It's still cold.
We're up early, because lying in bed isn't much fun when it's that cold. We're in no great mood to hang around either, so we stuff some brekkie down, and are on the road by 9.30. The Gum Nut Glen is not bad; I've given it a bad press. It's a pleasant area, it's quiet, the parking's good, the cabins, while idiosyncratic, are perfectly adequate, and good value. We're just bloody cold, and still smarting from a partial evening out in Yeppoon, that's all; it's just going to take us a while to climb down off this particular high horse.
One of the guys working on the site has a chat as we're leaving, and in passing confirms something I was told in Melbourne; Queenslanders end every sentence, question or not, with "hey?". We're in no position to criticise - we are Brits, after all; just an observation.
We head in to Rockhampton, and then break from retracing our steps as we set off on the Capricorn Highway inland. It's about 275k from Rockhampton to Emerald, and it takes us (I'd guess) about half way across the Great Dividing Range; the countryside gets more arid as we go. We're in Emerald by about 1, so we mill around for a while, check out a couple of information centres, and pick up tips for where to stay. While we're there, we try to suss out Carnavon Gorge, and whether we can get there in the Tarago. Someone says they were there just last week, in an ordinary car, and it was fine. Someone else said their friend was there, and it was impassible even for a full-on 4WD. We're getting mixed signals, OK? We decide to wing it, and see what happens. Meanwhile, we settle on the Pritchard Motel, in (surprisingly) Pritchard Road. The far end of Pritchard Road, we note, seems still to be being built. This side of Emerald looks to be expanding at a colossal rate; the town is well-enough developed, but there's still a slightly frontier town air to it.
Back in the centre of town, we grab a bite to eat, wander round, get lost, check emails, and all the regular tourist stuff. For a diversion, we drive out to Lake Maraboon and the Fairbairn Dam, for a photo op as the sun starts sinking. Water levels in the lake seem pretty low; the flow through the dam just a trickle, so I guess the drought here is as bad here as it has been elsewhere.Back in town again, we look around for the best place to eat, and book a table for later on at the Emerald Meteor Motel, on Opal Street. Tuesday night in Emerald seems to be a popular night for eating out, so it's as well we booked - in one sense, anyway; at least we can be patronised and underfed whilst sitting down in a degree of comfort.
Some hours after ordering, it seems, our food arrives - though its arrival itself is well spread out. My medium steak is almost raw at one end, and charred at the other - a neat trick - and has a thick vein of gristle right through it. It's also lukewarm. This is not a positive attribute, one might suppose, but it's more than can be said for the veg, which are cold. Even they are one better than the cauliflower (which in this instance I refuse to dignify with the title 'veg'), which is raw. It's raw. Worst meal of the entire trip. Bar none.
Pete has also ordered the steak; it's in exactly the same condition as mine. We glare at them, and hack away at the middle third, from where the odd gobbet of edible meat can be prised, before it drops to room temperature and the Salmonella multiply. Rowena's pasta is OK, but so rich it's an impossibility to finish the portion. Only Claire's meal is really worthwhile - so sad that that's the only meal we don't remember.After we've stared morosely at the only-slightly-less-empty-than-when-they-arrived plates for a half hour or so, the waitress arrives to clear the table.
"Was everything OK for ya, guys?
Well, where shall I begin...
The tale told, she asks "Well, what can I do for ya"? Hmmm. You could bring us some fucking dinner, that would be good. But we settle for having the price of the drinks knocked off our bill, mainly because we can't be bothered to argue the toss any further. On the way back to the Pritchard, we buy a bottle or two of shiraz, to restore the equilibrium, and proceed to do so, sat under the amazing stars and Milky Way, while a couple of small roos hop around, at the very edge of our little pool of light. It's still cold.
Wednesday 11th
Hot 'n sunny, well, well, well. We're up at 8, for a slightly oddball self-serve continental breakfast. It occurs to me that those who already live on a continent will have not the faintest idea what such a meal might consist of. It's not because it's continent-sized, OK? On the plate, it doesn't resemble the outline of Asia or Oceania. A continental brekkie is, simply, a meal with no fried ingredients whatsoever. Imagine that.
Pay up, pack up, check out. We're on the road at 9.30, and head a little further west, through Anakie, Sapphire and then Rubyfield; we're beginning to sense a theme. This is, and has been for a couple of hundred years, gemstone mining country; as an (extremely amateurish) enthusiast of geology, I'm thrilled. Checking at a few places along the way, we learn that we wanna do a bucket, so eventually we end up at the Mining Heritage fossicking park, where we pay a few dollars each for buckets of mine tailings to sort through. Pete, meanwhile, decides he wanna do the tour of the mine itself.By the time he's above ground again, we've all got stiff backs from leaning over a sorting table, but more importantly, we've all found a few sapphires. Rowena has managed to find one big enough to be worth mounting. We're all pleased.
Back in Emerald, we stock up on pies and petrol, and start heading south on the Gregory Highway about 1pm. We seem to be going along the same route (though in reverse) that Leichhardt explored in 1844-5. Fewer fatalities this time round, we hope. We have a photo-op at Mt. Zamia, and the remarkable Virgin Rock, then the Gregory Highway becomes the Dawson Highway, Springsure and Rolleston go by, and we're on to the Carnarvon Developmental. We stop in Rolleston briefly, to top up with food and cash; it's comparatively remote, but well stocked with everything we need. The country is still incredibly arid, more so, I think, than we've seen before; it has the deep tan of skin that's spent a lifetime in the sun. Somewhere to the north-west, there's a bush fire, and quite a big one at that, since the view is hazed from horizon to horizon, and the smell of burning hangs in the air. We head off on the road to the Carnarvon Gorge for a while, ostensibly to check out where it is, but primarily because we think that's the way we're meant to be going. It's not. After a few more wrong turnings, we find the Warremba Farmstay about 4pm, and check in. It's a nicely-arranged farmstead, with camper parking and a wide range of cabins, arranged around a central communal building, with a fire, dining tables, and a full range of cooking gear. I head for a nap, and get up at 5.30, as the sun is sinking. Stepping out, I see the low sun has coloured the escarpment of the Consuelo Tableland a deep outlandish red, and resolve to photograph it - just as soon as I get out of the dunny. When I get out of the dunny, the sunset has all but disappeared. Bollocks.
Over dinner in the communal building, we talk about tomorrow's plans. It's going to be a long day, as we want to see a little of Carnarvon Gorge, but we also need to get all the way back to the coast at Brisbane, and a bit further still. About 7.30, I head off to my cabin, wrap up in my sleeping bag and all the bedclothes I can find, and set about reading; pausing only to step outside for a smoke once in a while. On one of these expeditions, it occurs to me just how unnaturally bright (to my eyes, anyway) the Milky Way is. As a result, I spend quite a while crawling around on the ground, trying to hold the camera steady for long enough to photograph the stars, before admitting defeat and going in to warm up again. Not my finest hour.
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