake provides irrigation water for areas west of here. It's cooler than the coast and woke up and didn't want to get out from under the  doonah, but the day was warm and we're still in shorts. The lake has barramundi but we're not fisherman so they are safe from us.

We did a bit of a circuit drive. Herberton is a town built on steep hills. Remembering to use the hand brake would be an important L plate driver lesson. The town started in the 1880s after the discovery of tin. Nowadays it is a quaint village with a mining museum ...and guess who went there!!?

Ravenshoe ..pronounced ravens hoe...claims to be Queensland highest town at 930 metres above the sea and is surrounded by spectacular scenery: dense rainforest, subtropical flora and rolling hills. We travelled on a very narrow twisty road through all the previous list of scenery and despite signs about tree kangaroos and cassowary we saw neither.

 

Think we'll leave Queensland without seeing a crocodile or the other two animals. Actually haven't seen a cane toad either ....well maybe only a couple of desiccated ones on the road in the previous caravan park. Saw a flying fox hanging on the power line crossing the main street in Mossman. Today saw some gorgeous wallabies.  

On the way home we went up a lookout and there was a great panoramic view. Then it was back to the lake for dog walking and paddling