Friday...31 August 2012

Yesterday we travelled from Charters Towers to Moranbah. This is a coal mining area in inland central
Queensland. It is also where one of my nieces lives so we dropped in to say hello. Like all mining towns the one and only local caravan park is full to overflowing so no room for wandering nomads. We spent the night camped under a No Camping sign in their local picnic spot! At last we are rule breakers!!!
Had a lovely evening with the niece and her husband who came out and had dinner with us. We are going to push our luck and stay another night then will move on tomorrow.

Wednesday...29 August 2012

Just before we left Townsville we had visitors. Some folk we met in a free camp way outback on the way to Normanton last year dropped in to say hello. They were heading north and we of course are going south. We had a lovely day together before we both went our separate ways again. Good to catch up and have a laugh.
We have started moving again and first stop is Charters Towers. Old gold mining area. Full of history and lovely old buildings.

Sunday...26 August 2012

I got this photo yesterday. I have sat for hours looking at it, thinking about it and blessing my sister in Townsville for letting me look through her old photo albums. She took this picture about 57 years ago. It is the first photo of my parents and us four kids and the only one that contains both my parents that I have ever seen. So it is my 'baby' photo. Life is full of surprises!

Thursday...23 August 2012

Where do the days go? Nearly the end of the week and I feel like we have only just made camp. When we are in the Townsville area we stay at the Black River Rodeo Ground which is 20km out of town and marketed as an over 50's park. There are no fancy facilities or entertainment or playgrounds for children. What there is, is a lot of quiet! Sometimes a bit surprising as they do allow dogs here but all of them are really well behaved and there is a big enclosed off lead exercise area that other places could do well to copy.
It has been a busy time for us, travelling into town every day to visit my big sister. She is a walking history of our family. It has always been assumed, by me anyway, that our family was of Irish descent. Well guess what? We are Scottish! That seriously threw me for a bit. Then I found out that my dad was one of five children which included a sister and three brothers. I only ever knew about one of his brothers and without asking had assumed that was all there was. Each day I am hearing something new about my family. As soon as we arrive Elsie puts on the kettle, makes a pot of tea and we settle down to chatting. I will miss our chats when it is time for us to move again.
Yesterday another fifth wheeler the same as ours pulled into the park. They are working as they go and have been on the road for nearly a year and have not even made it out of Qld yet! Still it was good to chat to them and they were pleased to find someone to ask all the questions they want answers to. This did not mean we had all the answers, but we are a good starting point now that we are a bit more experienced. Later today we are going down to look at their rig.
Tomorrow Himself is giving the caravan and ute a service and I am spending the day with a friend from the north-west.

Monday...20 August 2012

Happy Birthday Andrew.

Well we packed up camp and headed off and after a couple of detours to look at stuff we ended up in Townsville. We had planned to stop about half way between the two towns but the weather was bad and the traffic not much better so we just kept going.
My half sister lives here so I am going to be spending as much time as I can with her. Yesterday Himself set me up a family tree program so that I can pick her brains and fill in some of the blanks in my life.
The caravan park is a rodeo ground but this year they are showing outdoor movies as well. As the caravan park residents cannot escape the associated noise we are allowed to walk in and watch the movie for free. This week the movie was the new Batman one. Next week it is the movie called Ted! Will definitely be watching that one.

Wednesday...15 August 2012

Well our time at Mareeba has come to an end. Tomorrow is moving day.
We have enjoyed being here but we have given up waiting for the weather to warm up down south so we are biting the bullet and heading on down and hope that we take this nice weather with us.
Having decided that, it promptly started to rain. Just a light misty rain but wet nonetheless. Himself says I have an over active imagination but I swear every time we have to pack up camp after a bigish stop, it rains! You know how it goes. Sit here for weeks in nice warm sunshine, not even the hint of bad weather, but mention packing and down comes the rain, making everything just wet enough to be annoying.
Maybe where we go will be dry! No idea where we are off to. Much discussion but no decision yet as to which road we will take.

Sunday...12 August 2012

Today was the annual North Queensland Warbirds Airshow at the Mareeba airport.
Himself duly went off to have a look.
Lots of planes on display.
Some classic cars too.
Fair few people showed up too.
The organisers will be pleased with themselves.

This is a trojan. 

And this is a P40 Kittyhawk.

Hope they are a good selection of the days display.

Saturday...11 August 2012

Himself has just got home from the bull riding at Mt Carbine.
I sent him off on his own and stayed home to have some quiet time watching a movie.
In the novice bull riding, one out of twenty nine competitors managed to go the required eight seconds on their bulls. That made picking the winner easy!
In the open class the feature bull was called Landlord. Two blokes had a go at riding him. One lasted two seconds the other lasted two and a half seconds! Nice bull. He seemed to have an attitude problem related to men.
So anyway, Himself had a good night out and it only cost him $25 for entry, a steak burger and a beer. Good value.

Tuesday...7 August 2012

Not a lot to report. Been fairly quiet since the trip into Cairns. Recovery mode for myself......
We met some rather nice folk from down Albury/Wodonga way here in the caravan park in Mareeba when we first arrived some six weeks ago. We shared a bottle of bubbly every so often and went to dinner together at the local Leagues Club a few times. Very enjoyable. They left yesterday to head slowly home again. Miss them. Will be visiting when we get down their way.
We have also met some folk from a little town near Bendigo. They are very good friends with the family who used to be our back fence neighbours when we were up in the north-west. Small world. Sadly they will be heading  home tomorrow too.
We have paid for another week while we wait for warmer weather down south.
This weekend there is an air show at the local airport and a bull riding event at Mt Carbine that Himself enjoyed last time we came here so may take in some of the action at these two events. There is also a gold panning competition at the local Sunday Markets. Sounds like a busy time, best I get some more rest!

Friday...3 August 2012

Took a trip into Cairns today.

Only 62kms, nice little drive......... with 13kms of sheer terror thrown in.
The road goes up and over the Great Dividing Range and is very winding for that 13kms.  I have gone on record in this blog before about travelling over hills with steep inclines and hairpin bends.  I guess I should be happy that this time we were not towing the caravan.
Himself loves the challenge of the drive, I think he treats it as his own personal go kart track.  I sit and try, usually (always!) unsuccessfully, to enjoy the view.
What happens in reality is me muttering a series of grunts and squeals interspersed with bouts of hysteria and sobbing and begging all and sundry for a quick death at the same time alternating with instructions to Himself on how to drive the car!. So far I have not disgraced myself by throwing up but today was touch and go for a while. The hairpins really play havoc with my broken balance mechanism making me seriously giddy.
How our big vehicle and a massive semi trailer can pass each other on that goat track is nothing less than a miracle and I am always astonished at the speeds of some of the smaller more nimble cars as they whizz around the continuous bends.
The sign at the beginning says: Winding road for next 13km. Eventually you come to another sign that says: Winding road ends in 3km. They must know that by then that I am ready to abandon ship and take my chances over the side just to get off those eternal everlasting hairpin bends! I know Himself would gladly help me open the door........if he could take his hands off the steering wheel long enough.

Arriving safe and sound on the other side we motored into Cairns and drove into the town centre. Once up and down the main drag and we gave it a miss and went back out to the nice little shopping area on the outskirts. Himself went to Bunnings which always puts him in a good mood and I wandered around the shops and got myself a much needed haircut. We ended with a stop at the Cheesecake shop and  a stroll around the local Dan Murphy's and then headed back to camp.

This meant we had to go up and over that blasted hill again.
Insert repeat of squealing, crying, etc
.....*#@k I was scared.

Thursday...2 August 2012

Yesterday we were up early to drive the 144kms to Chillagoe. Good road with only 15kms of dirt in four separate little bits. Back to driving through open cattle country with lots of dead kangaroos beside the road. Seemed the further out we got the bigger they were!
At Chillagoe we did two cave tours.
The first one was Trezkinn cave. The bloke at the information/ticket place was really really helpful, he only missed one small thing. There is a fairly steep set of steps to climb to get to the entrance! Most people arrived at the top puffing like steam engines including the guides.
The young park rangers guiding us were very knowledgeable and entertaining with just the right mix of scientific fact and humour. This was a well lit and very pretty cave. The tour only took 45 mins but there were plenty of formations and bats and huntsmen spiders to keep one occupied. Apparently the food chain has cockroaches at the floor level who are eaten by the huntsmen spiders. Then there are the bats who are hunted by the spotted pythons! And we get to wander amongst all that in the dark!

Leaving there we went back into town and had a counter lunch at one of the two hotels.
From there we drove towards the back edge of town to the BP fuel depot and around the back the owner has a lovely display of Ford vehicles of all ages and types beautifully restored and in running order. This is a free entry thing and the owner was happy to start up any one and talk about its merits. Himself was in his element. Unfortunately we could not stay as long as he would have like as we were booked on a second cave tour and had to leave to be on time for that.

The second cave was the Royal Arch cave. Much bigger and not as many stairs into and within it. This was a longer tour taking one and half hours and included three big caverns. Occasionally the passages were a bit tight and as in all caves you need  to watch your head because of low handing rock. Same guides again and highly informative.  There is no lighting in this cave so we all had to wear our  own lighting pack. Good but very hard to see some bits due to the many moving lights being played over them by amateur users.
We were in a large group and as always there are those who rush to the front then stop and hold up everyone else while they take zillions of photos, they are as bad as the ones who dawdle along at the back and keep the group waiting for them to catch up before we can move to the next highlight.

When we left that cave we went back into town and took a look at the old State Smelter before driving back to Mareeba. Big day out but still pleased we went.
On the way into town on the main road we kept passing areas with big blocks of something white. Turned out they were marble quarries. Lots of them. Would loved to have had a look but they all had 'private property keep out' signs up.
Today will be a rest day.

Wednesday...1 August 2012

I knew I missed a couple of places in my description of the Herberton Historical Village but did not realise just how much I missed. So lets play catch up!
The Bishops cottage was typically austere and had a display on an old church pew of hymn books and bibles. The bank also contained a bed which makes me wonder did the manager live there too or was that when he had to do overtime?

I forgot a lot of bits that were mostly of interest to the men, like the small engine collection, the boiler shed, the farmers store and the blacksmith. All fascinating displays.
One hut held a beautiful bottle collection. Near that was a general store. Lots of memories in that one.
The jewellers was a lovely collection of watches and fine china and brooches and pipes. The shoemaker had lots of lasps and some old shoes that were handmade.
There was also a perfect outside 'dunny'! And an old lunch hut from one of the stations.

The second pub, of course there was a second pub, was being used as a tearooms and souvenier shop.
So there you go, two shots at getting it right and I have more than likely still missed something.
The other thing of note was the cleanliness of the buildings and displays. Someone has done a lot of dusting.
Today we are going 144kms to Chilligoe to see some caves. Stay tuned.