Ravenshoe / Charters Towers / Emerald

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After listening to some very talented up and coming Country and Western singers at the Mareeba Rodeo showgrounds we ventured south to a town called Ravenshoe, pronounced Ravens “oh” and not Raven “shoe” we were fortunate to arrive just in time for their local annual carnival and street parade complete with about 15 floats! Very quaint and entertaining. There were even fireworks to round off the day but unfortunately Pete and I were in the pub watching the Kiwis losing against the Kangaroos and missed all the fun and action.

Today we set off south once more to travel along the inland route to Charters Towers which amounted to several hundreds of kilometres of red dirt and gum trees and not too much else. The guy at the information office in Ravenshoe tried to persuade us to take the coast road back down once more but we are so glad we didn’t take his advice as we really enjoyed the scenery and the novelty of driving down these long long roads. We took turns driving and had to look out for the many dead kangaroos all over the road and then when the road trains come along it is necessary to get right off the bitumen where it is only one vehicle width wide. The rule is if it is bigger than you then move. Today a car came along and it went right over and off the road so I could drive by and yet our motorhome is by no means huge. Tonight we are camped by the side of the road just out of Charters Towers along with many other travellers as usual. This site has a lovely creek running by it with several people opting to go for a swim. It is crocodile free down here but I still think there could be eels or snakes in it so I will stick to my nice warm shower in the camper. One has to have some small luxuries in life!

We stayed in a lovely camping ground in Charters Towers with a great swimming pool, a nice way to cool down in this heat! We have been into the town, which used to be the second biggest town in Queensland. Lots of heritage listed buildings and amazing architecture. Having a day of rest gave us time to re sort the inside and outside storage of the van, do the washing and generally take it nice and slow after the long drive.

We watched at dusk as approximately 2,000 bats flew overhead presumably looking for a feed somewhere. There have been several bushfires around here and someone thought maybe that was the reason that there were so many. Amazing sight anyway and I was just concerned that one may soar down and bite me! Pete thinks that I am a real wuss but one can never be too careful around bats! Rabies come to mind!

We biked into town again but on leaving a shop Pete discovered that his bike had a flat tyre so we ended up walking the 2km back to the camp ground in pretty hot weather! It has been a long time since either of us have fixed a tyre so we actually enjoyed finding the leak, fixing it and pumping up the tyre again. I say we when Pete actually did 99% of the job! Tested it out later by biking back in to find a pub for a drink

We have just spent 3 lovely days in Saphire with Ola who made us very welcome. Pete enjoyed getting stuck into a bit of gardening for her but unfortunately was stung pretty badly whilst cutting the hedge with his arm swelling up quite a lot. With medication from the chemist he is now on the mend thank goodness. Ola drove us around Saphire showing us all the small claims pegged out around the area by the saphire miners. Pete and I went on a tour of on of the mines underground which was really interesting and then we bought a bucket of wash and tried our hands at fossiking for our own saphires with not much luck unfortunately but never the less we stiil had fun trying.

Emerald was our overnight stop yesterday and after a bike ride around their botanical gardens we decided we may as well move on south so after a brief stop at Lake Maraboon and Fairfield Dam where we had a refreshing swim to cool down in this high 35 degree weather we are now camped at Surespring under a mountain that has a rock that looks like the Virgin Mary and is lit up at night!

Off to Carnarven Gorge National Park to do some hiking tomorrow.

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Photos

Ravenshoe
Street Parade with Scottish Pipe Band

Charters Towers
Heritage buildings

Saphire
Saphire mine

Saphire
Fossicking

Saphire
Ola and Pete in garden

Emerald
Road Train

Emerald
Huge easel and Vincent Van Gogh painting - Sunburst