The Science Experiment

The Strybosch's gave Angela a herb garden to take with her. This has become a science experiment as we move about. The plants pack quite securely in the back of the camper. In the warm weather we can notice a change in the morning and afternoon. 

The seeds are planted at Longreach and cable tied in place. 

Starting to sprout at Eliot Falls

Two days later, at the tip of Cape York. 

03-08-2013 Disaster! Maybe it was 350km of corrugated dirt road, but the dirt turned to pebbles and rolled up some of the smallest seedlings. The basil (we think that's what it is) is still going strong. 

08-08-2013 the remaining seeds are still growing and liking the sun in Cairns. 

13-08-2013 disaster averted. We have worked out what the seeds are now (writing on each pot might have helped). From top down oregano, coriander and basil. The oregano has recovered well from the rough roads but still slow growing. The coriander is getting some mature leaves but the basil is out of control! Will be plenty of basil for pesto in no time. 

The next challenge is quarantine going into NT. How strict will they be?

03/09/2013 Darwin

The basil is great, we have used it in salads and on pizza. The coriander is still growing and there are some useful leaves, almost. The oregano has failed us! We have resown with leftover seeds in hope that we will produce more than a desert. 

Cape York Part 1 QLD

Cape York QLD

27 - 28/07/2013

We stayed overnight at Mt Molloy in a free camping area just out of town. It was well populated already when we arrived and we found a patch that gave at least one Grey Nomad kittens as to how they would leave in the morning! Clearly he had no concept of reversing such a long caravan and the space behind our camper was a 'tight squeeze' for him (could have got a road train through there sideways). 

We were told about these burgers at Mt Molloy that were rather large. They were massive! One burger fed all five of us. Apparently though happiness of having some custom was not enough to erase the grumpiness of the deep frier not working. After the burger some dessert was required, so we all headed to the Bistro at the pub next door. Dessert came with a side of live music in the form of the Hillbilly Goats. The kids thought they were brilliant. They played US hillbilly style songs and a wide variety of instruments (guitars, banjo, mouth organ, fiddle, tin whistle, wash board, and drums). After seeing them do some tap dancing to songs we all walked back to our camp. 

The small burger that was rather good eating.

 

Saturday morning we packed up and followed the Grey Nomads north. They mostly turned off to Cooktown and we headed still north. Nicholas made a phone call to QLD gov to book a site at Eliot Falls. Now that is 16 minutes we won't be getting back. All camping has to be booked centrally and in advance for National Parks. QLD has implemented this very well. The booking system doesn't work on iPhone or iPad (despite what Tourist Info might say) and to make a booking one requires phone reception which most National Parks don't have. The lady in Brisbane couldn't tell Nicholas which sites were large enough to accommodate our camper, so we just guessed and took pot luck. 

We setup at Coen for the night of little sleep. There was a 21st birthday in town and it went all night and was still going when we left Sunday morning!

The bull wandered through the camp ground, stopped an our bullbar waiting for service. 

Sunday we started driving with the view to stay at Bramwell Homestead before going to Eliot falls. The road was still very good, mostly dirt with a bit of blacktop along they way. We made Morton Telegraph Station for lunch and were able to alter our Eliot Falls booking forward one day and make it to Eliot Falls by mid afternoon. 

Eliot Falls is several km along the Old Telegraph Track and through one deep creek crossing. The consensus of the group was it is worth coming this far just to stop at this spot! Sure the allocated site was not big enough for a full setup but we made the best of it. 

Swimming at Twin Falls straight after a setup. Warm clean water and all to ourselves. 

Day two at the falls we headed back down for a swim at the saucepan until lunch then drove several kilometers to Fruit Bat Falls. The rivers are just wonderful for swimming and the water is very deep under the falls. 

Swimming at the saucepan. 

The Saucepan. 

Swimming at Fruit Bat Falls. 

After another pack up we all headed back to the saucepan for another swim (bath) before the final push to the top. The road this far has been quite good certainly no worse than we have encountered elsewhere. Some sections of road have been randomly selected to be bitumen for short stretches, these are welcome respite. 

Undara National Park QLD

Undara National Park QLD

25 - 26/07/2013

A couple we camped beside at Carnarvon recommended visiting Undara National Park, a welcome recommendation as it turns out. If any one reading is planning a trip to Undara our top travel tip is to bring everything in with you. Fuel is another 40c/l to any fuel in any direction. Food in the Undara 'supermarket' is about 50% more than the Oasis roadhouse on the way in. Even 'discounted' out of date Allans' lollies were still $2.50 a packet. 

Even with the inflation, the National Park is a fascinating visit. If you remember the 1997 movie Volcano with Tommy Lee Jones where the larva flowed along in storm water drains, that is what happened in this area, minus the storm water drains. The lava flowed and a crust formed on the top allowing the larva to continue to flow under the crust. When the lava stopped flowing the crust remained as a long tunnel. One of these has been identified as 130km long originally, though some of the roof has collapsed leaving today, a series of shorter tunnels. The long series of tunnels can be identified in satellite photos or google earth. Check them out. 

Climbing down into a lava tunnel. 

Looking down the tunnel, the stone path is about 2m wide. 

Looking back to the entrance and the people still coming in. 

Patterns on the roof of a tunnel. 

The black dots are bats roosting on the cave ceiling.

The only way to view the tunnels is as part of a guided tour. There are some tunnels that have high CO2 levels that aren't very healthy and some openings on the surface that are hard to spot but easy to fall down! The first tunnel required a bit of a climb over rocks to get in then opened to a huge area, about the size of a house. These tunnels were rarely used by the local indigenous people with little or no evidence of their activities. Many other animals do enter the tunnels when sick or injured and die. There were skulls of a dingo, pig, kangaroo and even a cow. 

As the water seeps through the tunnel roof minerals are washed out of the stone creating the colours on the roof. Algae near the entrances, where there is light, create other colours. 

In some of the fully collapsed tunnels pockets of dry rainforest still exists. The Bottle Trees that were very old had left/right notches in the trunk where indigenous people climbed to harvest the fruit when the trees flowered. In QLD they have the Bottle Trees but WA has Boab Trees that are a different species altogether. 

Another tunnel had an entrance and an exit and had an intersection of two lava flows. In this tunnel Chelsea spotted a spider in one very low section that Bianca had just come out of. No way Bianca was going back in there! On the roof was two small colonies of bats. The bats were tiny compared to the flying foxes back home. Earlier in the year the roof was almost covered with hundreds of bats.  

After the tour we took a walk around the rim of a volcano, lots of lava all over the volcano all cold in the form of basalt rocks. The country side out here is very dry and rocky, and the river ways are all dry now though it is evident how wide they are during the wet season. 

View out over the top of where we stayed. The lumps on the horizon are all old volcanos. 

Dinner was delicious T-bone steak and sausages cooked on our campfire. Angela made some fruit bread that was cooked in the camp oven over the coals. The fruit bread was delicious for breakfast before we packed up and moved on to drive up the cape. 

Porcupine Gorge National Park

23/07/2013

We stayed overnight at Porcupine Gorge National Park. The grey nomads have thinned out a bit now. Porcupine Gorge National Park is about 60km north of Hughenden.

They nickname Porcupine Gorge National Park as Australia's little Grand Canyon. There is a deep canyon (or Gorge) that has been cut into the sandstone by a the Porcupine river. Really is quite spectacular, though there is not much else to see close by. 

After dinner, delicious Gado Gado prepared by Angela, we noticed the full moon coming up over the gorge. Nicholas initially thought it was a reflection of the sunset because it was so bright. We had a quick walk to the lookout to watch the huge round yellow moon rise. A fascinating sight out here without the city lights to diminish the brightness. We attracted a number of other campers to the view also. We were the innovators, they were the imitators. 

Walking back to the campsite we had been invaded by Rufus Betongs (Australia's smallest kangaroo about 30cm tall). Much cuter than other animals that invade our homes. These little guys are obviously quite used to humans, they hung around to eat dinner that hit the deck even with the five of us back and moving around and a little noise from three in particular. Everything needed to go away tonight or the Betongs would keep us up all night getting into anything not on offer. 

The Betong is the cute one with a long tail. 

Quite used to humans. 

Early after breakfast we took a walk down to the base of the gorge. If only it was hotter would have been perfect for a swim. While Angela thawed on a rock in the sun Nicholas and the girls went rock hopping up the gorge. 

Pyramid Rock Porcupine NP

Arriving in the gorge. 

Nice swimming hole if only a little warmer. 

If that is the size of the cobweb glad not to meet the spider. 

Soon it was time to climb out of the gorge and drive on to Undara National Park but that is another post. Angela volunteered to start the driving today, oops mistake. Not long on the blacktop and the dirt started some places was very soft. Good driving Angela. And just for something different there was roadworks and one open lane to share. 

Winton QLD

21 - 22/07/2013

The original plan was to camp at Bladensberg NP. When we arrived at the designated camp area the cost was $21.80 per night for dry drop toilet, no fires, no water. We are obviously spoilt in Victoria where we can camp at most parks for no cost. After exploring the NP a bit and stopping at the original homestead for lunch we headed back into town to stay at a caravan park at $30/night with flushing toilets, showers, power but no fires.  

Bladensberg NP was originally a working sheep station. Driving over the old station it is obvious why it is no longer a viable business. At this time of year there is very little ground water and virtually no feed to be seen. At one time it must have been a successful operation using the state of the homestead, outbuildings and farmhand quarters. The sheering shed was also quite impressive. 

Tuesday we headed to Lark Quarry just a short 110km out of town. The first tour for the day is 10am. Now Lark Quarry was never a quarry but in the early 1900s they found a dinosaur footprint. At this point Nicholas would like to say Mr Dandy, grade 4 teacher, was wrong. There were once dinosaurs wandering around Australia and very big ones at that! It wasn't until the 1960s that any further work was done in the area to investigate the dinosaur footprints. Finally in the 1980s a large area was excavated, by hand, to expose the dinosaur foot prints, some 3000 prints. The doctor took back a huge latex impression of all the footprints to study at the museum. What she found was an interesting story by identifying which prints belonged together. She believes that two groups of dinosaurs came down to drink at the water. These were two species of Ornithopods that were the size of chickens and another larger ornithopod. There was one Coelurosaur which was quite a large herbivore. A very large Tyrannosauropus happened upon the drinking lizards and gave chase. The result was a stampede of 150 dinosaurs across the mud. The Tyrannosauropus caught one large ornithopod, it's footprints ended abruptly near Tyrannosauropus!

What we have in Lark Quarry is the world's only discovered dinosaur stampede! There are a lot more footprints to be discovered in the area, however there is no more large footprints so there is no plans to excavate any further. 

Big dinosaur footprint 

Lots of little dinosaur footprints

It was so cold and blustery that we had lunch in the car on the way back to Winton. Yes it was very cold, Nicholas did a run back to the car to get warm clothes from the roof bag before the Lark Quarry tour.

Multipurpose roads out this way. 

Just outside Winton is the Australian Age of Dinosaurs discovery centre. This was a great experience for all of us. AAOD is a not for profit foundation that once a year conducts a dig for dinosaurs then brings back the discovered bones to the centre for processing for the rest of the year. In storage the AAOD has about 35 years worth of bones for processing. Good job security, maybe a career change for Nicholas! The AAOD has found and processed a meat eating dinosaur called Banjo that stood about five metres tall. In the same dig hole they found Matilda, a massive herbivore. Matilda was about 35m long and 5m tall at her back with a long neck and tail. I know you don't talk about a ladies weight but Matilda came in at 30000kg 

Volunteers scratching rock from bone grain by grain. 

Bits of Matilda. The light coloured bone is a cow thigh bone for scale next to Matilda's thigh bone!

Replica of Banjo (the really scarey one in the back ground). 

Arno's wall filled with all sorts of bits and pieces. 

Where to next?

Home!!!!

Longreach QLD

16 - 20/07/2013

We have reached Longreach! On the drive we stopped at Barcaldine and had lunch in the shadows of the Tree of Knowledge. The tree is dead! For those of the blue party persuasion, the Tree of Knowledge was the headquarters of the 1891 Australian shearers' strike where policy and decisions were made and the birthplace of what was to become the Australian Labor Party. The tree was declared dead in 2006 after persons unknown poisoned the tree. 

The Tree of Knowledge and possibly the worlds largest wind chime. 

We hung around Longreach waiting for the RACQ to check the car again before RACV would organise our accommodation as the car needed repairs at Longreach. The exhaust manifold needs machining and new gaskets. The old girl sounds like gum leaf blowing when accelerating and the turbo is not getting enough pressure to spin up properly. Longreach is the only place Nicholas has found where the work can be done without needing to send the manifold out of town. 

While waiting for RACQ Angela played travel agent and booked our Longreach experience. Wow Angela did well, there is so much to do in Longreach. We have tickets to

> school of distance education

> Kinnon & Co paddle boat ride with dinner and light and sound show

> QANTAS museum and jet tour

> Kinnon & Co tent show, coach ride, smoko and film

> stockman hall of fame and show

> Longreach powerhouse museum

This list will keep the party occupied while the car is repaired. 

RACV after a little false start organised us a powered site with ensuite. What luxury. 

Wednesday morning we went to the Longreach powerhouse museum. A very impressive display of the engines that until 1985 produced electricity for Longreach and near by Barcaldine. The operation was right in the town limits and the diesel fuel engine was so noisy it could be heard 4km away. The noise would have been very useful for the Longreach schools across the road. The locals became accustomed to the noise and were woken at night if the engines stopped. 

We spent a couple of hours in the afternoon at the library catching up on email and reading some books. Nothing more we could do waiting for the new tyres to be fitted on the camper. 

What a treat we were in for on the sunset paddle boat cruise, dinner and poetry reading.  We were picked up from our accommodation around 4:30 pm and driven to our destination for the evening, Thomson River. The evening started with a cruise along the river on a Paddlewheeler where we enjoyed a beautiful sunset and yummy nibbles.

Paddling the mighty Thomson. 

After the cruise it was back onto dry land for dinner. The whole set up was very "outback"; a campfire, lanterns, lots of corrugated iron and dirt! Dinner was a rather delicious beef stew. After dinner we were treated to some bush poetry then a sound and light show that showcased the beauty of the outback and told the story of Captain Starlight (Harry Redford) who "acquired" 1200 head of cattle which he drove from Longreach towards Adelaide where he sold them and made a tidy sum of money. Cutting a long story short, he got away with it! It is certainly a story worth reading about. After the show it was time for billy tea and damper.

Dinner was delicious. 

The cock and cart. 

We arrived back at camp around 9pm, put the girls in our bed and set about setting up the camper. Even though we were told it would be ready for collection after lunch we didn't think it would be quite as late as 4pm meaning we only had time to unfold the main section before heading out for the evening.

Day 2 in Longreach began with a tour if the School of Distance Education. We had previously had a tour in Charleville but this tour was a lot more polished although not necessarily better. All the teachers were off site so we didn't get to see any lessons in action. The girls enjoyed wandering through the lesson rooms and exploring the very well resourced library.

Playing teachers. How does detention work?

The afternoon was spent on another Kinnon & Co tour. It involved watching a traditional tent show which focused on another aspect of the Harry Redford story (not a particularly polished show but hilarious and definitely worth a visit!), followed by a gallop through the scrub. This was a stagecoach ride along an old mail route. The 5 of us sat up the very top which was rather dusty but lots of fun. The ride concluded with a gallop. The original Cobb & Co coaches were only allowed to gallop their horses for 500 yards at a time and only to outrun an approaching storm. Our stagecoach ride was followed up with Smoko which was scones, jam & cream and tea.

Great view from up there but boy the dust!

Mmmm yummy fresh scones 

Day 3 in Longreach and we were booked on the QANTAS 747 and 707 guided tour. The 747 jetliner was one that QANTAS had donated to the museum post 11/09/2001 when the value of these planes dropped dramatically and with no interested party QANTAS could donate a plane and get a tax concession. Clever business. The Longreach airport runway is not as long as runways where 747s generally land. After calling for volunteers and putting all 500 volunteer QANTAS pilots through a simulator they chose the 'lucky' pilot. As it turned out the landing was uneventful and the jet was able to be pulled up easily with runway to spare. The 747 cannot leave Longreach as the runway to far too short for a successful takeoff. The 747 is still kitted out as it was when it was last in service, with more legroom than the current fleet. Areas have been removed to allow visitors to see what exists below the floor and above the ceiling. A new piece of trivia, two pieces of safety equipment onboard all commercial aircraft were invented by Australians; the black box flight recorder and the escape slide and raft combination!

This is Economy, Grandpa!.  

This was the first commercial plane to have a toilet. 

The 707 was once Michael Jackson's personal plane and was last used by an Arab (after the pig leather had been removed). The plane was a bit of a problem to BA who were lending the plane to the Saudis while selling them weapons. In order to off load the plane BA sold the 707 to the museum for £1 plus VAT!  The 707 has been painted in the original decor that it had when QANTAS first owned it but the interior is still as MJ and the Saudis used it. These commercial planes are bought and sold and leased and fitted and refitted multiple times over their years of service. 

The rest of the museum told the story of how QANTAS started and how it grew and nearly collapsed in its early years. QANTAS is one of very few airlines that built the planes that it flew. The Heritage Australia registered hanger at Longreach was where several DH50 planes were built for service. There was little comfort for paying passengers in those original planes and significantly less for the pilot. There was no toilet, movie, entertainment, food or seatbelts in these early planes. Some pilots got lost and would glide down low enough to ask someone on the ground!

A DH50 outside the hanger

Nicholas went back to the museum in the afternoon and the girls invited Anina (their newly found friend) back for a play date. Anina and family are traveling like us and we all enjoyed having the company of people in the same predicament. We shared cheese and dinner together. 

Day 4 there was a book sale at the Uniting Church! Since the three girls were almost out of books we took a look. They each purchased several books at no more than 10c each! The books won't keep them going long though but hopefully long enough. We were booked at the stockman show at the Stockman Hall of Fame. The show was fantastic! Very skilled man with his horse and dogs. When he asked for a volunteer Bianca was quick to stick her hand up and was chosen along with both her sisters. They were to help carry a present on a table, which happened to break and lose two piglets in the gift. The three girls were sent out to catch the pigs. They did well. 

Catch those pigs!

You can ride anything out here.

The Stockman Hall of Fame was interesting with heaps of well displayed memorabilia come days gone by. Much of it seems to be repeating at each museum though the Stockman Hall of Fame certainly displayed it well and told the story of the early pioneers of this part of the country. 

That is pretty much the story of what we got up to in Longreach, just a quick stop. 

Emerald - QLD not Victoria

Monday 15/07/2013

We left Carnarvon Gorge, though we all were still quite tired from the massive walk yesterday and the packup was a difficult one. You were correct Andrew the biggest danger IS from within. Certainly the party atmosphere was gone this morning. To make matters worse one of the tyres of the camper had gone down quite a bit so that needed attention before we headed off, nearly half an hour on a little 12v compressor. 

It was just a short drive to Emerald which turned out to be a much larger town than we expected. There was a Harvey Norman, Coles, Woolworths, Subway and McDonalds, the first we had seen of these since leaving Sydney. After a visit to the tourist info centre and lunch at Subway (bit of a treat) we formulated a plan to head out to the Sapphire fields another 50km west and visit one of the tourist spots for some fossicking.

We got preferential treatment at the Anakie Caravan Park (this Anakie doesn't have a Fairy Park just a Caravan Park). We were offered a site right next to the camp kitchen with an old boiler for heating. Sheryl and Graham who ran the park were super friendly and would have setup the camper for us if we had asked I reckon. We dropped off the camper and plugged into power (first 240v charge since Melbourne) and headed for the Heritage Miners Centre. 

This area has been mined for sapphires since the 1800s. Some lucky people have found HUGE sapphires just laying around the surface. No such luck for us. The locals tell us that the three largest sapphires ever found were on the surface in this area, one was used as a door stop because the owner thought it was a pretty stone, yeah a pretty stone worth millions! This has not been verified as fact, stories are exaggerated a little out this way it seems. 

We had a tour of the sapphire mine that was working until a few years ago. OH&S rules now mean that they cannot conduct tours in an underground working mine. Love OH&S rules. The ground is so hard that the mines need no props or supports. We saw only two props where they had found a rich deposit of sapphires and they dug out a small room of rock for processing. The mine was also quite warm 22 degrees, much warmer than the mine at Sovereign Hill. 

Back up on top the girls all had a go at fossicking for sapphires. All three came away with a 'deal-bag' with a few small sapphires in it. Nothing large enough to have cut but precious to their new owner. Only 20% of all the sapphire that the commercial miners find are of jewellery quality, all the rest are used in industry. The sapphire is second only to diamond for hardness and weighs 4 times more than water. Diamonds are more plentiful than sapphires yet cost more, that's just good marketing by the diamond producers. 

Can you spot the odd one out underground?

Intently searching for our fortune! 

Let's make a deal on these beautiful gems. 

Leaving Anakie the other tyre on the camper was quite flat. Will get those checked at Longreach also. The car is already booked in to have the exhaust manifold machined. RACV Total Care is a good investment when travelling out here. 

Oh and QLD has now been dubbed the 'roadwork capital of Australia'. Roadworks everywhere. Oh look there's a bit of road, lets dig it up, sure it's a highway so we can only open one lane at a time, OH&S you know. 

Carnarvon Gorge

Carnarvon Gorge

12-14/07/2013

The drive from Charleville, though not a lot of kilometres, took much of the day due to innumerable sets of roadworks. Most were reduced to a single lane road at 40km/h with stopping to allow for oncoming traffic. The girls found it amusing when we listened into the roadwork conversation on the UHF. Nicholas was restrained enough not to give additional instruction to the workers. 

Carnarvon Gorge is absolutely beautiful (no Internet and no phones)! So many walks to do through the National Park and abundant bird life and kangaroos. Our first walk was to Boolimba Bluff (6.4km) up ladders, steps from the bottom of the gorge to the top of the cliff; and what a view. On the way back down we had three lovely little 'tour guides', one devoted to Angela who is pregnant (only in Bianca's game ... relax) and was in need of special assistance. Baloon Cave (1km) had some aboriginal hand and tool stencils under a rock overhang and Rock Pool (0.5km) where we all had a splash in the cold water with shoes and socks off, though some of us made significantly bigger splashes than others. 

The girls were so tired that they requested to go to bed before 7pm. Who are we to deny our darlings such a request. 

Second day at Carnarvon and today we are tackling the longer walk. The 12 km round walk to Ward's Canyon. Everyone was feeling so good we decided, perhaps erroneously, to extend ourselves to the 14km walk to The Art Gallery (this turned out to be a two Chupa Chup walk). The Art Gallery is a 60m long cliff with Aboriginal stencils, freehand paintings and carvings. This is such a special place to the local Aboriginal people, though they are not fully sure what all the paintings depict. 

Chelsea and Chantelle each practised their Girl Guide tracking signs. 

After visiting all the attractions back through the canyon we were all pretty exhausted. We were back at base camp around 4pm. Ice creams for the children, except Bianca who was so tired she wanted to lie down. Bianca woke just after 7pm, had dinner, and went back to sleep. 

Tomorrow we drive on to Emerald, a short drive. 

Photos to come.  

Having a Relax in the 'Armchairs' on the way to the Bluff

The view from the bluff

Our camp setup. We just went outside our boundaries with the ropes

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