Gateway to the Whitsunday Islands

AIRLIE BEACH is about 15 km's off the main highway and as soon as you turn off the highway it is lovely and lush, several turf farms and sugar cane. The beach is not suitable for swimming but some very expensive homes and units on the hills enjoy views overlooking the aqua water. When you see the number of homes and units under construction and land for sale it is hard to believe that we are experiencing a recession.
SHUTE HARBOUR more lovely homes here with great views. Lot's of boats here as well as Airlie Beach as this is where most people leave from to visit the Whitsunday Islands.

PEACOCK at Horseshoe Bay Resort, Bowen, what a magnificent bird.

Couldn't resist...

CORAL BAY this is where we have been swimming and snorkelling today, it is the next bay over from Grays bay, it lives up to it's name with all the coral. Not much to see snorkelling as what coral there is, is very dirty, I guess this is as it is so close to the shore and tidal.
CORAL washed up at Coral Bay, reminds me of all the sea shells at Karumba.

GLOUCESTER ISLAND from the Horseshoe Bay lookout, the island is off the coast of Bowen.

How is this for a view?

HORSESHOE BAY RESORT, BOWEN This is our site, not bad for $32.00 per night. The bay we look over is Grays Beach, popped over and had a swim, it was lovely and at this stage no stingers. Funny thing is it is a quiet time here as the park is busy in the winter with the southerners.
SUNSET FROM OUR SITE.

Magnetism?

MAGNETIC ISLAND from Castle Hill lookout at Townsville. We headed over there today on the ferry which is a 20 minute trip. There are some lovely bays there and a variety of accommodation and three supermarkets servicing a population of around 2500. We enjoyed our day but came back feeling that we would not put it on our 'must see' list, so don't really know what we expected.
ARTHUR BAY view from the Fort walk. We walked up to the Fort which was erected during World War II and it was hard to believe how they got all the materials to the top of the island to build the fort, gun placements etc. Townsville still has a strong military presence. One thing we have learned on our trip is how close Australia was to being taken over by the Japanese.
HORSESHOE BAY A really pretty bay which was quite sheltered today, I had a swim - divine!

MINI MOKE we hired this to travel around the island, knowing what we know now, we would pay the bit extra and take our own vehicle as there were a couple of roads that we were not allowed to take the moke on.

Trivia Today we have been in this great land for 21 years, funnily enough in the last couple of months I have lost my Australian accent and people keep asking where in New Zealand do I come from, I am gutted! Paul is quite happy to confirm that "she" is from New Zealand - miss the girls at TIF Real Estate.

KOALA one of two that we saw on the island.

Rustic Ravenswood

MINERS HUT Ravenswood these days has a population of 140, compared to 5000 in the gold boom times. The township is listed by the National Trust and mines are still operating there.
RAILWAY HOTEL there are now only two hotels here, compared to over 50 in it's hay day.

OPEN CUT GOLD MINE at Ravenswood.

MACROSSAN RIVER FLOOD MARKER in January this year the water level reached 20.75 metres which when it is posted will be second from the top. Today there was not much water in the river which is 15km's out of Charters Towers.

Central Highlands

THE GREAT INLAND WAY Today we left Emerald and drove around 500km's through to Charters Towers. There were some coal mines for the first 100km's and then after that very open land with cattle.

The other day when we drove from Roma to Rolleston we sighted the most road kill since Tasmania with lot's of kangaroos and even a snake. Today there were kangaroos, an emu, lizard and even two pigs, all quite gross really.

Jewel of a town, Emerald

VAN GOGHS giant sunflower painting is the largest easel painting in the southern hemisphere and stands 25 metres high. Emerald is a major Australian sunflower producer, the area also has a lot of coal mines.

Coming through to here yesterday from Rolleston there was a lot of smoke in the area from the fires in Rockhampton and we travelled through an area near Springsure where 200 hectares had been destroyed, fortunately no homes were lost.

PART OF THE MOSAIC PATHWAY there are 21 tiles representing the history of the area. I though our Kiwi mates would appreciate this one with the sheep.

EMERALD BOTANIC GARDENS

Carnarvon Gorge National Park

CARNARVON GORGE, what a great day we have had, it is a really spectacular sandstone gorge with walls towering 200 metres. Very similar to Katherine Gorge in the Northern Territory except you get to experience that by travelling along on the water. Today we walked at least 15 km's along the gorge and boy do we feel that we have. You cross the river bed several times and then walk into the different sections.
ROAD INTO the gorge is about 40km's and the last 11km's are gravel. There is a caravan park in there but we chose to stay further north at Rolleston. Rolleston is a one horse town -horse is tethered at the garage/wreckers yard. Pleased we did decide to stay at Rolleston as wouldn't fancy taking our house on wheels on the road.

Rolleston also houses local coal mine workers, not many houses there and the ones that are, are being rented between $450 and $650 per week, may not be much capital gain, but sure to be a very good return. The caravan park is installing more demountables to cater for the housing demand.
ABORIGINAL ART

MOSS GARDENS

WARDS CANYON

Anyone for steak?

SALES YARD, ROMA is a national icon having had the honour of being Australia's largest selling centre of cattle for many years. Today they were selling fattened stock with one lot of stock averaging 785 kilos each.
THE BIG RIG, Roma has a lot of natural gas and oil that was discovered over 100 years ago, with natural gas going by a 450km pipe to service Brisbane. Origin Energy is going to be spending $35 billion dollars in the next few years in the surrounding area on these resources, so Roma is set to boom!
ROMAVILLA WINERY is right next door to the caravan park, didn't need to stagger home as we only tried one drink and I purchased a bottle of Muscat. This is Queensland's oldest winery established in 1863 and the timber barrels smelt divine.

BOTTLE TREES and Roma likes it to be known that they are not Boab trees. The one on the right hand side has a girth of 8.9 metres.

Are you listening to me?

Rural Chinchilla

CHINCHILLA has a lot of wheat and like most of Queensland is bone dry and badly in need of rain. It was lovely to get here yesterday and to have some warmth again, it appears that Toowoomba actually had a cold snap and this afternoon they had storms there with hail. We had a brief storm last night with a few gusts of wind, thunder and lightning and only a light shower.
KOGAN CREEK POWER STATION is at Brigalow and is Australia's most modern and environmentally friendly power station. Standing at the above inspection viewing area it was surprising how quiet the plant was. It is powered using local coal via the conveyor belt visible to the right hand side.

It Had to Happen

APPARENTLY THE LOCKYER VALLEY Well it had to happen at some stage, after 38 weeks we have had a wet day when out exploring. The above lookout is at Ravensbourne National Park but alas due to the cloud and rain there was no view. We set out north this morning along the New England Highway to Crows Nest, went to the National Park there to have a look at the waterfalls, which were non-existent with the lack of rain although whilst we were there it started to rain.

SPRING BLUFF STATION is nestled into the side of the hill in the Lockyer Valley, really nice station with all the spring flowers out and although damp there too there were a few bods there enjoying a cuppa at the cafe.

The Garden City

LAUREN BANK PARK, TOOWOOMBA This area sure does live up to it's name of the Garden City with lot's of parks and gardens. A lot of families were out utilising the facilities, they seem to mark their territory of a picnic area by a show of balloons. Toowoomba is 700 metres above sea level and has very rich soil so lot's of vegetables are grown in the area. All the homes are very neat and tidy with colourful gardens.
BOTANIC GARDENS

JAPANESE GARDENS

ORANGE AND LEMONS ROSE

PETUNIAS

Snakes Alive!

CARPET PYTHON letting his breakfast digest at the Mary Cairncross reserve up near Maleny. The reserve has a lovely bush walk through rain forest. We spotted one pademelon basking in the sunshine and could hear lot's of birds, one in particular sounded like a baby crying and it is a cat thrush.
EASY TO MISS I reckon we are going to have to be REALLY alert when out walking from now on. Wonder how many we may have missed?
GLASS HOUSE MOUNTAINS from the Mary Cairncross reserve, what fabulous views this home has. The drive today was different to yesterday taking us up and behind the mountains and coming back via Woodford.
Just as we were nearing home the rain started, the first we have experienced since the end of May which has been great when you are on the road, but not good for the locals. Some thunder rolling around and now lot's of wind and rain, the ground sure does need the rain.

A happy day in the Hinterland

MAROOCHY BOTANICAL PARK is a hidden treasure, there is a lovely section with well maintained lawns and gardens which has several statues carved from Queensland marble. These ones are each from just one piece of rock. Sculptors from all over the world worked on site back in 2005, it is a very restful area and appears to be maintained by volunteers.

GLASS HOUSE MOUNTAINS Although we have been to the Sunshine Coast several times, we have never explored this area. The mountains are remnants of volcano's that were active about 25 million years ago. The area also has pineapple crops and macadamia farms.

A FUN NIGHT with Terry, Tracey and Liam Kearns at the van.

Back on the road again

MOOLOOLABA Our time on the Gold Coast has just flown by, Mum has recovered really well and was a model patient and is now aok to look after herself. We had a lovely time there catching up with different folk.

Yesterday we left and headed 200km's north to Mooloolaba on the Sunshine Coast, it will be a good base to go out and look at the hinterland. As we were turning into the street where the caravan park is that fronts onto the beach we spotted a friend, Terry from Christchurch, so catching up with the Kearns family later today, it sure is a small world.

We caught up again with our caravaning friends who live here, had last evening with them and then this morning a lovely stroll along the beach and a bbq breakfast on the esplanade, what a tough life!