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.
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