Another night with four times a Dotti break, twice Marjo and twice me. If this is how it’s going to be with grand children then I’m not so sure. At least no rain! The sky is always blue in Queensland but now half covered with clouds. Not too bad. It was a cold night with the campground open to the wide fields and a wind blowing. This is clearly farm land and as you know from the previous post a lot of cotton.
After breakfast we packed up, spoke to a family who drove up to go fishing. Being a fast flowing dam it seems that all the fish collects before the point where the excess water flows over the edge. Last night we had a family with two little kids and I bet that the fish was going to be their evening meal. Similar to the couple this morning, the fish must have had cold feet, as the couple last night arrived at about 5 pm and left only at around 9 pm!
Driving away was a bit tricky, with the campground so wet still from rain the bus gets bogged down quite easily and the back wheels turn to slicks, a bit like Marjo’s boots. We planned the route out over grass and crossing slippery bits and made it out ok.
We stopped to look at the rolls of cotton and were somewhat surprised that this is a popular crop but then again we don’t know too much about Australian farming other than that wheat is popular (AWB scandal) and that sugar cane is very popular around Bundaberg which is not far from here. I know that because most sugar products have that name.
The GPS did it again and wanted us to go over a closed dirt road. Marjo didn’t let me. So when we turned off we only had to cross a little river and Marjo looked for crocodiles. It might also have been a big puddle and she could also have been checking for hidden potholes.
Talking about potholes…..the main road inland is the 93, the one with road trains. They should do a better job in maintaining that as it is empty with potholes. I know it should be “full with them” but it feels wrong to say full with holes as the holes were definitely empty. It must be up to the local councils to maintain it because parts of the road are horrible where others are well maintained. At some bits we saw crews of 4, one looking up the road the other one down for oncoming traffic. One carrying a bucket with tarmac and the other with a shovel filling the potholes quickly. They rely on the on storming traffic to pack it down.
Closer to the coast people in Queensland are full of rugby and the captain of the Queensland team for State of Origin must be a local hero as roads, valleys, companies, bridges and dams all carry the Darren Lockyer name or a part thereof. Well we’ll see on Wednesday. Go Blues!
We arrived at Neurum Creek through dirt roads, paddocks and over dams and were surprised how well organized it is. We would call this hardly a retreat, sign posts everywhere and full with families. Definitely a nice environment and well run place. We asked for a quiet, bit private spot but they didn’t have any of those so instead we got a huge spot that the neighbouring kids used as a soccer field. Initially we planned for two nights but decided that being old geezers it was too busy and we shortened it to only one night.
Not wanting to get another broken night we thought that perhaps Dotti was not tired enough and woke us out of boredom, with no tv reception or Internet and all. So we did two walks with her, one before dinner and one just before sleeping. Let’s pray.
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