We're almost home

And so we left Lake Dalrymple and the people we had met there, including the ageing cattleman who was living out of the back of a truck, left, with a tarp thrown over it, while he took care of cattle he had on agistment on a nearby property. Until the drought breaks, that’s his life.
We drove across the base of the great Burdekin Falls dam spillway, then covered the 135km to Collinsville in several hours as it was a really bad dirt road. From then on, we were in the heart of coal-mining country with massive coal trains on the railway lines and good bitumen roads, so we headed south towards Nebo and stayed at Lake

Our truck dwarfed by the spillway at the Burdekin
Falls Dam.

Elphinstone, a natural lake where black swans and coots live and where local water ski club  members have a shed.

It was further south towards the Rockhampton-Longreach highway that we saw the first green grass in paddocks since we had left NSW all those months before, and even then, it was only fleeting.

After catching up with friends in Gracemere, on Rockhampton’s western outskirts, we went on to Yeppoon for three lovely nights with our friends, Judith and Barry.

We talked and laughed and ate and drank until we left on Tuesday morning, heading for Mount Morgan and Biloela and places south. We loved Mount Morgan, with its historic buildings, and ended our day at the Mulgildie pub, just south of Monto, where camping is encouraged in the pub’s backyard.



Lots of oversize loads were on the coal country roads,
including this giant bucket.

We had a great meal at the pub, chatting with the young Swedish backpacker running the bar, then fell into bed soon after 7.30pm, exhausted by our revelries of the previous few days.

Before reaching Monto we had detoured to the Cania Gorge National Park and Cania Dam so today we detoured again south of Monto to the Waruma Dam. There were masses of caravans and motorhomes camped right on the water’s edge but we weren’t tempted to stay.

One of Mount Morgan's old buildings.

Along the way today we bought groceries at Eidsvold and fuel at Mundubbera, where we started to see the citrus orchards for which the area is famous.  

We stopped early at Gayndah, as we were both tired, and tomorrow will make a final push to stay with friends near Pomona, then spend the weekend with family in Brisbane.

After that, it’s back to Richmond Hill and HOME!