Hi to all. 

We are still in the small town of St. George, having arrived here 4 days ago.  Since arriving we have had all seasons.  Who said that Melbourne weather was a bit confusing. 

We arrived on Thursday and you could see that there was a storm brewing.  After setting up we had a quick look around the town and went to the info centre.  It soon became apparent that we were going to have a fairly quiet few days.  Probably good anyway, just refresh the batteries before our opal finding expeditions in Lightning Ridge. 

Settled in to our new digs on Thursday night and the rain started coming down.  And it just kept raining.  All night it kept raining.  Put the periscope up, just to make sure we were still in the caravan park.  Got up Friday morning and most of the sites in the caravan park were waterlogged.  I don't think our mat will ever dry out.

Not to be deterred, it was off to check out the weir about 9 k's from town.  It was pouring as we turned off the main road and headed towards the weir.  There were dozens of kangaroos on the road,  so I had to get a few snaps.  They are such a dumb animal, with most of them jumping across your path.

Arrived at the weir and it is obviously huge.  So the sign says anyway.  There was nowhere that you could park so that you could get a photo of the weir.  All you could see was the huge floodgates and the wall of the weir.  You were not even allowed to walk down to the river, where the floodgates open, to get a photo.  Anyway, when we got down to the river, in front of the floodgates, I got some photos of the river, with the customary pelicans, and the floodgates area, where they had started to release a little bit of water into the river.

 

After leaving the weir I got Deb to drive so that I could get some action shots of the kangaroos on the way back to town.  But yes, of course, we did not see one on the trip back. 

Probably the best part of our visit to St. George, without a doubt, was to see the fantastic engraving artwork done on Emu eggs.  You really have to see this to fully appreciate it.  The work is done by an incredible artist, Stavros Margaritis.  Originally from Greece, he has been doing emu egg engraving for 57 years, and now his daughter is also involved.  The emu egg is a dark green colour, and there are about 10 different shades of emu eggs.  Each egg has 10 layers, each a marginally different colour than the last, meaning that there are about 100 different colours to work with.  After doing the engraving, a light is placed inside, with incredible results.  On the wall of his showrooms, he has letters of thanks from Barack Obama, The Pope and The Governor General, who he had given specially designed eggs to.   Get ready for an overkill of photos.

We then went for a stroll along the Ballone River, up to another weir at the other end of the town.  One of the floodgates at that end of the town was also open, allowing water to slowly drain into the river to head downstream.  St. George has had numerous floods over the years, the last being in 2011, so the use of these floodgates at either side of the town are vitally important.  The river itself is huge, probably at least 100 metres across. 

We have had to keep our tourist activities to a minimum each day, otherwise we would have run out of things to do on day one.  Although I would have been happy to go back to the Emu Egg gallery again.  On our stroll around the town on day 3, yes, it was no longer raining, we got some photos of some of the murals.  There is a really cool one depicting the transport heritage of the area, and another one of the agriculture and farming history of the town.  The Public Toilets, directly opposite the police station, also have very quaint murals drawn on them.  I think it shows a bit of pride in your local town, rather than graffiti.

 

On our stroll along the river we checked out the pilots memorial.  There are references to 2 local pilots from the 2nd world war.  One of them distinguished himself fighting the Japanese in Port Moresby and the other was the first Indigenous Australian Pilot.  Their stories are on plaques at the memorial and both had heroic careers in the Australian Air Force.  The first one mentioned above even had the Port Moresby airport named after him. 

It was time to slow down from our hectic tourist stuff, so it was off to the St George Bakery.  They have this fully restored 1917 T model Ford that they use to make deliveries.  For a small donation, they also take tourists for a drive around the town.  It was so cool.  Quite breezy and no seatbelts of course, but very cool.  There are only 2 gears, low and high, with 3 foot pedals, one is for reverse.  It runs like a dream and they use it every day.

On our last morning, just for something different, we went for a walk along the river.  Finally, at last, I have seen a bird other than a crow or galah.  Finally got to see a very pretty parrot hopping around.   It took a fair bit of stalking, but I finally got some photos of it.  Now I need to go back to the van for a rest.  Its been such a stressful few days.

 

Tomorrow we are off to the little one pub/one shop town of Hebel.  We are only staying overnight, to soak up the culture, and then we will be off to Lightning Ridge the next day. 

Speak soon. 

Barry and Deb.       

  

Hi to you diehards still hanging on and reading out blog. 

We had just spent 4 days in Goondiwindi and today we moved on to St. George. 

Goondiwindi means ' resting place of birds '.  There, that is your history lesson for the day.  I think the birds even know what it means, as we spent a lot of time walking along the river and also through the wetlands looking for birds, but alas, they were resting somewhere else.

When we left Toowoomba the sun was finally shining, albeit, with a frost on the grass, just to make it more fun hitching up.  It was great, as the further we got away from Toowoomba, the warmer it got.  Driving through the little town of Millmerran, I couldn't resist taking a photo of a couple of great murals.  Loved the one at the swimming pool.  I think you can work out which one that is.

The road through to Goondiwindi is pretty narrow and eventually we stopped on the side of the road for a coffee and muffin.  Checked out the local flora, the horrible prickly pear and another sort of cactus which seems to be taking over that area.  Of course I had to go for a stroll in the trees and you can bet I was extremely careful, with all of those huge prickles out there.  Deb had been giving cheek so I let her walk for a couple of miles as penance.  Just kidding!!

When we arrived at Goondiwindi we headed to the local showgrounds, where we were staying.  The show troupe had already moved on so we couldn't get a part time job.  There were about 8 or 10 vans staying there and it was great.  We actually met up with a couple from Pakenham and spent a few 'happy hours' with them.  A really lovely couple that we will catch up with when we get back home. 

Went out for a bit of a tour of the town and checked out the Gunsynd statue.  If you are not into legendary racehorses, that will mean nothing to you.  To the rest of us, he was an awesome horse.  You don't see many grey horses that are real champions.  He even won the Cox Plate (huge) in Melbourne.

There are another couple of huge sandstone statues just near Gunsynd.  Had to take a photo of the old bridge over the Macintyre River.  This bridge has just celebrated its 100th birthday and is the bridge between Queensland and N.S.W.  It was off for a stroll along the river, searching for those 'resting' birds.  Not very many ventured out that day.  We continued our short stroll, a couple of kilometres, and then gave up and went for a coffee. 

We also went and checked out the Botanical Gardens and lake.  You are sure to find birds there.  Yeh, well maybe about 3 or 4.  During our stroll I think I took the best photo that I have taken on the trip so far.  It is the one of a Cormorant, how is that for great bird knowledge, standing on a branch in the water, and a couple of turtles trying to take over the branch.  It is a great photo.  I will have to confess though that I didn't see the turtles until I reviewed the photos later that night.  The bird was on the other side of the river, about 60 metres away and I was concentrating on getting the bird in focus.  Great job I think.

 

In Queensland, they obviously pay homage to the poor, much maligned smoker.  In the township of Goondiwindi, apart from having an awesome pub, they have a drive through cigarette bar.  Deb felt very special then.

The following day we went out to check out a big waterpark on the edge of the town.  Water, beautiful sunshine, 21C and trees.  There would have to be heaps of birds to photograph out there.  Well, we walked, and we walked and we walked.  About the only thing that we saw was a huge mob of kangaroos, and hundreds of squawking crows.  Just great.  The only other bird that we saw was a kookaburra, in the carpark, near our car.  Just awesome, walked about 4 klms to have it waiting in the carpark for us. 

Our last day in Goondiwindi was pretty relaxed, but you could see the weather turning.  Come 5pm on the last night it started to rain.  No great problem, as I had already hitched up.  It seemed to rain for most of the night, and when we got up in the morning we were now in Lake Dowling.  Our well chosen campspot had turned into a lake over night.  The water was about 5cm deep, with the deepest of course, around the drivers door of the car.

 

Anyway we survived and headed off towards St. George.  You could tell that we were heading west, as we were coming across roadkill again.  We hadn't seen any for probably the last week.  We headed in to look at the old Nindigully Pub, en route.  This is the oldest liquor licence in Queensland.  Had a bit of a look in the pub and it is your traditional wild west hotel, straight out of Crocodile Dundee.  There is a free camping area as well, just across from the pub, go figure, but probably not for a while.  They also had heaps of rain over night and turned it into a huge bog.  They had been pulling vans out of bogs earlier that morning.

   

After that it was just a quick sprint to St. George.  We will be staying here for 4 days, before heading to a small one horse town called Hebel for an overnighter, then our original destination, Lightning Ridge. 

Bye for now. 

 

Hi to all from beautiful downtown Toowoomba, in Queensland.  You know the commercials, beautiful one day, perfect the next.  Yeh sure.  Yesterday up here the top temperature for the day was 8C.  It was bloody freezing.  There was snow about 80k's away and I am sure we got the icy wind straight off the snow.  The weather forecast on the radio said that with the icy cold wind chill, the temperature was more like -5C.  How awesome was that.

Toowoomba is actually one of the biggest country towns in Qld, with a town population of about 135,000.  We came into the town from the westerly direction, almost desert like and very flat.  Then, when in the town, we went up to a lookout and to the east, towards Brisbane, is the exact opposite.  You can see mountain ranges and forests, and you can see that Toowoomba is actually on the top of a mountain range.

We had our own heritage walk around the town, and it is very impressive.  They have lots of really cool murals around the town and there are some incredible old buildings, dating back to the late 1800's.  The railway station is an extremely well looked after historical building, as are numerous hotels and 2 storey terraces in the shopping precinct. 

As is our custom, we had to visit a couple of churches.  I think Deb needs a bit of divine intervention at times.  The first one we went into was St Lukes Anglican church.  What a beautiful building.  There are huge leadlights on most windows, but the SUN was streaming through and the photos didn't come out so well.  The altar area of this church is just a credit to the church.

From there we decided to go and check out the opposition.  We went into St. Patricks Cathedral, a catholic church.  What an amazing building.  When you go into the church, there are leadlight windows, but not of the normal religious themes.  Looking down the centre of the church is an incredible sight.  At the front of the altar area, it is all finished in white marble.  The altar, the pulpit and what I think is the christening area are all awesome.

The church has a number of life size statues, of religious figures, and what appears to be a marble sculpture of Mary and I presume Jesus.  All around the walls there are 3D models depicting numerous stages of the crucification of Christ.  In the corner, inside the church, is a marble tombstone where a priest was buried in the church, in 1925, after 27 years of service.   This church just left me in awe of its beauty.  No, I haven't converted, but if I did it would have to be to the catholic church.  They obviously have unlimited funds.

    

The following day we went and checked out the Army Air Corps museum at the little town of Oakey.  Before we got there, we got some photos of a couple of awesome murals in the town, explaining the history of the town.  So many towns in Queensland have murals, we just have graffiti. 

Inside the museum it was really good.  There were lots of helicopters and aeroplanes in this huge hangar, with heaps of information in front of all of the displays.  There is a huge aeroplane, that is the first training air craft used at Point Cook, way back in the early 19th century.  It was pretty scary, as there is only one seat, with the instructor sitting in front and the student reaching over his shoulder, and receiving tuition.  Not for me.

Took heaps of photos, of which I will attach a few, but don't ask me to give you the history of them all.  I think I liked the 'Iroquoi' (or similar) helicopter the best, with awesome firepower attached.  They also have one of the first Australian war planes, from the 1st World War.  Behind a glass cover they have a portion of the wing material that was taken from 'The Red Barons' plane, after it was shot down, flying over Australian Lines during World War 1.  For an Air novice, this was a really good visit.  One item of interest, just to prove that politicians haven't changed, is an aircraft that was purchased to train pilots.  The only problem was that it didn't fly.  Go figure.

We then took a bit of a side trip to check out a little historical railway station called Spring Bluff.  A really lovely historical site, and would be great if the weather ever got over 10C for a picnic.  It has well cared for gardens, as well as a café.

We decided that we had one more sight left in us, so we headed to the Toowoomba Rose Garden.  Pity about the time of the year, because it would have been beautiful a couple of months ago.  Still couldn't resist, and took a couple of rose photos.  Need them to remind me of my own roses at home, that will need pruning when we get home.  Actually looking forward to that job.  I think I have an illness. 

Today we headed out bright and early, and visited the Cobb and Co museum.  This is a great place to visit, and it has dozens of early coaches on display.  The first Cobb and Co coach was actually imported from the USA in 1854, to service the goldfields.  Not long after that, they started building their own coaches in Australia.  They were all in such great condition, with different coaches for all different uses.  They had the mail coaches, that could carry 8 passengers, coaches for longer trips that could carry 14 passengers, an old style ambulance type coach, an omnibus coach, that carried the men on the roof and the women inside the coach and could carry 25 passengers.  Some of the carriages for the rich gentry were pretty classy.

After Cobb and co we headed off to a place call Picnic Point, which is in Toowoomba.  We went for a bit of a stroll and checked out a really cool waterfall.  I got as close as I could, without getting too wet, in an attempt to get the best photo.  The last time I did this was in Tasmania, where I fell over in the river.  Yeh, yeh, not that funny.   From up there, you could see for miles and miles, towards Brisbane.  This is the direction of the mountain ranges and state forests.  The exact opposite to the west.

 

Our last mission for the day was to check out the Japanese Garden.  This is in the grounds of the University.  It is such a peaceful and beautiful place to stroll around.  (That's if you could kick out all of the other savages and just leave us in peace).  Besides all of the other 'bloody tourists', we did manage to get some really good photos of the garden.  In the true Japanese style, there is a lake with lots of bridges, manicured plants and some peaceful little areas to just sit and ponder all of the problems of the world.  I think if I stayed in there long enough, I could solve most of them.

Anyway tomorrow we will be leaving Antarctica (Toowoomba) and heading to the little town of Goondiwindi.  Will update you soon. 

Barry & Deb.