Sunday, 27 October 2024
In something of a paradox I think the last three days have been the most energetic AND the most relaxing part of our holiday. We finally achieved our Move and Exercise Goals a couple of days in a row and yet when we weren’t hiking it was so relaxing spending time at our cabin listening to the birds in the bush. It must be the forest bathing effect.
This morning it was time to move on though after our short break in Carnarvon Gorge. As we drove back out to the highway, we stopped at Rewan. Although there is no longer a settlement here, we pulled up to look at the memorial that we had noticed on our drive in on Thursday. One board told us that we were on the site of the Rewan Remount Station, a stud farm set up in 1908 to breed horses to be sent out to police stations across Queensland. Rewan horses drew international acclaim with one named ‘Brisbane’ being sent to London as a gift from the Queensland Government to King George V. By 1933 the stud was declared financially unviable, and all the breeding stock were sold off by 1934.
The second memorial, a cairn erected by members of Roma Boy Scouts Group (Venturers) and Roma and Injune RSL, is in memory of the American and Australian personnel aboard the C478 Dakota aircraft which crashed here in 1943 during a violent electrical storm while enroute from Darwin to Brisbane. In all 19 lives were lost and there were no survivors. Pieces of the wreckage were recovered by the Assault Pioneer Platoon 25 Battalion to be erected for this memorial.
We arrived back at the Carnarvon Highway and turned right with 111 kilometres to go to Injune. As always there was roadkill, mostly the poor roos that had misjudged their highway crossing but today we’re sure we saw a tortoise and an echidna too. We passed the turn off to Lake Nuga Nuga which is Central Queensland’s largest natural body of water. It is renowned as a bird watcher’s paradise but not on our itinerary for this trip.
As we continued south, we passed a road train heading north flashing his lights. Hmmn, what’s it going to be today? We rounded a bend, and a road train was pulled up on the road, that’s on the road, not pulled over at all, with hazard lights flashing. The driver was just clambering back into the cab after checking the load or tyres we supposed. Anyway, the road train was still stationary and with enough of a clear view to see that we could overtake it.
As we drove along this section, we were still surrounded with spectacular sandstone bluffs, but there was nowhere to pull over to take any photographs of the scenery. When we arrived at a Rest Area it was completely surrounded by trees and there was no view at all. So frustrating to drive through outstanding scenery but be unable to photograph it. We passed a sign advising that there was a steep incline ahead. It sure was, ear popping even!
As we were driving, I was reading ahead in our Great Inland Way driving map. The guide spoke of a Lonesome Lookout BUT gave no hint on where it is and how to get there. That’s tricky when you are driving in an area with no mobile coverage as you can’t Google it on the go. From the map I was saying to Bernie it’s about two thirds of the way between the road to Carnarvon Gorge and Injune in the Lonesome Section of Expedition National Park. How about if we see a sign we’ll see how far off the highway it is and decide then whether to check it out … or not.
With 61 kilometres to go to Injune we encountered bridge widening works. Hmmn, there was no work being done on a Sunday but the traffic lights were operating to manage single land traffic across the bridge. With no workers on site it appeared that this was operating on a timer system? Anyhow, we snuck through on the amber light and left Cathy and Steve behind! On the other side of the bridge there was a stretch of lovely new road surface with no lines marked. The new, wider bridge will complement this work that has already been done.
We crossed the Dawson River a couple of times and climbed again crossing from the Central Highlands into Outback Queensland. We were surprised that it is still Outback Queensland this far east because we thought the outback was only when you are further west, but obviously we were wrong.
We arrived at a HUGE sign for the Lonesome Section of Expedition NP but it didn’t include anything about Lonesome Lookout. Without knowing how far the lookout is from the highway we were inclined to continue to Injune but then Bernie noticed another sign a couple of hundred metres along Arcadia Valley Road. We drove into the sign and discovered that Lonesome Lookout is 16 kilometres from the highway. OK, that’s not too far, we have time to check it out.
We drove back to the highway to park on the corner to wait for Cathy and Steve. We waited a couple of minutes, then waited a couple more and started to think they snuck past on the highway while we were two hundred metres down the side road. Phew, we hadn’t missed them – they had to wait about five minutes after we went through the traffic light before it turned green again! A quick confab on the side of the road and it was agreed we should head in to check out the view from the lookout.
The road was sealed which was a bonus. No dirt road driving today so far. We weren’t far in when we passed an Oversize Load escort vehicle so Bernie was on alert for a big/long/wide load. The distance between the Oversize Load and its escort was so great that we were starting to think it was a hoax but, no, we eventually passed one low loader with a combine harvester on it followed by another one with the rakes on it. We were surprised to see this agricultural machinery on a road driving in to a national park but they do seem to farm right to the perimeter of the parks here in Queensland.
After passing through the amusingly named Fainting Chook Gully we arrived at a turnout onto a dirt track to the lookout. Totally worth it with Lonesome Lookout providing us with a stupendous view from this south-eastern section of the Carnarvon Ranges out over the Arcadia Valley towards the Expedition Range.
After this side trip we arrived in Injune and the great fuel debate was on again. Bernie had decided that we had another 90 kilometres to travel to Roma so with the truck’s fuel gauge showing quarter of a tank and its distance to empty indicator showing 250 kilometres that he would refill in Roma. The Subaru’s tank was also at about one quarter with an estimated range of 240-ish kilometres but Cathy was a little concerned about going under quarter of a tank so planned to buy fuel in Injune. But, it was not to be. The Shell Servo on the highway had a note taped to the pump saying Out of Order. She tried the 24-hour depot down a side street but it required downloading an app to pay for the fuel. Aargh, too hard she decided, we should be fine to get to Roma.
We used the conveniences and took photos of a few of the ‘Characters of Injune’ a series of rustic metal sculptures featuring local identities. We popped into the Visitor Information which was, surprisingly, open on a Sunday. We had a lovely chat with the volunteer on duty this morning and relieved her boredom somewhat as she hadn’t had anyone in since about 10.00am and it was now coming up noon. She told us that the five-minute wait to come through the bridgeworks was nothing as they have been closing the road for days at a time since this work commenced. She said it’s not pleasant having to tell people passing through that the road is closed because there’s really no alternate route to direct them to. People have just had to wait until the works have finished later in the day.
She asked where we were from for the stats. We said Melbourne and she asked if we meant Melbourne or just sort of near Melbourne because we didn’t seem like city people. With Steve sitting out the front, the three of us told her we were raised in Gippsland so originally country folk. Another sign that you can take the boy/girl out of the country, but you can’t take the country out of the boy/girl, ha, ha.
With no fuel or food available in Injune we kept our stop here short to try to make sure we arrived in Roma while we might still be able to find lunch there. We passed a sign saying that the current elevation of the Great Dividing Range was 446 metres and then a surprisingly large State School at Bymount East. There didn’t seem to be much of a settlement at Bymount East but, no doubt, they bus kids in from around the district to attend the school here.
At Hurdle Creek we saw more sheep grazing so it seems that as we head south from the tropics the stock is more mixed between sheep and cattle. A few Ks further Bernie made a comment about the surrounding countryside seeming a bit barren and it was ages since we had seen any cattle grazing. The words were hardly out of his mouth and there were cows grazing on both sides of the road.
We arrived in Roma at about 1.15pm and started cruising looking for somewhere to eat on a Sunday. We eventually settled on the Club Hotel. After a couple of days of self-catered sandwiches, we were able to make some more exotic choices: three x Turkish BLTs and a ham and cheese croissant.
From the pub we made our way to The Big Rig a tourist attraction that showcases the region’s gas and oil resources. Before planning this holiday, I thought all of Australia’s gas and oil resources were in Bass Strait. Obviously being a Victorian those reserves are the ones that you hear about but it doesn’t mean there are no gas/oil fields elsewhere. In fact, the gas reserves in Roma were first tapped in 1900 but because they were actually desperate to find a reliable water source, they did nothing with it!! After letting the gas flow freely for five years they finally decided to harness it to power gas street lighting. They hooked up the supply in 1906 and had street lighting for ten nights before the supply failed. Hilarious!
In fact, the early days of gas and oil exploration in Roma were a comedy of errors mainly through ignorance about where they should be looking for the best outcome and drills that were crude and notoriously inefficient. On another occasion they found gas but a change in wind direction blew the gas to a nearby wood-burning boiler. Ka-boom! The gas burnt in a spectacular seven-week display before it could be snuffed. It was all a bit hit and miss with more misses than hits until the 1920s when operations improved. However, it took until 1969 before the gas reserves in the area were considered a significant resource and a gas pipeline was put into operation to carry the gas to Brisbane.
We climbed the Big Rig which was 195 steps of torture because the lift is out of order at the moment! Cathy was sensible and only climbed to the second level and then wandered off along the tree walk through the river red gums along the (currently dry) creek. On the plus side entry is usually $20.00/head but was reduced to only $5.00/head because the lift is out of order.
While using the loos at the Big Rig I noticed a Calendar of Events on the back of the door that featured a giant echidna sculpture. I asked the lady on the desk where we could find the sculpture. She said it was actually part of the annual ‘Sculptures Out Back’ exhibition that ran between June and September. She advised us that not all of the sculptures are still there but any that remain are literally just 250 metres down the road. We drove along to the sculpture garden and while there were empty plinths there were still many sculptures to admire … and purchase with most of the remaining sculptures having their name, artist and price listed. We could have purchased a very handsome sculpture of a bull for a cool $19,000 but not enough room on the roof rack to transport it home, ha, ha.
We rounded out the afternoon with a visit to Roma’s Largest Bottle Tree that was transplanted to its current location 100 years ago. She certainly is a monster, and we took a selfie with her because the sign said – If you haven’t taken a selfie with the largest bottle tree have you even been to Roma??
Before driving to the Starlight Motel to check-in we refuelled the vehicles at the BP Servo with Bernie very excited to be able to give the truck a drink of Premium Diesel. The poor thing has had to cope with 1000s of kilometres on regular diesel. And, with the Woolies closed on Sundays we picked up a few food items at the IGA.
At dinner time we walked back to the Club Hotel as it had been noted at lunchtime that they offered an extensive choice of dishes on the dinner menu. As we walked to the hotel we could see that the sky was looking very black and not just with impending nightfall, with storm clouds! We wondered if it would be raining by the time we wanted to go back to the motel???
We ordered drinks and dinner which were both quickly delivered. We tucked in and even from our booth in the back corner we thought we could hear thunder and rain on the roof. Oh well, it looks like we might need a lift in the courtesy bus back to the motel. Then the lights flickered but came back on, and then flickered again and failed with some emergency lighting coming on. Oh, no, not again. Our second power outage this week!
We finished our meal by emergency lighting supplemented with some iPhone torchlight. Eventually, the hotel’s generator was brought online, and light was restored but the tablets the staff were using to take orders were still out of action as was the till. With it still thundering outside we eventually managed to negotiate for three more beers for the beer drinkers to be paid for with cash. All the young things working tonight could barely cope with the concept! I mean what are you going to do in a thunderstorm except have another round of drinks. I even managed to get a coffee … eventually although it took so long that the tablets were working again, and we paid electronically.
When we were done, we stuck our noses outside to discover that it was still raining. Yup, let’s get dropped back to the motel by the courtesy bus. After some misdirection and confusion in the dark the motel was eventually identified, and we were deposited in the driveway to make our way to our rooms in the dark. Now to unpack that LED light again to sit around in our room waiting for the power to come back on. Luckily, I have been able to work on the travel diary with the power outage.
Just after 10.00pm after about three hours without lights … or television the power came back on. I think Bernie found it harder to be without the television. There was no TV out at Carnarvon Gorge, so he was enjoying a much-needed fix before dinner.
