May 25, Hervey Bay, Maryborough

This morning we drove through Hervey Bay. It began as a series of 5 fishing villages, but after years of attracting tourists, it is now a town of 30,000. It had a long beach with a trail for walking and biking. Where the original villages were there were concentrations of cafes and shops. It would be a very pleasant place to spend some time.

A little further south we stopped at Maryborough. It is one of the oldest cities in Queensland. At the visitors center and got a brochure for a town tour. We picked a few things to see and wandered around. We saw the Anglican and Catholic Churches, the old railway station, and Queens Park by the Mary River. On one corner was a statue of Mary Poppins. The author of the books, P.L. Travers was born in Maryborough.

We checked out the local bakery and bought a snack to carry us through the tour. I found that a Jamaica was a coconut tart with icing on it. Super sweet.

In Gympie we bought some groceries and got some more travel advice, then moved to the coast. The area around Noosa Heads was really built up, houses all around the hills by the ocean and high rises near the beach. We found a small rest area further south and watched the sun set. It gets earlier as we go south, tonight it was 5 pm.

Pictures - Hervey Bay beach, Maryborough Town Hall, Etchings of workers biking home from work, Jeanne and Mary Poppins, Catholic Church, Samson in the fig tree roots, Band rotunda

May 24, Miriam Vale, Bundaberg, Hervey Bay

We stopped in the small town of Miriam Vale because they were supposed to have good mud crab sandwiches. While Samson put water in the rv, I talked to the guys at the visitors information center. One of them had been to the US several times and spent a few winters in Alaska outside of Fairbanks - even had his own dog sled and team. The sandwich shop didn't have mud crab, but did have fresh sand crab.

We took a minor highway southwest to Bundaberg, the home of Bundaberg rum. We took a tour of the distillery there. It started in 1888 because the sugar mill had a surplus of molasses and they thought the solution would be to make it into rum. During war time, the rum goes to the troops, leaving the general population without. In WWII, the American troops mixed it with coke and thus a drink was born.

They still use the molasses from the mill. It is goes to the distillery through underground pipes. 96 percent of the bottled rum is sold in Australia and none is sent to the US, something to do with our laws. In recent years they have introduced 'boutique' rums - aged in port barrels, in charred barrels, in port AND sherry barrels. They also make a rum liqueur with chocolate and caramel added to it. After the tour we had the option to sample many of the varieties.

Nearby was Schmeider's Cooperage. Mr. Schmeider learned the trade at the distillery. The rum there is aged in huge wooden vats made of American white oak. he started making small barrels so people could age their own spirits. He still helps Bundaberg when they need a new aging vat.

Further down the road was The Big Barrel, where Bundaberg makes brewed drinks, like rum & ginger beer and rum and lemonade. Back in town, we walked down the main street for a look at the Whaling Wall. It was one done by Robert Wyland, his 23rd and the first one in the Southern Hemisphere.

We've worked our way down and out to Hervey Bay. It's starting to get dark early, so we just stopped at the visitors info center for the night. It's very quiet.

Pictures - Bundaberg Distillery, Samson & Bundaberg Bottle, Whaling Wall

May 23, Capricorn Caves, Rockhampton, Mount Morgan

Our first stop this morning was the Capricorn Caves. There were several caves linked together and they are the only privately owned caves in the country. They were called 'dry caves' because they don't have many formations created by water. There were a few stalactites and stalagmites and a little flow stone. Primarily we walked through different rooms. The largest was called The Cathedral. There are weddings held there and this weekend there will be opera performances. We sat on the pews while the guide lit the room with candlelight. Then she played some music and it was quite nice. Although it was a little musty and damp in there.We had the option to take the zigzag trail out of the cave. It was pretty tight in places and then it exited the cave by a suspension bridge.

We drove to Rockhampton and found the info center. There was a large spire marking the Tropic of Capricorn. The actual tropic was 4km away, and there was a marker there. But the highway was moved and the decision was made to put a marker at the info center, where people would visit it.

Next we drove out to Mount Morgan to take a tour of the town and the old gold mine site. A statue in town was titled "Running the Cutter". It showed a man running with a pail. Back in the mining days, the miners brought their tea to work in a billy or pail. After work they would go to the pub and fill the billy with beer. They settled down near the pub and had a youngster run the billies back to the pub for refills. Don't know why it was called running the cutter. But now they have a yearly festival where they have a relay race to commemorate it. The first runner takes the billy to the first pub, drinks his billy and passes it on until the runners have hit all 4 pubs in town. Kids race, but drink fruit juice.

John showed up with a little bus and 10 of us piled in. Mount Morgan has a population of 2500, and isn't very big, but it does have an interesting history. Gold was found there in 1892 and the ore was dug out by tunnels for 50 years miners lived and worked there. There were separate communities of Irish, Scot, and Welsh families.

New owners started an open pit operation that lasted until 1950. Now the open pit is filled with water that is an environmental problem. It's very acidic and there is an effort being made to make it safer. In January the water overflowed into the river.

A Chinese company recently bought the site and is going to try to get the remaining gold out of the hills of tailings around it.

We drove on the Gladstone to see the worlds largest aluminum plant. It was a very industrial town on the water with a coal shipping terminal.

We parked next to the water, near the marina. It was really quiet, but we realized later that it was a gathering place for young people and their cars.

Pictures - Camping spot last night, 100 year old bridge in Capricorn Cave, Jeanne on the suspension bridge, Samson at the Tropic of Capricorn, Running the Cutter statue, Mt Morgan hotel - now a private residence, Mt Morgan Library, Water in the open pit, Mt Morgan RR Station

May 22, Mackay, Sarina

We were fortunate to find a parking place downtown this morning that was close to the Heritage Tour. We were early so we walked around and wandered into the Anglican Church. We met, Ann, the rector, who told us a little about the church and parish. Female priests are more common in eastern Queensland, in Mackay, its 2 of the 5.

The guides were John and John, volunteers at the visitors center. We walked around and they pointed out buildings and told stories about the history of Mackay. It was very entertaining. There was a massive cyclone in 1918 that almost destroyed the town, so few buildings remain from before that. There was a fire in the 1920s that destroyed a lot of buildings. Many of the historical buildings now are Art Deco buildings from the 1920s and 30s.

We stopped at an old sugar warehouse by the river. There were holes drilled in the wooden floor, above the water. At one time rum was stored in barrels on the floor and thieves drilled into them to steal the rum. The owner had a crab trap in the water and when she pulled it up, she had a few mud crabs in it. They weren't large enough to keep, though.

One of our stops was at the Anglican Church Parish Hall, at one time the center of community life in Mackay. We met Olive, who told us about the dances that were held there. She met her husband at one of the dances, as did any other older residents of town.

We left Mackay to drive south to Sarina. There was large sugar mill there, but we stopped to see the miniature sugar mill. Sara gave us a tour that included some old machinery used in the cane fields: one to pick up long canes and put them in wagons to take to the mill; a couple of harvesters, one from the 1920s and a Massey Ferguson from the 50s; and a planter that dug the furrow, put cut cane and fertilizer into it and covered it.

In the miniature mill part, Sara squeezed cane juice from a stalk of cane so we could have a taste - it was green and sweet tasting. Then she told us about the rest of the refining process. The little mill works, but they cane isn't ready to harvest yet, so we saw films instead. Then we were able to taste molasses, treacle (tastes like light molasses) and golden cane syrup (used on pancakes and in baking). There was a display of the crystallized sugar products; white sugar, caster sugar (finer crystals), raw sugar, brown sugar, and coffee sugarż. Brown and coffee sugar are white sugars with molasses added for color. Coffee sugar has large crystals.

The miniature also distills the cane syrup to produce liquors, vodka and schnapps. And they make chutneys and relishes and sauces.

We drove a couple of hundred kms after that and are at another crowded rest area. For dinner, I made a shrimp dish using a sweet chili, lime sauce I bought at the mill. It was really good and a welcome change from our usual fare.

Pictures - Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Interior, Mud crabs, Clothing store, Art Deco facade of Ambassador Hotel, cane planter, Sara extracting juice from sugar cane

May 21, Bowen, Eungella NP, Mackay

Bowen was close to the campsite, so we got into town early and walked around. There were murals about the history of the town and some dedicated to special people. We stopped at Joacham's Bakery (award winning) and bought scrolls to eat on the walk. The movie, "The Australians", with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, was made in Bowen.

At nearby Queens Beach there was an old movie house, built in the 1920s to resemble those in Southern California. It's still a cinema.

We stopped at Bowen's info center, next to the Big Mango. This area grows lots of mangoes, but they don't have them until Dec.

From there we drove south and stopped at the information center in Marian. It was housed in the home of Nellie Melba. She was a singer who was famous worldwide in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Her name is also associated with Melba toast and Peach Melba.

Then we went west to Eungella NP and walked up Finch Hatton Gorge to the falls. From the main road to the falls parking lot was paved road part of the way, then small dirt road that forded about 5 streams. So it seemed like we were in the middle of nowhere, but when we got to the parking lot there were 2 motorhomes and 4 cars there. It was a good hike to the falls, an uphill dirt track over rocks. So I was surprised to see 2 couples with small babies there. One had a stroller.

This is still sugar cane country and they're going to be harvesting soon. We passed 3 sugar mills today and there was a lot of activity. We also saw workers getting the railroad tracks ready for the cane cars. In this area, they still burn the sugar cane before they cut it.

We drove east to Mackay. It was about 4 in the afternoon, so we checked in with the visitors center and found a laundromat. We hadn't done laundry since Darwin, so now we're feeling pretty fresh. We drove downtown to find City Hall. We're planning to take a city tour there in the morning and wanted to get the lay of the land.

Now we're back at the visitors center. It's an unofficial camping spot. There's a motorhome and a couple of camper vans and a few cars here, too.

Pictures - Mural in Bowen, Summergarden Theatre in Queen's Beach, Samson & the Big Mango, Nellie Melba's home, Fording a stream, Finch Hatton Gorge Falls

May 20, Townsville and Ayr

We spent most of the day in Townsville at the Reef HQ Aquarium. It's the world's largest living coral reef aquarium. It had a tunnel that went through the reef they had made there and lots of displays on the coral and the fish that live there. We went to a talk about the various sharks. Then we learned about coral. That was the most interesting. Our guide, Tom, told us what coral is and how it grows and reproduces. One of the questions was about the color of coral. In the pictures it's always bright reds and yellows and in the aquarium it's brownish and greenish. He explained that the photographers use lights to get the colored pictures. When sunlight goes through water it loses the spectrum. The first color to go is red, go deeper and lose orange, yellow and finally blue. Then everything looks black.

The aquarium also houses a turtle hospital. The rangers bring the turtles to them, some are injured, but most are floaters. Somehow they have gotten air under their shell, through a collapsed lung or intestinal problems and can't dive down for food. In the big tank was one who was very skinny when he came in, but now was eating and gaining weight and not floating. He had a collapsed lung. In the hospital were several Green Sea Turtles, a Flatback, and a couple of of others that I can't remember. There are 7 species of sea turtles and 6 lives in the waters around Australia.

After the aquarium, we walked down The Strand along the beach. It was just beautiful there. We stopped for a late lunch on the waterfront and had fish tacos and fish and chips. It was fancier than we had had before. The fish was cut into long pieces and looked like long fish sticks. The fish tacos were made from grilled local mackerel.

The next town down the road was Ayr. There were a couple of things we were going to see, but couldn't find and the visitors center was closed. We asked a lady walking by, but she had never heard of them. We did see the Carpet Snake sculpture. It's a totem for the local Aborigines. And we saw a diorama the Lions Club had made that explained how sugar is grown and refined and also about the building of the bridge across the river there.

Now we're in a rest area further down the road. The rest areas fill up fairly early. This one is a circular road with a toilet near the middle. The trailers and motorhomes and camper vans are parked like wagons around a campfire.

Pictures - Different kinds of coral, Lionfish, Fish and coral, Sick turtle in a tank, Samson on The Strand, Carpet Snake sculpture

May 19, Murray Falls, The Hughes, Saunders Beach

The rest area turned out to be a transit center for Tully. That meant that several Greyhound buses stopped there during the night. And about 2 am, maybe the pub closed or a party broke up, but there were a lot of people walking by the rv and since we had our windows open, we could hear them everything they said. We'll check further next time.

We drove to Murray Falls, and a boardwalk went to a lookout near the base. A longer walk took us up to the top of the falls. This is wet tropical rainforest, very humid, and usually very dense. But Cyclone Yassi came through this region 2 years ago and took down a lot of big trees and cleared some of the growth.

After the falls we went for a cuppa at Sara and Noah Hughes place. They were out in the field cutting silage for their cattle. They were expecting rain and wanted to get the silage cut before it got too wet. So we went out into the field to watch them. Later Noah will mix it with water and molasses for the cattle.

We had bought a large pastry in Innisfield, so we brought that in and Sara had coffee and we sat around the table and talked for almost 2 hours. Sara is of Sicilian decent and Noel, English. Her father came over in the 1950s and joined a large Sicilian community here. The Hughes have grown sugar cane; small crops, like watermelon and pumpkin and are now raising cattle. It sounds like a hard life. To supplement their farming they own and drive two school buses. Really nice people. One phrase they used that struck us as odd was "she fell pregnant". We had heard it somewhere else just the other day.

From there we went south through a lot of road construction - repairing damage from Yassi. At Ingham, we stopped at the Coral Sea Battle Memorial. US ships Lexington and Chicago fought there in WWII.

Tonight we're at a rest area at Saunders Beach. It's filled with campers, but I think it will be quieter than last night - and cooler.

Pictures - Jeanne at Murray Falls, Murray Falls from the top, Samson on the rocky trail, Sara and Noel cutting silage, Coral Sea Battle Memorial