10 August 2019
Our northward traverse has ended. We have now turned east and south. We have passed through the town of Emerald where there are no emeralds and are now in Roma. We have driven through the gold mining town of Charters Towers and the vast coal country of the Galilee Basin.
Before we left Cloncurry we visited the site of the old Mary Kathleen uranium mine. The open cut mine now looks like a most inviting swimming pool in the middle of a dry and stony landscape. The vivid blue is thought to come from copper leaching from the rock walls. This picture does not give justice to the blueness of this lake. The mine closed in 1984 and the thriving town complete with school and swimming pool dismantled and sold off.
Along the way to the lake we came across yet another Burke and Wills memorial. I can’t imagine the privations they faced travelling through this country in the middle of summer in 1861. I was left wondering whether this is the remains of one of their campfires from 1861.
Along these roads it’s not uncommon to see herds of a 1000 plus cattle on the long paddock. Out here these herds take priority. Like the cows of India these guys have attitude and don’t move for anyone including large trucks. As you creep forward they just move around the car in their slow meandering pace. Their drover masters on horseback in the background.
Speaking of large trucks, let me say the mind is focussed when you have a four trailer road train heading toward you on a rough piece of road. Our most exciting moment was when the 4th trailer of one of these massive trucks was swaying across both lanes, twisting and distorting as it went. This was all happening at 100 kph. It went passed us as we withheld our breath with our car as far to the left as was possible.
This country is very flat and largely empty. Moments of excitement have come with the occasional bend in the road or even a hill. This country is so flat that we crossed the great dividing range over an insignificant hill of 441 metres. The Rocky Mountain it’s not.
Travellers to these parts seek to entertain themselves in strange ways. There are many instances of termite mounds dressed in tee shirts, collared shirts and caps. Its quite a sight to see hundreds of dressed termites mounds across the expanse of the bush.
The architecture of the larger towns is also a surprise. In days past Charters Towers was a gold mining town. There were no fly-in-fly-out miners in those days and the main street reflects the wealth that was invested in the town. Charters Towers even had its own stock exchange! Today the display windows of department stores from the 1930s still survive. The smaller towns boast shaded car parking in the main street.
There is a real shortage of skilled labour in these parts. I was chatting with the caretakers at a caravan park, showing interest in their work. Their response was to ask me ‘and what are you doing’ I think that was a job interview. Today in the barber’s chair getting a haircut I hear from behind me ‘if you have truck licence there’s plenty of work, we can’t keep drivers’. Methinks that was another job interview. We will continue our travels.
The crack in the windscreen continues to grow at an alarming pace.
Our drive from Winton to Cloncurry took about 4.5 hours through what is very empty country. We drove through two towns that could claim a pub and petrol station and that was pretty much it. The town of McKinlay is the site of the Walkabout Pub which was made famous by the Crocodile Dundee movie.
My finally observation of this country. The gardeners at the van park were challenged to clear up the garden beds. Their creative approach was to use a fork lift to remove the weeds from what is very hard ground. Love the ingenuity.
Everything is huge up here, the length and frequency of the coal trains, the distances between towns, the size of the farming properties, the trucks, the hats, horizon and sky and even the Van Gogh paintings. All the signs seem to be faded from the intense heat and sunlight and the area is so empty they list the names of the properties on road signs so you think the place is more populated than it really is.
After leaving the coast we visited the town of Emerald. Now Emerald has no emeralds but if you drive out of town a little way you come to the town of Sapphire which does have sapphires. Forget Rubyvale if you are thinking of rubys.
In Sapphire for $20 you can buy two coffees, a scone, jam and cream and a bucket of sand and gravel that might include sapphires. They then teach you how to sift and sort your bucket of gravel. We scored a 3 ct sapphire but it was all fractured and worthless. A lady who filled her bucket from the same pile as us uncovered a 3 ct gem quality stone worth over $1000. Not bad for a $20 investment. We had fun finding our dodgy sapphire and several zircons.
At Longreach our time was divided between the Qantas Founders Museum and the Stockmans Hall of Fame, two cultural icons. Every town around here has some claim for the foundation of Qantas either they were where the first board meeting occurred or they were the destination of the first flight or the original Qantas hanger was based at their airport. Regardless, Qantas has very strong links with this remote part of Australia. It’s quite a contrast from the high technology of a 747 jumbo jet to the vast open spaces of the cattle and sheep properties around here.
After a week staying with family and catching up on 1st birthday parties and all the family gossip it was time to head north. I also got to do another Parkrun this time in Zillmere. I think there is only one town that starts with Z in Australia that has a Parkrun. It’s a must do.
The further north we travelled the more winter was becoming a fading memory. Regular checks of the weather sites reinforced for us that this trip north was more than justified considering the bleak temperatures our friends were enjoying at home. I also had the irrestible urge to remind them of what they were missing via regular messages and emails.
We have been staying in 1770 for the past few days. The town is so named after Jimmy Cook (Captain Cook to those less familiar with the navigator) dropped in here 250 years ago. Unlike the Hawiians the locals were happy for the short visit and for the English ship to continue on its journey without resorting to violence. Of course we now have all sorts of laws and surveillance vessels to stop such foreign incursions of raggard foreigners turning upon our beaches. These days Jimmy would probably claim to be an economic refugee escaping Brexit.
On our way to 1770 we stopped one night at a ‘free’ camp which was more like a parking lot, one block back from the main street of Childers. Childers is a classic Queensland country town with three pubs in the main street, each one over a 100 years old. It’s nice to see some of this Australian architecture still remaining.
We are now heading west to discover dinosaurs and Australian history so you can look forward to more ramblings in the coming weeks.
A Traveller's Tale 