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Published: October 10th 2013
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In the recent Federal Election, Queensland campaigned heavily for improved roads. It has not been hard to understand why. Today’s drive was much smoother than yesterday’s lumpy, bumpy, jumpy drive. However it was still very clear the damage frequent heavy rain, flooding and large heavy vehicles inflict on the roads.
Road signs often indicated the state of many main highways. At this stage all seemed to be ‘Open’. As we joined the road to Banana the sign said ‘Caution.’ What exactly does that mean? We couldn’t see any smoke that might indicate a bushfire so we proceeded with caution as suggested. Not far down the road we came across a ‘Roadwork in Progress’ sign. Roadwork for the next 80km. Really! Well, actually, yes really!
As it turned out it wasn’t too bad. Towing a caravan means driving slightly slower anyway so as long as we could keep moving it wasn’t too bad.
Finally we arrived in the town of Banana. We’re sure you too would have expected such a place to be very tropical, featuring large banana plantations and maybe even a BIG banana. Wrong! It was the total opposite. We are
still puzzled as to why it carried that name.
We passed a large metallurgical coal mine site. Soon after this a dual carriage electric train line ran beside the road, complete with trains of multiple engines and many carriages.
Chatter over the CB radio is always entertaining. ‘One gone bush’ alerted us to the road train in the bushes ahead of us. There was no obvious reason so again we were left to ponder why. Our ears pricked up with the first mention of Moranbah over the CB; our destination in just a week.
Cattle trucks, (lots of them) small trucks (lots of them) and 4x4s (lots of these too) packed the parking lot of the large cattle sale yards on the outskirts of Rockhampton. Later in the evening we saw on the news that the annual cattle exchange had taken place that day. Stock numbers were down so there were fewer sales than usual. Given the number of vehicles in the vicinity we could only imagine how many people and animals were present.
Entering Rockhampton means we are now officially in the tropics. Heavy traffic and nowhere
to pull off meant the ‘Tropic of Capricorn’ sign went un-photographed. We didn’t need a sign to tell us we were here. It was very hot and sticky. In fact we spent quite a bit of the afternoon browsing in the local shopping mall as it was the coolest place around.
With a chicken roasting in the BabyQ we sat in the air-conditioned comfort of our caravan. It was at this time we received a call from Tristan. It seems we have only just managed to sneak in our visit to him and Zoe before they uproot and head to Brisbane where Tristan will FIFO to his new placement at Daunia. At lunchtime he had been informed they wanted him to transfer asap. It is a good thing he had leave booked for our impending visit. The day we leave Moranbah Tristan and Zoe will head to Brisbane to organise accommodation. Exciting times!
Now to those noisy birds! As evening approached we could hardly hear each other speak for the deafening screech of lorikeets as they began roosting for the night in the nearby palms. The volume of the screeching was amazing. After darkness had taken hold Joan went out to check on the BBQ. She was confronted by a very strange noise which turns out came from two rather large birds. As she approached the BBQ they took an aggressive stance, spreading their wings and tail feathers, ducking their heads menacingly and making loud supposedly scary sounds. They were quite comical. Every step closer the more agitated they became. The chicken did smell delicious, but we were not going to share! We suspect it was these same birds screeching at intervals throughout the night.
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Thel
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My favourite part of your blog is the photos. What happened today guys!