Southern Queensland

Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Oh the drama! Our laptop has entered permanent sleep mode. The upshot is that we now own a new (used) PC laptop, a scary proposition for this die-hard Mac addict. Salvaging files and learning a new platform are as much fun as a broken nose. Persevere!

The coastal town of Bowen features impressive historic murals on many of its buildings. We decide to go walk-about from block to block to view them. We don't even finish two blocks before we feel woozy from heat and bright sun. Silly though it feels, we wimpishly drive from one to the next.

At Eungella National Park the mountainous views are enshrouded by heavy mists and fog. It's a lovely pocket of lush rainforest, and we're lucky enough to see several platypuses (platypae?) swimming in river pools. This photo is more a view of the surroundings than of the small creature paddling in the foreground. Claudia and PJ, we need you here with your cameras to do him justice!



Just inland from the coast, we drive past miles and miles of sugar cane fields and refineries with their characteristic aroma of steaming sweet greenery. The landscape is criss-crossed by narrow-gauge tracks for the cane trains which haul the crops from field to refinery.

We zig inland to visit Carnarvan Gorge. On the way we pass this emu family. After mum lays about a dozen eggs, dad takes over the rearing of the kids while mum takes off to find another male for her next batch of babies.

Carnarvan Gorge is a spectacular heap of eroded and sculpted rocks. The climate is much drier here. Also cooler! Although we are out of shape from inactivity we walk many kilometres, knowing we'll pay later with stiff muscles.

The crack through the towering rocks here is the gateway to a hidden amphitheatre around a pool of clear water.

Not surprisingly this area is sacred to the Aboriginal people who inhabited it for many generations. Here they left a striking record of pictographs on a rock wall.

There are plenty of wallabies and kangaroos bounding about. One of the most beautiful is the small and delicate whiptail, or pretty face, wallaby.

Along Rifle Creek we wash our vehicle with river water. You know how it is with home maintenance. It's so clean outside, we launch into a deep-clean inside. Well, while we're at it, why not touch up the paint on a few scratches and dings?

Shiny as our Troopy is, we obviously appeal to a couple of cockatoos. They march around squawking orders for a while, then pose on top perfectly!

Fraser Island is the world's biggest sand island, a gigantic dune held in place by trees and scrubby growth. After crossing on a ferry, we drive about 30 kms along the beach (passable only at low tide). That's the easy part since most of it is fairly packed. Abruptly inland it's a mecca for 4-wheel-drivers. All roads consist of narrow winding tracks of soft or softer deep sand with exposed or not so exposed tree roots. Yikes! It's hard to even WALK in this stuff. Despite Art's valuable experience with a 4wd in Vermont's snow and mud we become embarrassingly bogged a few times till he reeeeeeally reduces the tire pressure and drops the 4wd gears into low range. Aha, now we swear this Troopy could actually climb trees. From then on we are able to breathe like normal people and have fun plowing slowly up and down and around to beautiful perched lakes and striking overlooks.

On the beach is the quite complete wreck of this old passenger liner. In the 1930s while it was being towed to Japan for scrap metal, a cyclone blew it off course, and it washed up here. That saved the Japanese the trouble of sending it on to us, in different form, at Pearl Harbor.

We find some amazing beach camping on Fraser Island and the adjacent nat'l park south of it. We also do some trash-picking. The favorite food of sea turtles is jellyfish. Sadly and often fatally, plastic bags can be mistaken for yummy jellies.

Given the sidetrack of The Great Computer Disaster we miss wishing everybody (well, in America anyway) a Happy Thanksgiving. Now the Christmas season is in full bore, and we are in a new state: New South Wales.