Change of plan-Rocky here we come!

Our original intention was to meet up with Chris' brother in law Kim Dale and wife Debbie at Sapphire, and do a bit of prospecting.  The original original plan was to travel with Chris' other brother in law John Dale and wife Margaret from Rathmines, but they have been delayed in Newcastle for another week.  Yesterday we learned that Kim and Debbie have been delayed in Bowen and won't be coming to Sapphire at all.

We still want to do some prospecting with John and Margaret, so we decided to put Sapphire on hold for the moment and use the intervening time to go to Rockhampton.  We may go further north to a place called Carmila, and meet up with Kim and Debbie there (if they can get away from their motel).  In any case. we'll stay on the coast for the time being and return to the Emerald/Sapphire area in time to meet up with John and Marg.  Since they won't be leaving Rathmines till Friday 20th, and will take at least 3 or 4 days to arrive up here, we will not head for the inland again before about Sunday or Monday next.

We've been very busy, and have seen many wonderful things in the last few days.  We passed some very odd looking mountains yesterday, and visited the lovely town of Springsure at the foot of them.  There's a really nice park stretching for some distance by the river.

Emerald is a big surprise.  It's a biggish town (pop 16,000 in 2008, probably quite a few more now).  There are jobs going begging, even saw a sign wanting apprentice hairdressers, but housing's in short supply.  There are two Centro malls, one for Woollies and one for Coles, but Woollies (and Big W) are also represented in a bigger shopping centre on the outskirts of town.  Pleasant info centre, nice wide streets with shady centre parkiing, lovely Botanic Gardens by the river.

                Botanic Gardens at Emerald.  Opened only in 1988, surprisingly advanced already.

We stayed at Higher Ground, a farm 16 kms out of town, near the Fairbairn Dam.  No facilities but only $5 per night, friendly owner and quiet, peaceful surroundings.  The dam is astounding, not for itself (dams are dams are dams) but for the multitude of birds, big and small, waiting at the bottom of the spillway for dinner to come to them.  I imagine that fish who've been hurtled down the spillway are a bit stunned and confused, and easy to catch.  There are literally hundreds of pelicans, shags, and other fish-eating birds swimming, flying, or sitting on concrete bollards and edges waiting for fast food.

This is a small portion of the hordes of birds awaiting fast food.  Can you see them lining the banks as well as swimming (and flying?)

After leaving Emerald this morning, we stopped briefly in the tiny village of Comet to see Leichhardt's dig tree.
The original tree, an old coolibah, has been removed to a shelter.  It's impossible to read the words in it now (it was carved in 1847, after all) but you can see where they used to be, and there's also a replica so you can see how it used to look.  Not much else to say about Comet except it's on the Comet River, naturally.

Replica of Leichhardt's "Dig Tree" with records in case he didn't return.  He did, that time, but the next time was lost forever.  Not sure if L was for Ludwig or for Leichhardt.

We stopped this morning at a rest stop in Blackwater, next to the Japanese gardens and a huge superseded dragline (mining) bucket which would hold about 50 people, maybe more- goodness knows how many tonnes of coal.  When I worked for Bradken I used to order from Canada and the US the "jewellery" (blades, points, scoops and other attachments that actually contact the earth when the digger's in use) for these enormous buckets.  Each bucket is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. (That's without the machine to drive it!) This is an excellent rest stop, with a Subway if you're hungry, good toilets and an open cut mining display which we found interesting- Bucyrus, Esco and Wear Resistant Products, all the products I used to import, were represented there, interesting to see how they were used.

  This is the big dragline bucket used in open cut mines. The bits pointing down at the front are the "jewellery" (isn't that sweet?)  They use different points and scoops etc for different types of terrain.

We've been out of mobile range for a few days so I'm behind in my blogging.  I haven't even finished telling you about Carnarvon Gorge but will try to do that now.  Photos will come later so be sure to re-read this and the Carnarvon section.

We've managed to identify the big raptors which are so plentiful in the area, we've been seeing them for days and today saw a flock of about 50.  They're called Black Kites, though they are actually brown.  Their forked tail seen from underneath is very distinctive.

Tonight we're free camping at Duaringa, about halfway to Rocky, a nice enough place with plenty of space (just as well, because at 4.45pm there are already 8 vans here). Luckily there is internet access, or rather mobile access, which makes our dongle work.  We went for a 5 minute ride which just about covered the town, it's got wide streets and lots of trees.  Not many shops but two servos.  Fruit bats are making a nuisance of themselves in the trees of a couple of residents, who are to be pitied, they're such smelly, noisy creatures.

We'll go to a caravan park in Rocky to do the washing and hopefully will catch up then.