The road from Broken Hill to Cobar was astonishingly green. It had clearly rained a lot recently. As a result, we saw a lot of wild life on this leg – more than we had seen throughout Northern Territory and South Australia put together. The winner of the group was this spiky fellow. He began digging in when he saw Dog.
We saw a lot of emus, but this one had chicks so was quite hard to catch. Pardon the pixelation.
Dog could not get near these, so had to do with their smaller cousins
There were other young ones too
…and even some trees were in the mood for spring
We pulled over at Mt Grenfell Historic Site to see the Aboriginal Art. The reserve was badly sign posted and we inadvertently took off on a 3 hour walk up a mountain and only discovered our error after 45 minutes. I suppose that would cost us $80 at a gym, so we should not complain, and we did get to see the art in the end too.
Termite mounds are quite common in the outback, but not ubiquitous. You can drive for 100 km with them everywhere and then another 100 with none. At one of the rest areas, I saw how they formed.
The termite mound starts on a piece of grass
At this place I saw them form on blades of grass. They also form on boulders, street signs and metal posts. Oddly, they never seem to form on dead wood.
From the simple beginnings, they seem to grow organically.
Longreach is in the midst of a drought – no significant rain in three years I heard someone day. The caravan park has dead trees and little green.
On the approach to Longreach, the first thing you see is a QANTAS 747 tail.
What you do not realise until much closer is that there are two tails; the second is for a 707, but it is dwarfed.
This might have been the plane I first flew to Australia in – that was a 707 from San Francisco.
The QANTAS Founders Museum is quite good, with many models of planes, that give you an idea about how brave those founders were.
There is also a Stockman’s Hall of Fame with a great set of exhibits on pioneer life, including a great section on the Flying Doctor Service.
There is a lot of bird life in Longreach. The amazing ones are the Brolgas which are a bit tame ans visit the caravan camp looking for a feed. At over a metre tall, you are not inclined to disappoint.
We have now begun to head west along the Capricorn Highway. As its name suggests, it quite closely follows the Tropic of Capricorn. After a short period, we had left the sugar cane behind and came on dry pasture land, much like you might find around Goulburn. However, every 40km or so there was another big coal train running towards the coast.
Queensland Rail Engines…
…followed by 20 odd cars of coal
Soon we came on to Blackwater, which had a huge open cut mine just to the south of the highway. As we disagree with Tony Abbott that the future of Australia is coal, we kept going. Although our goal was Longreach, we decided not to drive 700 km in a day so stopped at Emerald in the Botanic Gardens, where we found 8 other caravans with exactly the same idea.
A map of the gardens. Oddly, no Japanese gardens!
That evening I went for a walk with the dog and found the maze. Although it was very dark (no moon, just stars), the Meleluka Maze was quite easy to solve as I could see the scuff marks of the foot prints of the previous visitors in the soil. Assuming no-one got lost in the maze, and everyone makes a random choice at each corner, everyone must walk on the right path, but only a few will take the wrong path. So by following the most footmarks, I made the right turn every time. (My brother, Jean-Leo, would ask, “…but what is a crowd of Japanese tourists went into the maze, took a wrong turn and called for a helicopter to get them out?”)
After the maze I did the Celestial Garden, but that was just a set of concentric circles and no challenge at all to solve. I tried to find a wrong path and failed!
On the way back I met a large cane toad in the middle of the path. I shone my torch on it so the dog would avoid it. The dog was curious and stuck his nose against it. The toad just ducked a bit but showed no concern. Fortunately the dog moved on.
On the way back I met a chinese gentlemen with a long beard doing something to the trees with bread. The following morning I heard and found what he was up to.
We stayed in Yeppoon for a few days while pondering whether to head north or west. Eventually we chose west, and have revised our itinerary. Yeppoon in a beautiful spot just in the tropics, but otherwise quite reminiscent of the south coast of NSW. The bird life is quite different. We saw a lot of this bird around the bushes and in the camp site at night.
Dog covered in burrs
One night, on a dog walk, we came on a few quite suddenly. The dog chased one into the scrub and disappeared into a bush. I pulled him back and fortunately he had caught nothing. Upon returning to the caravan, I found the dog was covered with burrs.
A bucket of burrs, with much fur still attached
Carmel and I spent the evening pulling and brushing them all out, with many yips and yelps from the dog. Moral of the story – if you chase after roadrunner, you come off second best!
