QLD heading North - Warwick, Roma, Carnavon Gorge, Emerald, Blair Athol Mine tour, Charters Towers, Mt Surprise + Undarra and finally Cairns

Sat 2/10/10 – Roma - $63 (bought Big4 membership $50) – without card cost = $70 - 34 degrees

Hit the road at 8am after best nights sleep so far. The resident mouse had eaten his way thru a wash cloth after we chased him out the night before. Drove into Warwick and did a food shop + fuel and walk around a chilly town!

Onto Toowoomba, where we took in the lovely Japanese Gardens, Botanic Gardens (flower displays lovely) and Picnic Pt with view down the escarpment to Brisbane. We got lost finding our way out of town and did a full lap of town!

Drove thru Dalby, chinchilla, Miles and eventually Roma by 5:30pm.

We had a quick dinner and went to the Big Rig Night show, which showcased Roma’s Nat Gas history and dodgy US miners who seemed to be trying to sabotage the oil wells in the area.

In bed and shattered by 9:30pm.

Sun 3/10/10 – Carnarvon Gorge - $120/night in tented cabin.

Got going at 6:15am and drove 180km up thru Lonesome Nat Park Sth entrance, to the lookout and out the Nth entrance.

The road was very rough in places and 50km or so was gravel with muddy fords to cross (tough n go!). The views were nice, but not worth the dust/mud – the car is caked in mud low down and splatters all over.

We drove the 45km into Carnarvon Gorge over 50% was gravel and freshly graded, so quite slow – 59km/h max.

We got to the Takarakka Bus Resort ($120/night for a tented hut with fridge, no towels or sheets – shares showers/toilets/cooking). They had the nerve to expect us to mop the floor in the toilet blocks etc etc....

We unpacked our gear and went up to Park HQ, which we left by 10:45am in hot weather 9.6km up the gorge to Big Bend.

I felt light headed for a while – turns out it was just tiredness after a feed/drink. We were always short of water, so eventually I got water from a rocky river section in Wards Canyon beyond the barriers.

The walk up was v.nice, but no better than Blue Mtns walks, but once I went up Wards Canyon I was a happy camper!

It was very narrow and high walled -100m up and full of rounded rocks underfoot and quite mossy in places – surreal!

Art Gallery was so, so.

The Amphitheatre was lovely – climbing up a ladder and thru a narrow gorge to get to an amphitheatre with 100m+ high walls – perhaps 40m x 30m area. Plenty of moss again and some running water.

The Moss Garden was a lovely varied walk and a tight gorge ending in a mossy sided waterfall.

We were buggered and very thirsty by the time we got out – 25km day!

I had no side effects from the river water nor the very old spider webbed energy bar!

A light meal of leftovers and instant noodles before racing over to see a makeshift big screen TV that the NRL grand final was already over – doh! In bed by 8pm.

Mon 4/10/10 – Emerald - $85/night in a booming mining town (coal) – most motels $150+ and fully booked.

We awoke at 5am with Karen’s feet still shattered, so I went and did Boolimba Bluff hitting the trail by 6:15am (hard climb to get canyon top views that frankly weren’t worth it). Before leaving camp Karen spotted a platypus outside our hut in the river moving around quite quickly and industriously.

I wandered back down the old trail and onto the Nature Trail by the river near HQ. Next stop was The Rock Pool, Baloon Cave abo engravings – both so, so.

Mickey Creek was v.nice and had the best features of the full Canyon walk y’day. Palm Trees, tight gorges and plenty of birdlife + the odd kangaroo.

We checked out by 10am with Karen burning some confidential docs on the camp fire.

We drove up thru Rolleston , Springsure (lovely Mtns on West side and cattle country) and eventually into the bustling and aggressive Emerald. Everyone in quite a rush!

We got fuel, found accommodation (luckily) and checked in – 4km nth of town. I had a swim and we had lunch and took off for Sapphire and Rubyvale at 1:30pm. We were too late to get on any tours, though most stuff seemed shutdown anyway.

We got back around 4pm and had a good chat and were shown maps of QLD’s mines/gas fields + got info on Blackdown Tableland Nat Park and got onto an unscheduled tour of the Blair Athol mine in Clermont for Wed morning that we had given up any chance of making as it didn’t fit our schedule.

We did a big supermarket shop and got back to hotel by 6pm. I setup the HTC sync software so we can now use the internet thru Karen’s Telstra phone and a 1GB/m data pack.

Tue 5/10/10 – Emerald - $85/night - 34 degrees

Up early again – 5am this time for a 6am departure to Blackdown Tableland Nat Park that took 1h:45m for the 130km trip East.

We did all 6 walks in the park which was several hundred feet above the planes (very much like a Blue mtns scenario again).

The waterfall walks were awesome – a granite rock base cascading down a number of drops – truly beautiful !

I had a couple of swims, the 1^st was in a sinkhole area of the river rocks, quite deep and steep sided – cold water!

The 2^nd swim was at the base of the Rainbow Waters, where Karen skinny dipped as well. Also cold, and an even more beautiful scene with high sided cliffs, palm trees, singing birds and plenty of mozzies!!!

The watercourse spilled down another 150m and then a couple of further big drops. Stunning!

We drove back to town via Blackwater coal museum – luckily it was not open due to a technical malfunction – I snuck in anyway and have to say it was so, so and they wanted a $16 entry fee normally. Rich!

Back in Emerald we did the Botanical gardens that were partly under water due to the extremely high water levels.

Did some Wi-Fi downloads and checking emails etc.

Wed 6/10/10 – Charters Towers - $60/night at Waverly Hotel – 32 degrees

Left hotel at 7:20am after placing a couple of trades (MCE + IDL). Drove 100km to Clermont where we met the 8:45am Blair Athol Coal mine tour. We were driven out to the mine, which was largely not operating today for some reason. This RIO mine is a Tier 1 asset (opencut mine with a 1:1 strip/coal ratio + the truck haul distance is 5km instead of 20-30km for many mines. 97% of the coal doesn’t need washing and all equipment is being reused since it was opened in 1974.

We went onto the superb and varied Clermont Museum for 1hr.

Next stop was a town tour incl murals of life in the area + $18/mo rental houses provided by the mine.

Lastly we went to Coppertown 6km away. The only remnants of the 2,500 person town was 1 chimney (of 24) and an abandoned general store – fully stocked – fascinating!

We drove onto Charters Towers in a 34 degree afternoon – 380km – thank god for a/c.

Took in the Hilltop lookout and info centre before checking into hotel. Quite nice!

Dinner at hotel after a long cold shower – Grilled Barra – lovely! Pavlova + apple pie pudding disappointing + 2 shandies - $31.

Back up hilltop for a Ghosts of Charters Towers video – 15m of twaddle!

Thu 7/10/10 – Bedrock Cabins @ Mt Surprise (38km West of Undarra)- $75/night – 750m above sea level.

Went to Venus Stamp Battery for 10am Gold Mill tour after IB talked us thru a FX transfer from A$30k to US$ (97.78c). I wanted to buy two US Trident confidential picks, but they wouldn’t let us buy without US$ in the a/c.

I also put on two cheeky orders for Aus Co’s UNS + SRX.

The Gold Mill was very complete, but it was a sad tale of suffering with miners using Mercury and later Chlorine + Cyanide to refine the gold. Also the sheer heat of the place under a tin roof must have been savage!

We did the Tourist Info video and waited in vain for the Calling of the Card at the Stock Exchange (Aus’s 1^st).

We left town around mid-day and drove straight thru to Mt Surprise, travelling many km’s on our 1^st single paved lane rd. All traffic gets off the road for road trains!!! Luckily as the day wore on the cloud got thicker making for much more comfortable travel. We only drove upto 110km/h and often slower on the single paved road sections. Considering there were 3 lots of major road re-sealing going on we didn’t lose much time. We arrived at 4:30pm and after a chat with the caravan park owners we had a swim and then the rain and thunder/lightning began! It killed our power around 7:45pm and we didn’t get power before leaving the next day at 7am.

Fri 8/10/10 – Cairns – Castle hotel - $65/night.

We were up early as usual and had left the head-lights on in the car, but I turned them off 4 hrs later, though they had turned themselves off. Fortunately no probs starting car....

We left at 6:50am and drove slowly to Undara Lava Caves. We did the 8am tour which was nice, but nothing like Volcano Nat Park in Hawaii.... Though the size of the tubes (diameter) was much larger, but the tubes were broken after 200m or so in both tubes we went into. The Geology and Volcanic history of the area was fascinating. The lava fields spread 160km to the NW and 90km to the North. It was just the right slope, heat and viscosity to keep moving like that. The volcano was a shield volcano and not impressive at all to the eye.

We also did two onsite bush walks with views of surrounds – so, so...

We also did the Kalkani Crater drive/walk – a cinder cone volcano (like a massive plate).

We drove to Cairns direct – leaving at mid-day and arrived around 4pm, to go straight off to the local chiro who seemed vg.

We both got adjustments and spent the rest of the evening with Heather and Wally in their hotel rm – more like an apartment as was ours downstairs.

I booked a dive tour with Great Adventures for the next day - $176 (Green island + outer reef snorkelling).