Charters Towers to Richmond

We are in Richmond, having travelled on the road for two days on the way towards  Mt Isa, Katherine, Kununurra and eventually to Broome.  We go north, we go south, we go well out of our way because there are no straight roads through. Richmond is well and truly part of the Outback. It is a lovely town with a beautiful lake at its heart.  So we are delighted to be in such a great spot. 

 

This area is called The Dinosaur Trail.  You can dig here for dinosaur bones in several places.  Professionals put the bones together and some are on display.  It is well known that between 1/3 and 1/2 of Eastern Australia was once a great inland sea.  Lake Ayre was probably towards the lower end of the sea and today the rivers from the White Mountains NP (near here) still run to Lake Ayre, also to the Gulf of Carpentaria and back to the east coast near Townsville.

 

Today's road from Charters Towers was mostly dry grass with some Brahman cattle scattered here and there.  At this time of the year there are dozens of small and larger creeks to cross and also the big Burdekin River, which well and truly floods up and takes life to many places, wherever it wanders.  We amused ourselves today by watching the beautiful patterns of clouds in the sky.  Graeme said the wind in the sky must have been at 200 kms per hour, so the patterns kept changing. I've been helping with the driving for two days.

 

Last night we were at Charters Towers.  It was a delightful van park, but to actually see the town was like something off a very old movie.  They keep the towns old buildings pretty well painted and restored.  We have included a few pictures of these.  Charters Towers was once the second largest city in Queensland - around the 1870's. This of course was at gold rush time when they had a population of about 29,000 and also the Australian Stock Exchange was situated there.  The town is full of ghost stories, and WWII relics and memorabillia, such as the stores of weapons, which were hidden under molluck (residual dirt and rock from the gold mining) and were buried into the mountain.  There were also safety bunkers and old disused mines everywhere.

 

I am fascinated by the Auzzie farming families, who dress up in their best to come to town and each is wearing their Akubra.  I've noticed that even their young children and babies are built very strongly and the lean and lanky teens in their school shorts (still with Akubras on their heads) can probably do just about all the jobs on the farm.  Its all quite fasscinating to see.  I watched a little girl about 3 who had found her way into the display window of an old furnishing shop.  She checked out everything that was in the window, would duck low if she saw the shop staff looking in her direction, then she picked up a book she found and sat herself down in a big comfortable chair to have a read.  The town appears to be very religious and many churches and private schools are there.

 

One town we stopped at today was called "Homestead".  When I walked up the stairs to enter the shop, I found myself in somebody's living room.  Talk about cosy! It was also the shop.  Graeme said all the petrol bowsers were locked!?  An old man gallopped his beautiful horses up and down nearby.  The shop keeper said most of the population were retired folk who like a quiet life.  Hummmm....

 

Today I caught sight of a Spectacled Hare-Wallaby, hiding in the grass at the White Mountains National Park.   A tiny hare-sized wallaby, a shy little critter who looks like he is wearing spectacles.  The vegetation in this National Park is totally different from everywhere else and is an explosion of colour in Springtime with native flowers, shrubs and orchids.  Its a rugged park and you need to be adventurous to camp in there.

Australian Bank of Commerce

Big tyres for big boys

City Hall Charters Towers 1891

Post Office Charters Towers 1898

Town called Homestead

White Mountains National Park

White Mountains National Park

 

Magnetic Island, Townsville

Yesterday was a day for our visit to Magnetic Island.  With wild romantic notions about this island from childhood, we came down to earth to discover that Magnetic Island was a Quarantine Station in the late 1800's.  Not many boats called in there of course, and sometimes the quarantined and their carers waited for many months to see a fresh face or to leave the island. There had been scares with Typhoid, Meningitis and the like.  At the turn of the century the station was brought to Townsville and the remaining buildings are just a couple of kilometers down the road from our caravan park.  Like us, I'm sure the residents listened through the night not only to the ocean rolling in, but also to the mournful songs of the many sea birds who cry throughout the night.

 

Magnetic island has 4 main tiny centres with about a dozen streets each.  There are lots of "dead ends".  Where do you go at the end of a road on an island?  The island is made up of a mountain range, covered with huge smooth rocks of granite and some stand on top of each other like "The Devils Marbles", but not so dramatic.  The mountains are also covered with trees.  There are a few beaches, some are netted for the stingers and there are three Surf Living Clubs there.  There are also plenty of wrecks there.  The water has various shades of blue, which is very pretty.  The beaches are mainly sandy with gentle water.  We took the ute over on the vehicular ferry and this was pleasant. A trip of about 35 minutes.  Last night two large trucks were loaded on with us.  They had brought to the island a big crane and the cost of the transport was about $5,000, just to get the crane and auxiliary equipment there.   They needed the highest tide to get the ferry high enough in the water to take the great load.

 

Cyclone "Yasi" hit Magnetic Island as well as Townsville (3 Feb 2011). It also took out Mission Beach and blew as far as Mt Isa - which is very far out west from here.  So there was destruction on the roads (fallen into the sea) and the pier was destroyed as well.  Hence the need for the crane.  We saw a sleepy-looking road worker holding his "lolly pop" sign, but at night all the road workers seemed delighted to be going home to Townsville on our ferry, while teenagers and adults returned home to the island from a day at work or school.

 

Picnic Point, Magnetic Island

Rock Wallaby

Amongst the rocks we saw playful Rock Wallabies, some with Joeys in their pouches. They were very tame.

Shades of Blue

Garage for small car

We found a cute rock cave where you can park a small car (not ours).  

Solar panels to power 22 homes

An unmade road on Magnetic Island

Spotted, asleep while he waits!

Clouds

 

Mackay, Bowen and Townsville

The country-side near Mackay was so beautiful with the ranges on our left and the sugar cane fields were ripe for harvest and everything was as green as could possibly be, with all the dams full.  The roads are being torn up in many places to make way for the advances of the mining industry.   We found a quiet place in a secluded valley and on the beach at Seaforth to "free park" ($21, great hot showers for 20c, no power). What a friendly group there, mostly from the Central Coast. The terrain consisted of steep, wild, rocky mountains in the valley.  I pictured the lucky children who had the opportunity to grow up in such a beautiful place.  We found ourselves caught up in the peak hour traffic coming into Mackay and glad to get out into the valley and the beach.

 

O beautiful Bowen.  We spent quite a few days here enjoying the sparkling ocean of tropical waters which surround this fortunate town.  It is really like a big country town with wide streets, but because it is surrounded on three sides by ocean, it has a beauty all of its own.  The beaches were beautiful, with the most fantastic rocks thrown from some huge volcano once upon a time.  How I would have loved to see it all happening. We were glad to find a smaller version of Woolworths there for supplies.  The buildings, many of them are very ancient, were interesting and in fact the movie "Australia" was shot in beautiful Bowen.  Many of the townsfolk had the opportunity to be extras in the cast.  The buildings which were shown to be in Darwin were actually in Bowen.  It was great to learn all this as both the "Australia" movie and Bowen are favourites. We went to church there and the people begged us to stay forever. They enjoyed having Graeme to play the piano for them for church, they used recordings for the Sabbath School hymns. The caravan park there was wonderful, like a boutique van park, with a magnificent pool to swim in, so that was a great help to us. We were also on the ocean there.

 

Townsville was to be our next stop. We came this way last year, but wanted a bit more time to look around.  Some of our best photos were taken in the National Park north of Townsville.    As you approach Townsville from the south, you travel past huge, tall, rocky mountains, which appeared black as we drove toward and past them. They were covered with wild forest and would look different in a changing light. We drove past them for about 40 ks until we reached Townsville.   Strange, we can't actually remember them from last year.  Our van park here has a pool and we are once again on the ocean, though it is up the hill from our van, so we have to walk to the top of the park to see the ocean.  It is tidal and you can walk out forever and still be in shallow water.  Sitting right out there in front of us is Magnetic Island, which conjures up every romantic and beautiful picture you have ever seen of the tropical waters and beaches with tropical fish to photograph and to swim with. A regular boat runs there frequently during the day and we look forward to a bright sunny day when we can go out and explore the island and its enchantment.

 

Contentment, Bowen

Rocky Bowen

Seagull on light, Bowen

Sunset Friday at Bowen

Sunset Sabbath 19th May at Bowen

Tidal Curves at Bown