Travelling South August 2010 Part 1

 After we left Cairns we headed south and went through Babinda and the small towns along the way to Rollingstone. We hadn't been on that stretch of road since we went to Cairns in the early 80's, so it was good to see what has happened to the towns. They all seemed to be prospering but the sugar mill at Babinda is sure in need of a rebuild.

  On our way we deviated to Taylor's beach for lunch. It was a lovely place and the river was very wide where it meets the sea , but it was low tide and all we saw  was sand and just a narrow stretch of water .

 Taylor's Beach

 We got quite a shock when we got to Rollingstone about 3pm as it was full. We just managed to find about the last spot for us just inside the fence line.  There was even a 28ft van there.We spent a lovely afternoon chatting with neighbours from Tassie and Brisbane.

 The next morning  we continued our journey.  We went up and over the Harvey Range . It had some nice views back over Townsville  and was a good road with only a short steep  section up and over the range. On our way  we came across a road side exhibit  which displayed the history of the road and had a nice  picnic shelter attached wiht a little walk down to the river as it was just over a bridge.

 Harvey Range Historic Exhibit

Close up of one of the pylons

 Back  at Fletcher Creek we found that our old spot was taken so we went down the otther side of the creek for a couple of nights.

Our aim was to get to Anakie for the Gemfest and Lynn wanted to be there a few days early  so we could get a camping spot. As it was too far for a single trip we broke our journey at Theresa Creek Dam. Here we met some more nice people from Tassie and had our first rain since we left Cairns . We had planned to take the back road from the dam to Rubyvale which would have cut quite a bit off the trip but as there was quite a bit of unsealed section and it was raining even more in morning we went via Capella.

 We were really surprise at how much this little town has grown as in the early 80's we were working at Oakey Creek Mine when it was being biult and Capella was our nearest bigger town , but it was too small for shopping so we had to go to Emerald.

 By the time we got to Emerald it was pouring and although we had planned to stop at the Information Centre we couldn't find any parking nearby so it would have meant getting soaked to reach the centre. 

 Betweeen Emerald and Anakie the rain got even heavier to the extent that Lynn was seriolsly thinking of pulling off the road, but couldn't find a firm spot so we continued slowly as it was difficult to see the road.

 At Anakie we were surprised to find an unpowered site was available. It was nice and grassy and backed onto a little dam. As the festival didn't start for 2c more days we had time to catch up on some wahsing etc.  Because of all the rain and we had more after we arrived in Anakie, about 70 mm all up, the exhibiters were unable to set up as a truck had driven into the area and left huge ruts from when it had been bogged, so the organisers were very reluctant to left more vehicles into the area until it had dried out. 
 After such a wet day when we arrived we were very surpirsed to find clear blue skies the next day.

 We spent some time wandering around the festival once it opened and then went for a drive to visit Rubyvale and Sapphire .  The family had a homestead lease and a mine there in the late 70's and early 80's and prior to going to Oakey Creek we had spent some time there and found  few sapphires. It is another area that has changed a lot since we were there. The road  to Miner's Heritage mine that belonged to our neighbour used to go past our place but there is now a new road down on the flat below.  The homestead lease is now owned by someone else of course but part of the besser brick  building is still standing. It was mainly used for storage as we used to take vans etc there for accommodation.