Advertisement
Published: December 10th 2011
Arrived here at The Oakridge Motel & Caravan Park at about 2.45 pm. It was hot, about 32 degrees but felt even hotter because it was a dry heat, not the humid sticky heat of the coast. The breeze was hot, blowing across hot dry paddocks and the short, burr laden, grass crackled under our feet. The dogs were panting, and it was more difficult for them than us. Perspiration beaded our foreheads as we checked in, reluctantly getting out of the air conditioned vehicle. The old bloke, (tongue in cheek. he’s about my age) was hobbling on one leg and he asked us to fix up our accommodation account tomorrow when his wife would be on deck. Apparently he did not have much of a handle on the computer, and as he likes a chat I don’t think he has much of a handle on anything. Judgemental? Yes I suppose, but I’m not perfect (yet). All he wanted to do was sit and talk about doing things and getting things done, and all I’ve seen him do since we got here is change a few garbage bins. His wife is the get-up and goer. They are new here as well,
Kilcoy cuppa.
This lovely shady spot in Kilcoy was great for a cuppa and the dogs found lots of bread scraps on the ground, just about pulling our arms off to get them.less than a week, he said. They normally manage pubs, but decided to try caravan parks and aim to give this one a go for twelve months. Opinion: She will get sick of his uselessness pretty quick. So there you have it. It’s official Dave is opinionated and judgemental.
We got the van sited and Grace was being knocked about by the heat so on with the aircon. Grace saw that the dogs were quite stressed by the heat so she decided to run some water over them with the hose, Leo enjoyed it although Lily was a bit reluctant. As soon as she washed Leo down he decided to roll in the grass. The grass was dry and thin so after two minutes of rolling around he got up with grass and red mud all over him laced up with a couple of score of Bathurst Burrs matted into his fur, well he is a dog I suppose. Later we even had the dogs inside on the floor of the caravan getting them de-stressed. They settled down and became more restful as they cooled.
Why Oakey? My sister lives in Toowoomba about thirty K,s away and that
Leo waiting at Cooyar for opening time
Leo, grinning because he has just had a feed and managed to get at least one, loud and unexpected, bark in at a poor road worker on the first part of the trip up the Dividing Range from Nambour on the way to Oakey. Both dogs were hot and thirsty when we stopped at Cooyar for lunch. I especially liked the look of the Cooyar Pub in the background. lovely ‘Garden City’ apparently doesn’t like dogs in their caravan parks. We are up here in Qld and heading for Gloucester to weather the Christmas period so travelling via this route seems logical. And I haven’t seen my sister for about six or seven years so we might just surprise her.
The drive from Nambour went smoothly enough and we came up the big divide on the D’Aguilar Hwy. We stopped at a lovely shaded park in Kilcoy for a morning cuppa and walked the dogs.
The scenery was wonderful as we climbed the dividing range and after Kilcoy we hit the big climb section. Luckily, we tagged on to the back of the queue that got the green light on a section of climb under major repair. Between the towns of Moore and Blackbutt the climb is twisty and steep for about eight to ten kilometres. This section of the highway was extremely damaged during the floods in January. Landslips above and below the roadway needed major work and there were lots of road crews and heavy machinery working on the repairs. The road over that section was barricaded to one lane. Speed limit 40kph and second
Tiny ammenities block
One view from the annex slab showing the proximity of the amenities block. Blokes and Shiela’s only apparently, if you don’t fit those categories, go somewhere else I suppose.
Check the dry fading grass, and the shadow from the tree regrowth showing about 9am. Already we were feeling the sun’s strength.
gear kept us in touch with the single line of vehicles snaking its way up the mountain. There was about a fifteen minute wait at either end if you missed the green light.
Yarraman was the turn onto the New England Highway to take us south, and lunch in a dry hot little park in Cooyar was a welcome stretch of the legs. A secondary road took us down into Oakey past the Army Aviation Training Base and there were a couple of Apache helicopters hovering over the field as we went by. We drove past a lot of golden paddocks of ripened wheat and other ploughed paddocks waiting for their next planting of seed. The Darling Downs has some of the best agricultural land in Australia, and is now under threat from coal mining and coal seam gas extraction. Concerns over extraction processes are now finding a lot of media attention with protest groups having major concerns for the immediate and long term health effects on our artesian aquifers and other valuable water catchments. I have my own opinions about this, but they are not for airing here. Onwards,,,
Oakridge Caravan Park has Eucalypts (mainly redgums) other
Bernborough
Bernborough, as he stands today outside The Jondaryan Shire Headquarters at Oakey Qld.
He stands facing toward his birthplace at Rosalie Plains 30 kilometres away.
native trees and some exotic species dominating and they offer some shade. Our site is only about twenty metres away from the amenities block, which suits us for ease of access. They are small, with only two toilets and two shower cubicles each, with a reasonable laundry at the back. Not even a bloody urinal in the ‘Blokes’. They are very clean and the hot water is. The grass is short with a light dry, green-turning-brown colour to it, they need rain here, soon. The Warrego Highway runs past the park but the traffic noise is not intrusive even though it is the well used link to south western Qld.
Oakey, has a similar claim to fame as Goondiwindi. The great thoroughbred Gunsynd was called The Goondiwindi Grey. Oakey has a bronze statue of the legendary galloper Bernborough. He was foaled about thirty kilometres north of the town at Rosalie Plains and his statue faces him looking back toward his place of birth. There is an inter-active button to press and you get to hear his race win in the Doomben 10,000 in 1946. He was a magnificent horse who carried heavy handicaps and still had a marvellous finish
Oakey Creek
The walk along Oakey Creek is very relaxing and some debris from the January floods can be seen still clinging in the tree branches four or five metres above our heads. Often there are 20 or so sheep grazing along the opposite bank. when seemingly beaten. He won 15 consecutive races and is still the only horse to have won the Doomben 10,000 and Doomben Cup in the same year, 1946. He won top flight races in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. He was one of the original five inductees to the Australian Racing Hall of Fame, along with Carbine, Phar-lap, Kingston Town and Tulloch.
Jockey Athol Mulley rode Bernborough in all his 15 major wins. He started 37 times for 26 wins, 2 seconds and 1 third placing. A remarkable record considering the handicap weights he was forced to carry. Most of them over 60 kilograms. Born in 1939 he passed away in the USA in 1960 aged 21 years, after a successful stud career under the ownership of Louis B Meyer, of Metro Goldwyn Meyer fame, who purchased him for the sum of 330,000 pounds. A proud son of The Darling Downs, Qld.
Oakey is also the home of the Australian Army Aviation training regiment. The Army Aviation Museum is located in Oakey and contains aircraft used by Australian armed forces throughout their history. We won’t get to visit the museum this trip unfortunately and we will have to hold
Exercises
Really a pretty park with lots of room for virtually any kind of family or community based activity.
I am using Grace’s collage here because she needed to get in the story. And by the way she only did two sit-ups. I did duck-egg.
off with the Japanese Gardens in Toowoomba as well. The Japanese Gardens apparently a ‘must see’, are the largest ever constructed in Australia.
Wednesday we took a drive to Dalby, another 60 kilometres further west to have a look see. Dalby is a much larger town than Oakey. It is however just as dry with dry grass, dust and flies. A busy town with farmers and miners in abundance, with all their service’s covered by a multitude of associated businesses. ‘The Barn’ advertises “
’Batteries and Lube oils’, ‘
Guns and Ammo’” out the front. This is Queensland after all. (Who mentioned rednecks?). The Warrego Highway from Oakey to Dalby has five curves in it and two small hills, otherwise it is straight and flat. It cuts through the heart of the Darling Downs with wheat fields glowing gold in the hot sun with massive header/harvesters creating dust clouds off in the distance. There are also fields of deep green chaff growing in the red/brown soils covering many hectares per paddock. The highway is busy with various types of trucks dominant among the smaller cars and utes, every one of them actively involved in day to day country business. Dalby is
flat as well, the houses oppressed by the heat of the day, with their gardens starting to suffer from lack of rain. We found a Woolies store with underground parking for shade for the hounds, and picked up a few things we needed. The dogs were happy to have a toilet walk in a nice park by a creek with some shady redgums giving an illusion of cool. The drive back to the van park seemed quicker than the drive out although the road was just as busy, just as straight and just as flat.
Oakey has a Super IGA store, a downmarket version of Coles, but a lot better than the Coles owned Foodworks store that is the only other supermarket outlet. It has a lovely parkland area centred around a section of Oakey Creek. The creek runs through the town and has cut its own way over time to give some steep sided parts and other more gently sloped areas. The creek does flood, and I did notice flood debris hanging about four to five metres above the water level it is sitting at today. The top of the park is along Toowoomba Road and labelled Oakey
Rotary Park. It has steps leading down to concrete paths and boardwalks alongside the creek. The other side of the creek has sheep, grazing with their lambs, and is very peaceful to the eyes. A couple of large redgums ( Eucalyptus tereticornis) hanging out over the water have ropes attached for swinging and jumping from. The water is a little discoloured but I figure the local kids would know where it was safe to jump. The park has exercise stations every one hundred metres or so for those souls fit enough to do circuit training and a collection of exercise structures up near the primary school. A great initiative from the Jondaryan Shire Council.
Out to Jondaryan, a small township 15 kilometres from Oakey and a look at The Jondaryan Woolshed Museum and Caravan Park.
On our way out of the Oakridge Tourist Park we had to wait on a new arrival getting through the boom gate. I could see what was coming and told Grace to watch, and just as the driver came through the very narrow entrance he swung right to follow the road and his van was not properly clear of the gate.
On the boards
I remember a print of this painting hanging proudly in the Library Room of Hexham Primary School in 1958. It measures 4 feet X 4 feet. Yep, the rear awning upright on the side of the van clipped the gate post and ripped the bottom clip free from the side of the van. The gate post then decided to relieve him of three quarters of the vans rear nudge bar complete with spare tyre attached. I only just avoided the same fate for us when we first entered because my eyes where flicking to every mirror on our own way through five days previous, and I did not have to make the same right hand turn to approach our site. The gate post also clipped the back corner of his van’s body, denting the aluminium cladding and pulling out the joining strip. Insurance job no doubt.
Jondaryan is almost a must visit type of place. The history of sheep farming on the Darling Downs is well catalogued and displayed along with old local buildings that have been re-erected on the site. An old community hall, an old school house, boundary riders hut, whipmaker’s house etc, and you can walk into them and see the way it was back at the turn of the 20
th century. The woolshed is still intact and a walk
Inside the woolshed.
Looking along the woolshed. The floor made from apple tree wood resists splitting and endangering the sheep’s feet. It is also slatted to allow sheep droppings to fall through. One of the most despised jobs at the end of the shearing season was getting through the trap doors to scrape up the sheep nuggets. through, treading the boards the shearers worked and sweated on, left me a little awestruck. They knew hard work in those days. There are several of the buildings that get used still, mainly to give demonstrations and talks on the local history for the larger tourist groups that come through. Large sheds housing old transport exhibits and sheds filled with old farming and sheep related significance are dotted around the site. One weekend a month they run a miniature steam train around a large track, great for the little kids and big kids alike. The last two storey Bank of NSW built in Australia, has been re-erected and restored to glory and is now used as the main entrance and souvenir shop. There is a damper and cuppa cafe built in the style of the era. The dogs unfortunately where not allowed into the Museum site and waited in the back of the Ranger in the shade of an old gum tree.
Jondaryan Woolshed Museum covers a fairly large area and there are many old exhibits to keep the eyes alive and wonder just how hard people had to work back in the late 1800,s and early 1900,s just
The Boards
‘Out on the boards the old shearer stands, grasping the shears in his thin bony hands’,,
These are the boards where it all happened. Old pulleys over each work station and a gate behind to push the sheep through after shearing.
Many shearing competitions would have taken place here. If you listen carefully to the slap of your footwear on the boards you can also experience the noise of the machinery, belts slapping, the spinning of the pulleys, the shouts of the shearers, clacking feet and bleats of sheep, the smell of the wool and the dung. The lanolin from the wool making your hands slippery. The dust in your nostrils from the milling sheep in the yard, and you can feel the sweat, drawing lines, running down your back,,, and your next ewe is on the way in,, bloody marvellous,,,
to live day to day. A great place to visit and not expensive.
I have spent time with my sister and was initially shocked and saddened at how much she has faded since I last saw her. She is 65 years old and has the frailty of person 20 years older. She is piped up for oxygen all the time now and has to take a small medical oxygen bottle with her if she is well enough to be taken out anywhere. She sleeps a lot and fell off into a doze a couple of times as I sat talking to her and holding her hand. She has been a beautiful sister to me throughout my life and it hurts me to see her so frail because I love her dearly. I am immensely proud and at the same time humbled by my brother-in-law’s devotion to my sisters well-being, God bless you Mark Partridge. I am glad we decided to head south via the New England Highway giving me this opportunity to visit her. I am thinking we will come north this way next year on our way to house-sit at Banora Point near Tweed Heads next April so
Original Furphy
Have you ever told a furphy? Water was carried to Australian troops in water barrels like this one on horse drawn carts. Soldiers would gather, gossip and rumour would flow and grow and ‘furphies’ came into the aussie vernacular. we can get another visit in. There will be no photos of us together from now because I would rather have my memories of her as we were when we last spent some time together.
Today we visited the Queensland State Rose Garden at Newtown Park in Toowoomba. Leo, with all the aplomb of a dog, shat on the grass as soon as I got him out of the Ranger and both dogs left plenty of piddle signatures everywhere throughout the park. Some days you just can’t take them anywhere ,,sigh,,,.
The roses, ahh, the roses. The beds were beautifully kept and there were lots of small mass plantings in various colours. The park has a good number of very old trees in quite good condition, large Oak trees (Quercus robur) Silky Oak (Grevillea robusta) Liquidambers (Liquidamber styraciflua), and a stunning Illawarra Flame Tree (Brachychiton acerifolius) among the Jacaranda’s (Jacaranda mimosifolia) in full splendour. There are also some massive Hoop Pine specimens (Araucaria cunninghamiana).
Picnic Point at Toowoomba is a well visited spot for tourists to get views down the range to Grantham and Gatton.
The Hot Pie Cart
Would you buy a pie from the bloke driving this wagon? Pulling it would be a massive, smelly draught-horse, snorting and tail swishing, the occasional fart and stomp of massive hoof,, . The bloke on the wagon, period dressed and yelling out his wares,,, “Simple Simon met a pieman,, blah blah blah” ,,, “and the best pieman was me,, blah blah.” It also has a small, almost rainforest type, park complete with 7 metre man made waterfall. Quite lovely and peaceful.
Grace took the dogs out onto the stepping stones at the front of the waterfall pond and both made attempts to get in the water, nearly pulling Grace off balance herself for a dunking before she could get them back to firmer footing.
We headed back to Oakey after a visit with my sister and all of us had another sit in the air-conditioning. The dogs sit well in the van and just lay on the floor. We don’t let them get too excited and it is a good feeling when you visibly see them start to relax as they cool. We found an Aldi store and bought some cans of sardines for back-up dog food in case we ran out of frozen chicken legs or wings. The girl at the checkout amused me when she counted every individual tin.
This last pic actually reveals a lot more than just tins of sardines,,,. Dave’s glass of red, Graces, Aldi-preferred, biscuits and chocolates and Graces spray bottle of water she sprays on phlowers in public parks to enhance
Mail Coach
The old Royal Mail coach retired to a holding shed waiting for the Labor/Greens government to abolish all fossil fuels so it can be bought back into service. her phloral photography.
‘Phor Phuck Sake’, he said phorgetting the rules of phonetics. Obviously I have little else to employ my phragmenting mind.
Tuesday I visited with my sister again for several hours and then went back to get some preparation done for moving out next morning. Farewell Oakey, farewell Darling Downs,, for now,,
Advertisement
Tot: 0.144s; Tpl: 0.022s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0584s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Gary H
non-member comment
Comprehensive commentary Dave!
Sounds hot & dry & flat with bonus rednecks and maths challenged shopkeepers!