Day 47 - Charters Towers - Burdekin Falls Dam 16 July, 2023
It was time to say goodbye to Charters Towers today and carry on east to Burdekin Falls Dam, which was only about 160 km away.
We filled up with diesel, and had a bit of time to kill before we could do a little bit of shopping, so we drove up to the Charters Towers lookout. On the way up we drove past WW11 bunkers that were used by the army stationed in Townsville to store munitions.
The views were average up there, but there were a lot of information boards detailing the town's history, from its beginnings when gold was found in the early 1880s, stories about some of the more colourful characters from the mining days, through the role the town played during the second world war.
With the shopping done we headed out onto the road to Burdekin Falls, stopping briefly at "The World" park. In its early days Charters Towers was known as "The World" because of its diversity of cultures who had been attracted by the prospect of finding gold.
We turned off to Ravenswood about lunchtime to check out the town, and to have lunch.
Ravenswood was also a gold town, starting in the 1880s, and mining occurred off an on through the decades until more recently when a mining company took it over to mine using new techniques, and it now employs around 350 permanent people.
The town also had some beautiful old buildings including a couple of pubs, the ambulance station and the post office.
Ravenswood also had a lookout with views over the Ravenswood gold mine site, down to the township and surrounding areas.
Coming down from the lookout we drove a little way out of town to the "White Blow", and enormous quartz rock, formed millions of years earlier.
On the way back into town we stopped in at the showgrounds for lunch, then carried on the drive to Burdekin Falls.
Just before the campground we stopped briefly at a dam lookout, but it was hardly worth the stop. The water in the dam appeared to be quite low it was a dirty brown colour.
We arrived at the Burdekin Falls Dam Campground, which is owned by Sunwater, and had to ask a fellow camper about how to pay for a campsite. Turns out we just had to choose our site and pay at a machine, a very reasonable $14 for the night, which included toilets and showers, nice grassy sites with a concrete pad and a load of peacocks cruising around the camp.
The one downside of the camp was that it was situated on top of a hill and it was very windy, so we didn't sit outside initially.
Another plus was that we had plenty of internet to keep ourselves amused for the rest of the day.
Unfortunately the interweb gremlins visited us in the early evening when I was trying to watch the earlier Warriors game and I had to give up on watching it.
Day 48 - Burdekin Falls Dam - Bowen River Hotel 17 July, 2023
We had an easy driving day planned today, just under 100 km, although it was on gravel roads.
The internet magically appeared this morning, so I finished watching the Warriors game from the day before, and we didn't leave camp until after 9:00 A.M., headed for the Bowen River Hotel near Collinsville.
Shortly after leaving the campground we had a weird experience driving around the dam. Driving around most dams, you drive around the top of the dam wall. On the Burdekin Falls Dam, you drive along the bottom of the dam wall, which is a bit scary when you think about all the water behind the dam wall.
Once past the dam the gravel road started and it was in reasonable condition, allowing us to travel at a sedate 50-60 km/h, which was fast enough considering the short drive we had in front of us.
Not far into the gravelled section we saw a family of Kangaroos/Wallabies on the side of the road, the largest of which was considerably bigger than any we had been seeing lately.
Further along the road we saw two Bustards on either side of the road, but they wouldn't stay still long enough to get a good photo.
After an hour or so of driving we stopped on the side of the road for morning tea, at the same time taking the opportunity to grab some firewood from the plentiful supply on the roadside that we could cut up later.
Back on the road we passed a young lady who was sitting off the road under some trees using her mobile phone. We stopped to check she was ok, and she said she was just stopping for a rest. We found out later that she was walking the heritage trail that runs from Melbourne to Cooktown.
Although the gravel roads started off really good, that changed for the last 50 or so kilometres, reverting to the sometimes badly corrugated sections that we were very familiar with. We had to slow our pace considerably, sometimes to no more than walking pace on the worst sections.
It was lunchtime by the time we arrived at the Bowen River Hotel, so after getting an unpowered site for the night, at a cost of only $10, we both had steak sandwiches and a beer for lunch.
The hotel is an absolute gem of a historically-listed building, that was originally built as a homestead in 1862. Most of the timberwork and floorboards seemed to be original adding to the great feel of the place. All of the rooms functioned as actual eating places and also as museums with many old artifacts displayed on the walls.
After lunch we got set up and to our surprise discovered that the internet coverage was really good, so our afternoon started with our usual online activities.
After a cuppa I wandered the few hundred metres down to the Bowen River to have a crack at catching a fish for dinner. As I was walking down the hill to the river a herd of Brahman cows that was walking along the road in the other direction got spooked by my presence and ran off to the side of the road.
The river was quite shallow (yes, I know what you're thinking - here come the excuses) and very clear. Maybe that combination determined my total haul of fish for the day as 0, zero, zip, rien, nada, or maybe it was just that the fishing gods weren't on my side today.
I tried fishing downstream for a while with no luck, then walked back across the bridge to try upstream, but the water was even more shallow there, so decided to hang up the rod for the day. I had just started walking back to the hotel when it started raining. I considered sheltering under the bridge for a while, but decided to tough it out and just carry on. As I was walking back up the hill to the hotel my damsel in shining chastity belt came to my rescue with an umbrella, to protect me from the nasty rain!
After showers we relaxed for the remainder of the afternoon and evening, hoping the rain would clear so we could have a fire.
Thankfully the rain did clear, which meant a large raging fire to keep us warm for the rest of the day.
Day 49 - Bowen River Hotel - Eungella Dam18 July, 2023
In keeping with our recent way of travelling, we didn’t have a firm destination in mind for the day, apart from stopping at the next town along the way, Collinsville, to see what it had to offer.
The gravel road continued for most of the way, and it took us about an hour to travel the 35 km to Collinsville, where our first stop was the town lookout. The lookout wasn’t that high and offered only average views of the town and surrounding countryside. We did spy our next two stops from up there, though, the Pit Pony statue, and the supermarket we needed to visit.
The Pit Pony Experience included a bronze statue of a Clydesdale draught horse, the “pit ponies” that were used for decades in the Collinsville coal mines and weren’t phased out until the 1980s, and also included some information on the ponies’ role in the mines.
With nothing else to offer us tourist-wise, we bought a couple of things from the supermarket and stopped in at the adjacent bakery to get some morning tea, which we consumed after driving to a nearby park.
After considering our options for a destination for the night we decided on Eungella Dam Campground, only about 130 km away, but most of that on gravel roads, the condition of which we were well acquainted with by now.
The road out of Collinsville was a good sealed road that took us past some of the current and historic coal mines in the area, that were a huge blight on the landscape. We also passed a long coal train heading out to McKay to dump its load onto a waiting ship going to who knows where.
It wasn’t long before we turned off that lovely sealed road onto a gravel road, and that set the tone for our afternoon’s adventures. As for the last few days the roads were mostly in bad condition that forced us to keep our speed down to 20-50 km/h, but mostly the lower speeds. The one good section we drove through had just been graded and we crossed our fingers that it would carry on like that all the way.
Of course, it didn’t! At one point we had a choice of going in two directions, one that was going to take longer, so we obviously chose the shorter route. Big mistake! The rough gravel road soon turned into a rough dirt farm track that started off reasonable, but once again soon turned to crap. Speaking of crap, we had been dodging cow poo all day, and this was some of the most prevalent stuff we’d driven through, because we were actually driving through a farm with cows roaming around all over the road.
After driving for about 10 km, that took over half an hour, the farm track got increasingly worse until we came to a point where the track went up an extremely steep hill that was washed out at the bottom. I wanted to have a go but Meg wasn’t keen so we did a twenty-point turn and headed back out to where we’d decided to take the shorter option.
The “better” road, wasn’t really, so it was really slow going for the last 25 or so km to the Eungella Dam Campground. At the campground we had three attempts at finding a half-level spot beside the dam before we settled on a really nice spot, with other campers well away from us.
The campground was such a beautiful spot, and the whole dam area was teeming with wildlife including a few different varieties of ducks, Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos, White Egrets, Cormorants and the usual Crows, Magpies, Butcher Birds, Kookaburras and Peewees. We were pleased we'd decided to stay for two nights in this wonderful environment.
The internet initially appeared to be dodgy, but eventually came good enough for us to do our usual online activities.
Late afternoon we got the fire going to keep the cool temps at bay for the remainder of the day.
Day 50 - Eungella Dam19 July, 2023
With a relaxing day planned and not having to drive anywhere, we had a slow start to the day.
Once we got motivated enough to move we went for a gentle stroll around some other parts of the dam, ending up at the amenities block for showers, which were too far away from our campsite to use as we normally would.
Returning to our site we scavenged as much wood as we could carry for the night's fire.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing and enjoying the idyllic surroundings, watching the myriad birdlife come and go from the dam.
There were lots of cattle around the whole campground, which we assumed were Brahman cows and bulls, and we had to dodge their droppings anytime we walked anywhere.
We were really surprised when one we had been watching approach our campsite slowly, but missed because we had our backs turned, came waltzing past where we were sitting. Meg jumped up and tried to shoo it away, but it had its own agenda and slowly walked past us onto greener pastures.
We also had visits from Magpies, Butcher Birds, Peewees and Currawongs during the day.
In the late afternoon we partook of one of our favourite pastimes and got a roaring fire going, that kept us warm for the rest of the afternoon and evening.
Day 51 - Eungella Dam - Broken River 20 July, 2023
It was time to leave our idyllic camping spot beside the dam and start heading towards civilisation today, because we were running low on some supplies.
Our next stop for the night was Broken River Bush Camp in Eungella NP, which was only about a 25 km drive away, and we had the whole day to do it. As usual though, we knew the roads would be rough and it would probably take the best part of an hour to get there.
With only a brief stop to scavenge some firewood, to replace the wood burnt in the previous night’s conflagration, we arrived in Broken River around 10:00 A.M. Our first stop was the day use area to do the Platypus viewing walks, hoping to be able to see some of these critters. We got a shock when we stepped out of Mata into 15 degrees and a cold wind, which had us reaching for our jackets.
On our first attempt, at the farthest viewing point, we only saw some turtles. On the way back to the start point of the walk we called into the café and sat outside in the sunshine to consume our coffees and sticky buns for morning tea, while chatting to two other couples from Queensland who were also trying to spot a Platypus.
At the second viewing area we tried, under the Broken River bridge we managed to catch a brief glimpse of one Platypus and some more turtles. Further around the walk past the bridge at another viewing platform we only saw more turtles. We decided it would be better to try again later in the day when the Platypus are more active.
We drove across the bridge to the Broken River Campground, chose a likely looking spot beside a large firepit and got set up.
We were right beside the river, but on the other side to where we were earlier, so we went down to the river to try our luck at spotting another Platypus. Apart from a brief glimpse we didn’t see any more of the elusive creatures until later in the day.
After lunch I walked back across the bridge to the café and bought a bag of firewood, because it looked like we would have to light the fire early because of the cool temperatures and even cooler breeze.
As predicted, the fire was cranked up nice and early, because of the cooler temperatures, and because there was nothing much else to do with the total lack of internet.
During the afternoon, in between reading and doing crosswords, we walked the few metres to the river for some Platypus spotting, and saw some smaller ones several times, and saw more later in the day when they were more active.
The fire that served us well during the afternoon and early evening was great, but eventually the cold forced us inside for the night.
Day 52 - Broken River - Kinchant Dam Campground 21 July, 2023
It was around 8:30 A.M. when we left Broken River Campground, heading in the general direction of Marian, where we hoped to be able to stock up on our diminishing supplies.
The first stop for the day was the Sky Window Walk, which was only a few kilometres from Broken River. The walk was only 250 metres long and afforded amazing views over Pioneer Valley. The view was slightly obscured unfortunately by the angle of the sun that we were looking directly into.
A few more kilometres along the road we stopped in Eungella township to do the Pine Grove Circuit walk, which was a bit longer at around 1.5 kilometres. The walk took us through dense bush but didn't offer any views of Pioneer Valley, or anything else for that matter, except dense bush.
The next adventure for the day was to Finch Hatton Gorge to do the Araluen Cascades walk.
The drive out to the gorge initially took us through thousands of acres of sugar cane fields, with the cane in varying stages of growth. Further in towards the gorge the landscape changed to dense bush again, with a dozen or so creek crossings before we arrived at the walk carpark.
We set out on the 3 km return walk on a well-formed gravel track, once again walking through quite dense bush. It was mostly a gentle uphill incline all the way in, but not too taxing for us.
The effort expended was worth it when we arrived at the waterfalls, which were flowing freely over the cascades. The walk back down to the carpark was much easier and didn't take as long as the climb up.
Our next stop was at a rest area in Cattle Creek to fill up with fresh water, before continuing on to Mirani to make use of their dump point.
With all the points of interest we wanted to see for the day ticked off, we drove onto Marian and parked up in the shopping centre carpark.
The first order of business was lunch at Subway, then into Woolies to do the shopping and last up a visit to the bottle-o for some welcome supplies.
During the day we'd discussed a likely stopping place for the night and eventually decided on Kinchant Waters Dam Campground, which was only 20 km out of Marian.
We booked in for an unpowered site for on night, at a more expensive cost then we'd been used to lately, $30.
Once setup and showered we made the most of the good internet for the remainder of the day, after not having any the previous day and, as always when we're allowed, we got a blazing fire going.
Day 53 - Kinchant Dam Campground - Lotus Creek 22 July, 2023
We set out for the day not having a set destination in mind, only to continue our slow trek south towards home.
We’d forgotten some supplies when shopping the day before, and Sarina was in the general direction we were going, so we headed there first and bought the missing items.
By that time, we’d chosen The Homestead @ Lotus Creek as a likely stopping point for the night, which was only about 100 km from Sarina. The drive out of Sarina initially took us up and over a range of hills on narrow winding roads, and was quite picturesque, but the rest of the drive was unremarkable.
There were no points of interest to see along the way, so our only stops were for morning tea, and to scavenge some more firewood for the night’s fire.
We arrived at Lotus Creek around lunchtime, booked in for a night, set up and had lunch.
Our campsite was right beside the creek, which looked to have a reasonable level of water flowing, so I hoped to be able to try my hand at fishing during the afternoon.
If not fishing, we had to rely on other analogue activities because there was zero internet coverage.
The afternoon was spent chilling, showering and thinking about where the road would take us the next day.
Early evening we went up to the restaurant for dinner and enjoyed sitting outside on the deck of the beautifully reconstructed homestead.
We'd started a fire before dinner and when we got back to Mata we burned all of our remaining firewood, which was great for the night but a dire situation to be in generally.
Day 54 - Lotus Creek - Baralaba 23 July, 2023
In keeping with our recent tradition, we had no idea where we would be stopping for the night, other than travelling south with an immediate destination of Duaringa.
Duaringa was about 265 km away, some of which was on sealed roads, and some on gravel.
Getting ready to leave Lotus Creek we noticed that we'd lost off one of the bolts from the fold-up step hinges. We had a look in the homestead shop, didn't find anything, then asked the old man who did a lot of work around the camp if he could help. He looked around his workshop but couldn't find anything suitable, so it was up to cable ties to patch up things before we set out for the day.
The only brief photo stop we had was at the 1956 Olympic Torch Relay memorial in Croydon, before stopping for morning tea in a gravel pit after covering the first 100 km or so of the journey to Duaringa.
After morning tea we carried on until we turned off the sealed road onto the gravel road, with 100 km still to go. As with most of our gravel road driving lately, the road started off in good condition, allowing us to travel at up to 70 km/h in some stretches, only slowing for the odd rough patch and also for the many floodways (all dry) and the cattle grids that required slowing almost to a stop because they were so rough. The further we went though the worse the road became, but stayed reasonable up until the last 20 km before Duaringa.
At that point it was bad corrugations for the rest of the drive, and prolonged the journey time to about 4 hours to do the 265 km trip.
We were gasping for a beer and pub feed after the long dusty drive, so the first stop in Duaringa was the pub. A sign on the door stated that the pub opened at 1:00 P.M. every day, and it was after one by then, but the pub was still closed. Later we found out that it was closed permanently.
Disappointed, we pulled up in a free camping area and had lunch in Mata, decided we didn't really like Duaringa enough to stay the night, and picked Baralaba as a stopping point for the night.
Leaving Duaringa, the TPMS let us know that our right-rear tyre had lost about 5-6 PSI in pressure, so we doubled back to the servo to put some air into it. The servo didn't have any air that we could see, so we carried on driving monitoring it closely, not wanting to have to change another tyre.
After driving another 100 km we arrived at the Neville Hewitt Weir free camping area, just outside Baralaba and right beside the Dawson River, where we got setup for the night.
We pumped up the tyre that was down a bit with our onboard compressor and kept an eye on the pressure for the remainder of the day and evening.
Thankfully we had good internet after not having the day before, and we also had picked up a bag full of firewood on the side of the road along the way, so it was business as usual for the rest of the day.
Just as Meg was starting the fire an older local gentleman pulled up beside our campsite in a beat up old 4WD and commented on the fire. After Meg asked him a question about the river we were parked beside he got out of the vehicle and pretty much gave his life story. He was a colourful old character who'd lived in the area since 1952 and had been a farmer for some of that time. He had unfortunately lost his wife recently and he was full of conspiracy theories surrounding COVID vaccines causing her death. He was also very outspoken on his dislike of any form of government, in particular how they'd robbed him of water rights he was apparently entitled to. As he was leaving he said that there would be some rain coming later that night, so we made sure everything was under cover before retiring.
Day 55 - Baralaba - Theodore 24 July, 2023
As our visitor from the previous night predicted, rain started falling during the night and continued for most of the day.
When we were ready to leave for the day's journey the TPMS let us know that the right rear tyre we'd had an issue with the day before, had lost 20 PSI overnight.
We drove the short distance into Baralaba township, stopping first at the local hardware store to see if we could get a nut for the bolt that had fallen off our retractable entry step. With some help from staff we bought a couple of nuts, one for a spare, and a couple of washers for the princely sum of 58c. While there we asked about a tyre repair place in town and were directed to the one mechanic in the small township.
The mechanic was busy and couldn't help us until after lunch, so we parked up on the side of the road to pump up the tyre again in the pouring rain, before setting out for Banana, where there was another mechanic.
It was less than 50 km to Banana so we took it easy nursing the tyre for fear it would deflate again. Amazingly, it didn't lose any pressure on the way to Banana.
The only mechanic in Banana didn't do tyres and directed us to Moura, another 18 km away in the general direction we were travelling anyway.
The specialist tyre company in Moura repaired the small puncture on the spot thankfully, and we were soon on our way to do some chores.
After visiting the dump point we went to a nearby bakery to buy some lunch, drove a short distance to a park to eat it, then went to the local IGA for a couple of thing we were running short of.
While doing all that we also decided to aim for Theodore to stay the night, which was only about 50 km further away.
There was a donation camp next to the Dawson River we checked out first, but it was full apart from a couple of small muddy spots that we didn't fancy, so we drove to the only other option in Theodore, the Showgrounds RV camping area.
It was still raining relentlessly when we pulled into our site, so we didn't bother setting up outside.
After beautiful hot showers we chilled inside for the rest of the day, enjoying the surprisingly good internet coverage.
Day 56 - Theodore - Boondooma Homestead 25 July, 2023
Although the rain had stopped late afternoon the day before, there was a cold wind blowing when we got up, so we weren't in a hurry to get moving for the day.
While I was cleaning up inside prior to our departure, Meg fixed the broken retractable step with the nut and washers we'd bought the previous day. Hopefully that would be an end to the breakages and punctures we'd had on this trip.
Our immediate destination for the day was Eidsvold, about 140 km south east of Theodore, and from there we'd decide if we wanted to drive any further for the day.
We only two brief stops on the way, one for a quick photo op in Cracow, which was one of the many mining towns we'd passed through recently, and the other to fill up a bag of firewood from the roadside.
Our first stop in Eidsvold was a cafe for a coffee and sticky bun for morning tea, deciding while consuming those that we'd carry on to the Boondooma Homestead for a one-night stay in their camping area.
After grabbing some supplies we'd forgotten in our last couple of shopping expeditions, we got back on the road and drove directly to Boondooma.
What a little gem this place was! First settled in the late 1840s, the homestead was built in the mid 1850s, and many of the original buildings were still standing.
When we asked about staying for the night an older gentleman said there's 40 acres out there, choose a spot and a lady would take our $15 payment later.
After some initial dithering, we setup beside a small dam that had a large windmill beside it. Turns out it was a great place to park because it was close to the amenities, and we could orient ourselves to have our backs to the strong wind.
We had lunch, read through the information we'd been given about the historic homestead, then did a walking tour around all the buildings.
There were information boards in all of the buildings providing more detail on what we were looking at, and most of the buildings contained original artifacts and photos from the 1850s into the 1900s.
At the end of our walking tour we stopped by the office to pay our dues and to buy some more firewood.
The lady who took our money said there was no firewood bagged, and to just help ourselves from the wood pile where they have communal fires. I don't need to be invited twice for an offer like that, so that's exactly what I did.
We relaxed for the afternoon making the most of the good internet.
Later in the afternoon we had lovely hot showers, then got the fire going to keep us warm from the sometimes gusty winds.
The fire turned out to be one of our better ones, so we stayed outside before and after dinner to enjoy it and to check out the night sky.
Day 57 - Boondooma Homestead - Home 26 July, 2023
Although we hadn't decided entirely the night before about where the day would take us, we came to the conclusion that because we were so close to home, there were no more places to see that we hadn't already visited previously.
That of course led to the decision that we may as well make a run for home.
We woke up to 8 degrees, so were in no hurry to get out and about until the sun had time to do its thing and start warming us up, and we only had about 350 km to drive, and the whole day to do it.
I wasn't entirely ready to give up on this adventure, so I chose to start our journey home on as many back roads as possible, knowing that we would eventually have to travel on some highways.
We drove south to Durango initially, then deviated off the main roads towards Iron Pot. The gravel roads were quite well maintained, and we only suffered a small number of corrugated areas. Arriving in Iron Pot we discovered that there was a farmer's community hall, and nothing else!
Apart from a comfort stop in Kumbia, we carried on to Blackbutt, where we stopped for a lunch of pie and coffee.
The remainder of the drive home was on boring highways and unremarkable, and we arrived back around 1:30 P.M.
And that was it for this 57 day, 11,100 km adventure.
Trip Summary
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