Across Queensland

(Magyar összefoglaló a végén)

Monday, 24 Sep, Winton - We covered another 460 km South-East, from Mount Isa to Winton. The landscape was mountainous until Cloncurry, where we turned South on the Landsborough Hwy, then it became flat and almost devoid of trees, just open grassland, with occasional creekbeds announced by the denser and higher vegetation. But it must be good cattle country as we saw a lot of cattle grazing around. We also saw some camels, although behind a fence so they might not have been wild camels; they looked docile and young and pretty. But two emus grazing just beside the road were definitely wild. 
The weather was a bit less hot than yesterday, "only" 36 degrees max, the sky was ovecast most of the day, and very smoky in the morning.

Winton - gemstones and dinosaurs

We came to Winton around 4 pm, set up camp, then went for a drive-around town. Winton has a lot of attractions considering its size of 900 population. It is famous for being the birthplace of "Waltzing Mathilda", the unofficial national anthem, the poem written by Banjo Patterson and played in public the first time here in the North Gregory Hotel in 1895. It also claims to be the birthplace of QANTAS, although it shares this honour with Longreach 180 km down South. There are also opal fields around here where people can do their own digging and try their luck to find something pretty.  And above all, it is "the dinosaur capital of Australia", as the largest collection of fossils found in the area is housed here in a museum 25 km outside town. 

Impromptu to Musical Fence
played by Kate

We walked through the North Gregory Hotel, the historic general store building, visited some opal stores, then some curiosities: the Musical Fence, a funny installation created by visiting musicians where we could try our creative genius (unsuccessful but fun), and 

A part of Arno's Wall

Arno's Wall, built from concrete and rock plus various pieces of junk including old machinery, complete motorbikes, typewriters, boat propellers, car wheels, etc. by a German-born local "artist". This is a funny place indeed. 
On the way home we saw a road train full of camels, on their way to the meatworks for export - this was a sad sight.

The Age of Dinosaurs Museum

Tuesday, 25 Sep, Longreach - In the morning we went to visit the Age of the Dinosaurs museum and laboratory, on the "jump-up", an elevated plateau 12 km outside town, then another 18 km on gravel road. It is a private enterprise, started by a local farmer, David Elliot, who found the first few dinosaur fossils in his own paddock in 1999, and with a few other local people played a lead role in establishing the museum and research facility, with some donations and government support. 

Some of the biggest bones

The building of the museum is brand new, opened in April 2012, a remarquable building itself, worthy of an architectural award. It houses a large collection of dinosaur fossils, some of the largests ever found. There are thousands of more fossils in the laboratory awaiting to be cleaned and prepared for research and display. 

Fossil preparation

We listened to the history of the museum, the story of the dinosoaurs and how the digging and processing works, mostly by volunteers. It was an interesting morning at a beautiful site with nice views over the flat surrounding of Winton.

Longreach railway station

Then we drove to Longreach, another 180 kms to the South-East. It is a bigger town just beside the Thompson river. It is still a very hot place, 36 degrees in the afternoon. We walked around the town centre, the old railway station, and went out to check the river, which has a lot of water in it, a surprise after all the dry riverbeds we saw lately.

The "Tree of Knowledge"

Wednesday, 26 Sep, Emerald - Today we travelled another 400-odd kms Eastward, mostly to ecape from the heat. We came through the Great Dividing Range, only 4-500 m high but separating the narrow Eastbound waters from the rest flowing into the middle of the continent to disappear into the sand (sometimes called Lake Eyre). As we passed the range, some clouds appeared in the sky, and the temperature remained below 30 degrees. What a relief! We came through Barkaldine, where we stopped to appreciate the "Tree of Knowledge", the historical site of the 1891 Shearers' Strike, an interesting memorial after the original tree has been poisoned. 

The Unionists' Memorial, Barkaldine

We passed through Jericho, with its "Crystal Trumpeters", constructed in memory of the Biblical story of the town with the same name. We came to Emerald around 2 pm, set up camp in a very nice caravan park, and in the afternoon and evening we enjoyed the warm but not too warm temperature.

Emerald Town Centre

Thursday, 27 Sep, Emerald - A quiet, relaxing day. In the morning we went to the town centre and walked around. It is a very nicely maintained and well organised small town, lots of beautiful trees and landscaping, seems like freshly renovated. We saw a 250 million year old fossilized tree trunk, and the "largest Van Gogh painting on an easel", Sunflowers, in the middle of a park, as a memorial to one of the main products in the area. In the afternoon we just rested in the camp, and enjoyed the good weather.

The Sunflowers, Emerald

Bush Chapel, Botanic Gardens

Friday, 28 Sep, Emerald - This morning we went out to visit Lake Maraboon, a vast expanse of water created behind Fairbairn Dam, with picninc areas, camping and watersports. But to our surprise, at the very end of the 18 kms road from town we found the bridge leading to the lake closed for all traffic, including pedestrians. So we had to return without seeing anything; not a tourist-friendly singposting.

Grass trees, Botanic Gardens

Then we went to the Botanic Gardens, a very nice and well maintained place for such a small town. We spent the morning walking around the various sections of the gardens, followed by another quiet afternoon in the caravan park.

Carnarvon Creek

Sunday, 30 Sep, Carnarvon Gorge - Saturday morning we came down to Carnarvon Gorge, and set up camp in the Takarakka Bush Resort, just 4 km outside the national park. By the time we had lunch and a bit of rest, it started to rain, and went on raining lightly all afternoon and evening. We ventured out to the visitor centre to pick up a map of the walks, but that was enough of the outside activities for the day. Fortunately we could exchange some of the books we had already finished to new ones, so we had enough to read for the evening.

Baloon Cave

The rain has stopped in the evening and today we woke up to cloudy but dry weather. We did a few shorter walks in the morning to some closer attractions, Baloon Cave with rock paintings, Mickey Creek Gorge, a narrow side-gorge with lots of fan palms and cycads along the creek, and a rock pool along Carnarvon creek. We saw lots of cute grey wallabies who were not afraid of us, continued grazing a few metres from us. 

Mickey Creek Gorge

In the afternoon the cloud cover started to break up, but we had enough walking for today, we stayed at the camp reading and resting. The forecast is promising, so we left the main gorge walk for tomorrow.

Monday, 1 Oct, Carnarvon Gorge - The forecast was right, we had a bright sunny day, 24/25 degrees, ideal for bushwalking. We did a 14 km return trip along the main track into the gorge, visiting all the side attractions: 

Moss Garden

- Moss Garden, a narrow side canyon where water drips constantly from the sandstone walls supporting a lush carpet of mosses and ferns, and a small waterfall.

Looking up from the Amphitheatre

- Amphitheatre, a 60 m deep round chamber hidden inside the walls of the gorge, accessible through a narrow vertical crack in the rock, a fantastic atmosphere.

King Ferns in Ward's Canyon

- Ward's Canyon, a small side-gorge, with a very cool microclimate, where a tropical fern species, king fern, survived the climatic changes over the millenia.

The Art Gallery

- Art Gallery, a 62 m long overhanging sandstone wall with thousands of Aboriginal engravings ochre stencils and free-hand paintings. A lot of the engravings represent the vulva, this is the only site in Australia with this symbol.

One of the many creek crossings

The track was relatively easy and flat, with some ups and downs mostly at the side tracks, and crossing the Carnarvon creek many times. We returned by about 2.30 pm, and that was enough activity for the day. We had a good rest in the afternoon, and then joined the two-course dinner offered at the Takarakka resort.

Our itinerary can be seen at the following Google Map:
http://g.co/maps/wcwv8 
(Note that to see the route after Bowen, you need to move down to the bottom of the left panel, and select the following pages!)

A múlt héten jó sokat utaztunk, foleg a hoség elol menekülve. Hétfo reggel indultunk Mount Isa-ból, aztán Winton és Longreach-on keresztül szerdán értünk Emerald-ba, ahol végre kicsit elviselhetobb volt a hoség, ott megpihentünk 3 napra. 
Winton érdekes kis város, elég sok látnivalóval ahhoz képest hogy csak 900 lakosa van. Egyik érdekessége hogy itt született 1895-ben a nem-hivatalos ausztrál himnusz (majdnem ez lett a hivatalos is), a "Waltzing Mathilda", egy népszeru folk-song, és ehhez sok emlék fuzodik. Úgyszintén azt hirdetik hogy itt született a QANTAS légitársaság, ugyan ezen a címen Longreach is osztozik. És foleg Winton "Ausztrália dinoszaurusz-fovárosa", itt a közelben találták a legtöbb dinoszaurusz maradványt, és a helyi lakosok kezdeményezésére és adakozásából létesített múzeumban orzik a legnagyobb gyujteményt. Most is folyik a gyujtés és feldolgozás itt helyben, foleg önkéntesek dolgoznak egy minimális állandó professzionális stáb felügyeletével és a Queensland-i múzeum támogatásával. Szerda reggel meglátogattuk ezt a múzeum- és preparáló-muhely komplexumot, nagyon szép helyen van, a várostól 12 km-re, egy a síkságból kiugró fennsík peremén, szép kilátással a környékre. Maga a múzeum épület is nagyon szép, teljesen új, nagyon jól beleillik a környezetbe, be is van nevezve egy nemzetközi építészeti pályázatra. Egy másik érdekesség a "Musical Fence", egy jól behangolt drótkerítés, amit egy itt-járt zenész-csoport készített kint a város szélén ahol nem zavar senkit a kolompolás, és bárki kedvére játszhat rajta-vele. Mi is jól elszórakoztunk vele egy ideig.
Kedden továbbmentünk Longreach-be, ahol nem volt annyi érdekesség, és ami lett volna, azt sem volt kedvünk megnézni a 36 fokos hoségben (foleg nekem nagyon elegem volt már belole), gyorsan továbbmentünk.
Szerdától 3 napig Emerald-ban voltunk, ahol végre nem volt annyira meleg, "csak" 31-32 fok, de az már egész kellemesnek tunt. Ez a város már a Great Dividing Range (a nagy vízválasztó hegység) keleti oldalán van, kb 350 km-re a tengerparttól, itt már érzodik az óceán enyhítu hatása. Helyes kis város, nagyon szépen rendbentartva, a központja frissen felújítva. Különösebb látnivaló nincs benne, azért körülnéztünk amit lehetett, de foleg pihentünk és élveztük a kellemes idojárást.
Szombat reggel jöttünk le a Carnarvon Gorge nemzeti parkhoz, és 3 napig itt maradunk. Sajnos amint ideértünk és letáboroztunk egy kempingben, elkezdett esni az eso, és esett egész délután. Így nem sokat tudtunk tenni, csak elmentünk körülnézni a turista-irodába, szereztünk egy térképet a túra-utakról, aztán csak itthon olvasgattunk a lakókocsiban. Szerencsére, hosszú ido óta eloször, ki tudtuk cserélni a kiolvasott könyveinket újabbakra, így megint van mit olvasni. 
Vasárnap már nem esett az eso, csak felhos, de kellemes ido volt, délelott tettünk egy pár rövidebb sétát a közelebbi látnivalókhoz, láttunk egy barlangot aboriginal sziklarajzokkal, az egyik mellék-völgyet sok legyezo-pálmával, a Carnarvon patak sziklás vízmedencéjét, és sok egészen szelíd kengurut, ott legelésztek pár méterre tolünk, nagyon aranyosak.
Hétfore kiderült az ég, szép napsütéses idoben mentünk a fo kanyonba kirándulni. Egy 14 km-es oda-vissza utat csináltunk a fo völgy mentén, és útközben meglátogattuk az adódó érdekességeket:
- Moss Garden, egy kis szuk mellékvölgyben a víz szivárog a homokko sziklafalból és körben a falon dús moharéteget és páfrány-erdot táplál,
- Amphitheatre, egy 60 m mély körbezárt szikla-terem a kanyon falában, amit egy szuk függoleges hasadékon keresztül lehet megközelíteni, nagyon érdekes, misztikus hely,
- Ward's canyon, egy másik szuk kis melékvölgy, nagyon hus mikroklímával, ahol egy oskori trópikus páfrány-fajta, king fern, megmaradt, egyedül itt az egész kontinensen a trópusi részek alatt,
- Art Gallery, egy 62 m hosszú visszaugró sziklafal, tele Aboriginal karcolt és festett ábrákkal, köztük rengeteg  vulva szimbólummal, ami egyedül itt fordul elo az országban.
Az út nem volt nehéz, többnyire lapos, sokszor kereszteztük a Carnarvon patak széles medrét, de az oldal-völgyekbe elég sokat kellett fel-le mászni. Fél 3 felé értünk vissza, jól elfáradtunk, délután csak pihentünk. Estére befizettünk a "resort"-ban kínált vacsorára.

Az útvonalunk a következo Google Map-on látható:
http://g.co/maps/wcwv8
(A Bowen utáni szakaszokhoz le kell menni a baloldali panel aljára, és a következo oldalakra kattintani!!)