2010/09 Australia trip - Dalrymple and the Burdekin River |
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Friday October 1st
The horses had gone, to be replaced by cows browsing on the creek banks, and we also found this spoonbill. We picked up a bag of washed gravel for Sandie to sort through on a rainy day, and headed back to Emerald for fluidic essentials: water, wine, and rum. Nearby in the park was this enormous sculpture of the Van Gogh sunflowers painting. It was constructed by a Canadian artist who’s built two others in towns in Kansas and Manitoba, both sunflower producing areas like Emerald.
We were off to the north on the Gregory Highway. This passes through mostly flat land with sparse tree cover and grazing cows and horses, much the same for 200 miles, and not the most exciting scenery in Australia. However, this was where the real trip began. Up until this point we’d been in somewhat familiar territory, with a similar route to our 2002 trip. The territory north to Charters Towers and beyond to the Cape was all new to us.
Charters Towers’ architecture dates from 100 years ago and the gold boom. Lots of interesting old buildings survive, including this old post office that looks like a cathedral. There is an elegant police station and the hotels still have their wrought iron balconies.
We had hoped to take the Flinders Highway to Hughenden and then go north on the Kennedy Developmental Road from there and take in a couple of national parks and some mining areas for moonstone and agates, but were dubious about going into such a remote area in wet weather. The visitors’ centre was unable to give us any information about road conditions and suggested we check when we got to Hughenden. We were not keen on driving 150 miles just to find out that the road was closed, so we reluctantly opted for the safer direct route up the Leichhardt Way. Luckily there was a free and pleasant camping spot on Fletcher Creek just a few miles north of town.
Saturday October 2nd
There were no signs to announce it, but Fletcher Creek is right next door to little known Dalrymple national park, so we set off to find the park. This was definitely a 4wd track, with gigantic mud holes and bumps, and a tree right across the track just outside the park entrance. I should have got the winch control out and pulled the tree off the road, but it had many small trunks, so I crushed it instead.
The track led us to the Burdekin River, obviously a gigantic river in the Wet season. Only a small fraction of it had running water, but that was still a large river and deep enough for boats to use it. We walked the dry river bed, with Sandie looking for rocks and flowers, and me for anything photogenic. She found a few pieces of jasper, in various colours, some so shiny they looked lacquered. The rocks in the picture are part of the river bed, high and dry and radiating heat.
The big birds in the picture are black swans, revealing their white underwings, not visible when they are swimming.
The park is also a historic site, the location of explorer Ludwig Leichhardt’s camp in 1845 as he sought to find a route from Brisbane to the Darwin area. Later, it was the location of Dalrymple, a town which sprang up around the gold workings. On this day all we could find of the town was a couple of sad graves.