Outside the town limits of Lighting Ridge,
the Green Door drive, snakes it way through opal leases to a rise that
overlooks mining claims in the valley below.
Amongst the leases is this incredible stonework. The brilliant reds, oranges and whites shine
through the rocks as the sun sets. I’ve
yet to figure out the story behind it, but when I do I’ll let you know. There has to be a story for it
somewhere. At the moment I’m settling on
Lighting Ridge Stonehenge!
Sometimes getting to a destination, you have to take time out and enjoy
the scenery flashing by at a 100km an hour!
Central Queensland has the wide open plans, the cotton fields, sandstone
cliffs, lone trees. You name it, it has
it. Or slowly climbing up a hill you get
the tree, sandstone cliffs and a magic view, altogether, you hit the breaks for, and just enjoy.
Excited about arriving at Carnarvon Gorge
National Park. Image our surprise when
we arrived and you can’t camp there.
Shock horror Qld National Park & Wildlife. A
perfectly good camping ground hot showers, yet a big ‘no access’ on the gate to
the camp ground. Such is life and the
way it goes. Only 8km down the track is
a privately run campground, with sites for $35 unpowered, and cabins etc; so
when you are nearly 150km from anywhere you go with the flow. Only ‘we don’t want your rooftop tent near
our trees’ was my greeting when booking in.
Again such is life; let’s go with the flow and, no sir only staying one
night ‘thank you’. Joys of travel but
when you come across the calm river you take a big breathe and enjoy the
scenery with red drink or bubbles in hand! :)
Charters Towers lies 130km west of Townsville
and was the centre of gold rush in that area in the late 1800’s. At the height of the gold rush era it was Queensland’s
second biggest town. It still has a lot of
the old buildings left over from an era gone by, and it is great to see them in
such good condition. I’m sure if the walls could talk at the local
PO and pub there would be a few ‘interesting’ tales spinning around.
Winter started to sprinkle in yesterday right
on time. Rain clouds built up on the
horizon and heavens opened up over Central Qld.
It was an afternoon travelling over water soaked roads, and the rivers
climbing, it would have been easy to think we were back in the wet season. We made it through to a great camp spot, even
though a little damp it was great to put the flooded roads behind us.
It has been said that I don’t mind a watering
hole every now and again. So when
travelling on the vast open roads of the outback (the land of big hats). You really can’t pass up an opportunity to
spend some time seeing if the walls will talk.
Nindigully Pub is no exception.
It used to be a stopping point for the Cobb and Co Stage where if you
didn’t buy the driver a drink it was likely you were forgotten for the next leg
of the trip. Subsequently, you were in
for a long walk or a big headache waiting for the next coach to come.
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| River Gum - St George |
The Balonne River earlier this year just
tipped the levy banks and luckily they held saving the township of St
George. The beautiful river gums are
coming back to their former glory along the river bank, free from debris, can’t
say the same for the potholes in the roads, or some of the surrounding towns
that went under. An incredible amount of
water swept through this Outback part of Queensland continuing on to poor
Moore, where the township was flooded twice in 6 weeks. It definitely was topsy turvie weather for
the start of the year. Looks like where
we are heading it is going to be cold, cold, cold. But isn’t that want really warm clothes and
port are for! Hmmm, I will check back on
that on later.
