September 19th 2022
Rockhampton to Roma
This morning is dull and overcast a complete contrast to yesterdays glorious weather. Rockhampton is softening the blow for us as we prepare to leave. The tropics will soon be in our rear vision mirror, goodbye palm trees, plumeria and hibiscus goodbye to tropical gardens and soft warm air. Goodbye to the blue oceans of the Coral sea as we head inland for cooler climes.
Amanda has reset the car space for another game of Tetris. In the process finding my long lost thongs, that had believed to have stayed on holiday in Palm Cove. Piece by piece the assorted paraphernalia that makes up our travelling belongings fits neatly into place.
Again we put our trust in Apple maps, we travelled this way six weeks ago, a simple reverse of procedures seems a simple task, not so. Before we know it we are headed off into the back hills, over the invisible line that marks the Tropic of Capricorn and into dryer terrain. Weaving through the hills, about 38 kilometres from Rockhampton, that form part of the Gelobera State Forest, we come across a town that could double as a movie set for the site of a gold rush town in the late 1800’s. The old Queenslander style houses in untouched original condition dot the hills, perched up on their stilts they line the hilly streets of the town. Mount Morgan is quite big for a small country, well out of the way town, with a population around 2000 people. The buildings are mostly distressed looking with chipped paint and faded facades. We see a steel chimney stack back behind the town so figure that this is indeed a mining town. It is not until we are leaving the town that we see a sign “100 Years of Gold” Seems that a gold mine opened in the town in 1882 and the town grew up around it. Mount Morgan took its name from Frederick Morgan who took out the original gold mining lease. Over the years the mine produced, gold, silver and copper. One man made a fortune from the mine William Knox D’Arcy, he went on to form the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in Iran, now known as BP.
The area went on to produce clay bricks for furnaces, that resulted in man made caves that later became known as Fireclay Caverns. Preserved Dinosaur footprints found at the site lined the ceiling of the caverns in nine different locations. Modern testing dated them back to the Early Jurassic. In 1891 3514 people lived in this prosperous little town. Sadly the money all went offshore. The only Gold we found belonged to a shrub, golden grevillea, common name Golden Lyre an Australian native plant.
Unbeknown to us we had travelled the Burnett Highway, that turned out to be an interesting diversion. We continued on to the town of Dululu before connecting up with the Leichhardt Highway again.
We are now making a steady pace south via the Leichhardt Highway retracing our route on the way north. We stop at Theodore for a break, passing by the Dawson River weir we encountered on our way north, only this time the river is flowing much faster. Just as we are leaving the heavens open up and heavy rain descends. One photo has eluded me over the past weeks, that is one of a typical Queenslander house that has restoration work done, taking it back to its former glory. We spot one on our way out of Theodore and so I stop in the pouring rain to take a shot.
The main highway once again takes us through the town of Wowan, we stopped here on our journey north more than a few weeks ago now. Just passed Wowan we come across a field full of camels. Still an unusual and unexpected site in outback Australia, although we all know the story of the Afghan camel drivers that roamed the outback in the 1800’s. Camels are becoming big business in Queensland, with the largest camel Dairy in Australia (Camel milk is now a readily available ingredient in skincare products in Australia with many claimed skincare benefits). Australia has the largest wild camel training centre in the world. In 1840 over 10,000 animals came to Australia, most to South Australia, to assist with exploration, many escaped and flourished, ranging over 70 kilometres a day they quickly became an invasive species in the outback Queensland where the climate suited them most (sounds like someone we know). Every year in July, in the outback town of Boulia, a Camel Race meeting is held, thousands flock to the town to witness the event with jockeys dressed in full riding gear and colourfully patterned silks and caps. Of course it is well known that Aussie’s will gamble on anything that moves so this shouldn’t be a surprise.
The country side around the Mt Isla National Park is densely forested giving us plenty of scenery to look at in this part of the trip, slowly the clouds are left behind and the sky once again turns blue with no sign of bad weather ahead. The temperature again begins to rise as we travel further south. We are back in the Banana Shire, named after the Bull not the Fruit, soon reaching the town of Taroom. The Apple app. wants to take us on a short cut bypassing Miles, we are a little apprehensive, fortunately a large mobile road sign indicated that there is water over the road 5 kilometres ahead. Our decision is quickly made to travel on to another road that also shortcuts through to Roma. Southeastern Queensland and northern NSW has experienced an enormous amount of rainfall over the past 6 months resulting in severe flooding, inundating a number of towns and causing untold damage and misery. The rain keeps coming back, sweeping over the centre of Australia, and now for the third time this year flooding is expected in these normally drought affected outback areas. All of the rivers are up, the usually baked dry earth has absorbed as much moisture as it is able, any further rainfall just feeds into the already swollen rivers, eventually overtaking the flood plains. It is this scenario that provides us with some anxiety.
The turn off to our second shortcut arrives at Wandoan, we stop for a comfort stop at a convenient placed memorial park. Stretch our legs before moving on.
This next cut through road displays no signs of water over the road ahead, its an 85 kilometre shortcut so we decide to take it. The road is good most of the way but narrows down to one lane with gravel shoulders in a number of places. Very awkward for passing road-trains that are not infrequent. We come across one work crew repairing the road, broken up from heavy water flows across it. Numerous creeks present themselves mostly dry after relieving themselves of their load over the sodden landscape around us. The creeks are not forded by bridges of any description, the road just dips steeply over the usually dry creek beds and then rises steeply out of the bed to higher ground again. About halfway though the shortcut that is rapidly becoming less of a shortcut then we anticipated, we come across one such dip in the road but at the bottom the creek is full of muddy water. We stop and ponder what do we do, turn back or go across. The water doesn’t look deep, but it could be a lot deeper than it looks, the water isn’t flowing a real positive. We draw breath and cautiously proceed, while a farmer in a four wheel drive on the other side of the creek crosses over giving us a wave and a wry smile. We make it through no problem the farmer probably having a laugh, its not often he would see city dwellers like us out here in a Mercedes fording flooded creeks in outback Queensland. Continuing on is almost as harrowing, not knowing if worse is yet to come, has us on edge. Never the less we make it through and once again pick up the Leichhardt Highway for the final leg to Roma.
Tomorrow we travel to Charleville for an appointment with Bilby’s, Stay tuned……….