Not Before Time

Surat

We went for a drive to Surat on Saturday. Surat’s about 85km from Roma, about half way between Roma and St George. The town was a changing station for Cobb & Co, and there’s a Cobb & Co Changing Station complex which houses the Visitor Information Centre, the library, the Cobb & Co Store Museum, the Balonne Art Gallery and a 25,000 litre freshwater aquarium stocked with local river fish. If you’re in the area it’s well worth a visit. Entry is by a gold coin donation.

While we were there the art gallery was showcasing the talents of a local family of artists. Various members of the family had paintings displayed, but there were also sketches and some gorgeous jewellery. A very talented family. It has to be something in the genes. I wish I had those genes.

The gallery often displays works by local artists, as well as travelling exhibitions featuring well-known artists.

The museum has displays showing how life was in the days when the Cobb & Co Changing Station was the hub of the town and has artifacts and items from the early days on display. There’s also a 14 seat working Cobb & Co coach on display and lots of historical information about the town and the locals.

Surat is on the banks of the Balonne River and the Surat Fishing and Restocking Club regularly restock the river with Murray Cod and Yellowbelly fingerlings and the fishing is supposed to be good. We checked out one of the fishing spots, but there had been a lot of rain the night before and it was really muddy and boggy so we decided to leave it for another, not so wet, day. I must admit, we’re hanging out to go fishing so hopefully it will be soon.

The township is small and has a nice feel to it. We had lunch at the pub, which while it’s not a pretty pub with old country pub style character on the outside, has a nice atmosphere inside and everyone in there talked to you and were very friendly. The food was excellent too – the usual pub offerings, but cooked extremely well. We really liked this pub and I think we’ll be going back a few times while we’re up here.

If you’re passing through and want to stop for a stretch or to have lunch, there’s a nice park at the back of the town on the banks of the river. Considering it was Saturday and also school holidays, it was really quiet in town and we were the only people at the park and in the gallery. Although there were a few in the pub .

I’ve since found out there is a winery at Surat, so I’ll have to check it out one day soon. Bit of a bugger I didn’t know about it while we were there ‘cause, I’ve run out of wine and I could have stocked up! But I’ll update on that another day. That’ll teach me to research a place before we go visit .

I didn’t get too many photos of the town but here’s a few.

We arrived in Roma a couple of weeks ago, after spending a couple of days in Charleville and a couple of weeks in Mitchell.

Charleville is a nice little town in Queensland’s mulga country. The people are very friendly and there are a couple of nice pubs. For the tourists, there’s the Cosmos Centre Observatory where you can look at the night sky through their telescope, and there’s the National Parks Research Station which is the home of the Save the Bilby fund. The ‘meet the bilbies’ tours are only held on certain days, and unfortunately we didn’t manage to make a tour. Next time though, they are very cute animals.

As mentioned in the previous post, there wasn’t any work around town so we only spent a couple of days but we met some really nice people at the Cobb & Co Caravan Park, including the owner Duke who is a real character. There are 2 parks in town, both of them pretty good, but if you have a rig as big as ours, then this is the one to stay in. There are also a number of stations in the area which offer camping facilities. Duke has recently extended the park adding more toilet/showers and laundry facilities and is planning on adding more grassed areas. Nearly all the sties have half 44 gallon drums for use by the guests as fireplaces for either sitting around or for cooking in. We decided to take advantage of ours and we cooked up a cheesy damper for lunch, then a roast lamb for dinner. Both were really delicious . Here’s a few photos – the animal heads are hanging in one of the pubs. Bit creepy! The mural is also from the same pub. Sorry about the flash showing on it, was a bit hard getting a photo. I also couldn’t get the whole thing in, it’s huge. I really need to learn how to use my camera properly.

After Charleville we drove a couple of hours to Mitchell.

Mitchell’s located on the Warrego Highway just under 600km west of Brisbane and is the gateway to the Queensland outback. The town is built on the Great Artesian Basin and there is a great hot spa at the information centre (which also has a well equipped gymnasium, which is free). It’s very easy to spend a while in the spa each day while you’re there. It does get busy though.

The caravan park in Mitchell is good, with en-suite style shower facilities, and they have a great camp oven pit where happy hour is held each day, and camp oven cookouts are often held there, usually as a fund raiser for local schools etc.

We’d liked to have stayed in Mitchell but getting work was a priority and we didn’t manage to pick up anything there so decided to head further east. However while we were there we did a lot of walking around the town which has some lovely bottle trees and colonial buildings. The Maranoa River Walk parallels the road bridge (the Maranoa River Bridge) and runs from the caravan park into town across the river. It’s a pretty walk and as part of the Graffiti Arts Project, some very talented artists have painted the road bridge uprights with murals celebrating the town’s past, present and future. There are also lots of birds in the area if you’re interested in bird watching..

Roma’s a town of approximately 7000 people, and is the commercial hub for the area. It’s also where oil and gas were first discovered in Australia. There’s a museum documenting the history of the discovery and they have a light and sound night show which we’ve heard is good. We haven’t been to it yet, but we’ll get there. There’s also a winery and the cattle sales yards which we plan on going to as well.

We really like the town and David has picked up work so we’ll stay around for a while. It’s also not too far from David’s brother and sister in law so hopefully we’ll manage to catch up with them a few times while we’re in the area. It’s a good base to explore the western downs area of Queensland and we plan on doing lots of driving around checking it out.

I haven’t looked for work yet, but will probably give some serious consideration to it in the next week or so.

I’ll update more about the town and the area as we actually start to do things, right now it’s been more about finding work and settling in at the Big Rig Tourist Park (which is a nice park if you find yourself in the area and need somewhere to stop). The park’s only 1km from town and we’ve been doing lots of walking both into town and on the walking/riding path which starts/stops just across the road, so we might end up a bit fitter too. Bonus.

I haven’t taken photos around Roma yet, but here’s a couple of some little birds that flit around in the tree outside our van. One of them frequently sits on the window next to my chair and talks to his reflection in the window. They are very cute little birds. I believe they are part of the wren family, and are called Striated Pardalote. But feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, I’m still learning about birds.

We decided in the end to go to Charleville – we thought that since it’s a bigger town than St George we might find work easier, but once we got here we found out that due to the rains up here there isn’t much work in this area either. Even the meat factory which specialises in kangaroo has cut back hours because the rains means that the shooters can’t go out to get the roos. We’re booked in for 3 nights to give us a chance to check out the area. We’ve heard there is good fishing up here, so hopefully we’ll get the chance to check it out. There’s also a Cosmos Centre which runs night time astronomy sessions which could be interesting. The night skies in the outback are brilliant, so could be good checking out some of them with a powerful telescope.

The caravan park we’re in is only 1km out of town and is a nice walk. I’ll hopefully get some good photos tomorrow.

Tonight we’re in Cunnumulla in south west Queensland. It’s a pretty little town and we’re staying in the local caravan park which is really nice. Cunnumulla is home to the Cunnumulla Fella, a twice life size statue of a young stockman. The Cunnumulla Fella is a song penned by Stan Coster and sung by Slim Dusty in tribute to all the young stockmen who worked in the area during the 1950’s and 1960’s when wool and cattle were huge business in the area. In 2003 a nation wide competition was launched inviting artists to submit their portrayal of the Cunnumulla Fella in whichever medium they chose. The winner was Michael Nicholas, an environmental painter from Brisbane. From his sketch a sculptor called Archie St Clair was commissioned to produce the bronze statue.

We were originally planning on going to St George in the morning, but we’ve changed our mind and will be heading to Charleville instead, although I guess that could change again. I’ll let you know .

It’s Friday, 22 May, and we’re in Bourke now – we left Broken Hill after being stuck in the van for 2 days due to rain.

There’s been quite a bit of rain in the area over the last few days which is great for the area, but not so great for us.

All the rain has brought out the wildlife. On the road between Broken Hill and Cobar we saw so many birds and animals –eagles, kites, hawks, kangaroos, emus, cattle and sheep, and lots of feral goats. I must admit, when I saw the goats my mind turned to thoughts of Nepalese Goat Curry, and roasted leg of kid the way Maggie Beer cooked it on The Cook and The Chef the other night. Hmmm, I must have been hungry .

We stopped overnight at Cobar and visited the Great Western Hotel which claims to have the longest lace work verandah in the State, or the Southern Hemisphere, depending on who you believe . This is a great hotel to have a drink in, especially at happy hour, between 5pm and 6pm – everyone talks to you. We met a lovely old guy who seems to have a mysterious past, some sort of government job – James Bond comes to mind! I guess it depends on whether you believe what you are told, but he was a lot of fun to talk to. The locals were also full of information about work in the area etc so it was good talking to them.

There isn’t any work around the Cobar area, so we headed off to Bourke. With all the rain, the area is really green.

We’ve been told there isn’t too much work around this area either, but we’ve booked in for 3 nights to give us a chance to check out the area.

We’re staying at the Kidman Rest Caravan Park which is a lovely park near the banks of the Darling River. It’s really pretty, the amenities are fantastic and the people are very friendly.

When we checked out the pool, there were quite a few frogs having a swim, including this really strange looking one – not sure what sort it is, but it’s quite cute in an ugly sort of way.

They have a good campfire area where they host camp oven dinners on Wednesday and Friday nights for $15/head, including entertainment. We didn’t eat there but we did go along to listen to the music for a while and it wasn’t too bad.

The following morning we went for a long walk down to the river and then into town to check out the sites. There are quite a few historical buildings

The old wharf has been reconstructed, but I think the river must have been a lot higher in the days of the original wharf. There are some huge river gums next to the wharf which are home to the large flocks of cockatoos in the area.

Later in the afternoon we dropped in to the Northy – the Back to Bourke Hotel for a drink. It’s a very basic pub, but friendly. The pub doesn’t do meals, but the roadhouse next door does, and you can take them into the pub to have with your drink. Mel behind the bar is really nice – her uncle owns the pub and she’s currently managing it for him. We met a group of young guys in town for some shearing work. Unfortunately due to all the rain the area has had, they hadn’t been able to start work – they were hoping it would start the following day.

On Sunday morning we went for another long walk, this time to a different part of the river then in the afternoon we went on the paddle steamer tour down the river which was quite pleasant. Too many people though – we should have done it on Saturday when only about half a dozen people went on the boat trip. Never mind.

We really like this area, but since there’s no work we’ll move on.

Well, once again this is going to be a number of updates in one hit, cause I’m really slack. I get the updates typed up fairly quickly, then they sit there waiting cause I’m really, really bad at getting the photos downloaded from the camera then uploaded to the website. Must work on that.

Still, at least when you visit our website, you get to read it all in one hit instead of coming back every day to see where we are or what we’re up to

We went for a drive out to Silverton today. Silverton was a town of roughly 3000 people until the boom in Broken Hill, and these days it’s just about a ghost town - I think the current population is 50. Quite a few Australian movies have been made there, including Mad Max II, and Pricilla Queen of the Desert. It’s an interesting place to go see – a number of ruins have been left in place, and in some instances signage has been put up to let you know what the buildings used to be. There are also quite a few restored buildings such as the Municipal Offices, the Surveyors Cottage and the Silverton Gaol which is now a (very good) museum in which we spent a couple of hours.

The Silverton Hotel has been used in lots movies and advertisements. They have a fair amount of film memorabilia inside and plenty of beer which of course we had to taste. There were a lot of people around town – not sure if this is the norm, but I had the feeling it was partly because it was mother’s day. A lot of family groups were at the pub and café for lunch.

Day Dream Mine

We wanted to have a look at the old Day Dream Mine near Silverton. Not that we wanted to go down the mine, neither of us are keen on going into mine shafts these days , but we still like to look at mine sites. Mining first started here in 1882, before Broken Hill was discovered, and continued until 1983. Boys as young as 8 years old used to work in the mine. To get to the mine, after turning off the highway there’s a 20 minute drive on a well graded dirt road.

Just before you go into the mine area there are ruins of the Day Dream township which had a population of around about 500 people.

About 10km from Silverton is the Umberumberka Reservoir which has a lovely picnic spot. The landscape around Silverton and Broken Hill looks pretty dry,

but the reservoir is quite full. It dates from 1915.
The Broken Hill Veteran and Vintage Car Club had a run on today too and all the cars were parked at the picnic spot. Amongst others, there were some great FJ Holdens, and Morris Minors, but these 2 were just beautiful - a Mercedes and a Flying Standard

Over the next couple of days we’ll be visiting some of the art galleries.