Blogs from Emerald, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 2

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 ... read more

Wednesday 4th Jan Checked out the lookout over Fairbairn Dam - fantastic view - then onto Emerald - visited the largest painting in the world on an easel with the Emeralds giant Van Gogh Sunflower painting. Visited the lovely original 1900 Emerald railway Station which is still in use - just beautiful. Sunflowers were a staple crop in Emerald until the land was needed for the fast growing population for the mining industry. There are still Sunflower crops in the outer areas of Emerald where the land is dryer as Sunflowers need very little water to survive. Emerald was very badly effected by the Jan 2011 floods and we saw the water mark up to the top of the counter in the Coles shopping centre. It is hard for us to imagine how high these floods ... read more

11 April - Banana. The site was behind the pub. In fact, the town consists of 2 gas stations, 1 pub and a post office. We waited until the post office opened, bought 2 postcards to send to the grandchildren, wrote and posted to them. Then on to Carnarvon Gorge National Park. Our Tomtom refused to find it, but we had a map. By now we have towed the caravan for over 1,100 km and the car has done about 2,100km. Easy to mount up when you are having fun. Carnarvon is a national park created around a sanstone range of mountains which has has a deep gorge carved through it. As the sandstone retains water, it creates a river that runs for year round. Valuable in Australia. However, they've had lots of rain over the ... read more

Hi everyone I havent written on the blog in a while mainly becuase ive been working and nothing exciting has been happening so I thought I'd update you all. Ive been working in Emerald since the February 28th becuase its the cotton picking season now so my job is to sit on a large machine which crushes cotton, its difficult to explain but im sure you'll see the photos soon. I am going to be working until the 5th of April before I get a flight to Cairns on the 6th April. When im in Cairns one of the highlights of my trip will be happening I will do my advanced PADI diving course on the greatest natural wonder in the the world, the Great Barrier Reef which ive heard from friends is amazing. it should ... read more

Hi everyone just a quick update on things. Last week I went on a road trip to a town called Gloucster in NSW with a friend from work who had to pick up a motorbike, overall it was around 2750KM, it was nice to see some of the country where buses dont go and meet some local australians. Work is the same as always very boring, and I cant wait to start travelling on 15th December. Welll thats all and ill let you know whats going on next time im on the internet.... read more