In the early 1970s, we were regular users of the once notorious Marlborough - Sarina stretch of the Bruce Highway between Rockhampton and Mackay. At that time we lived and worked in the Burdekin district (Home Hill and Ayr). Thirty plus years ago this was a nightmare part of our trip to and from Brisbane. Flooded creeks in summer and in winter, hundreds of kms of unfenced road with roaming beasts, both domesticated and native! In the early 1980s, a new highway was constructed closer to the coast, through St Lawrence. What a difference!
We camped the night at a pleasant Main Roads rest area outside St Lawrence before heading on to Mackay. The drive is no different now from any other part of the Bruce Highway - that is - VERY average as opposed to just plain horrendous.
Queensland provincial cities have ballooned in the past few years. Mackay has always been a major sugar industry service centre. Now, mining services and transport have seen the city boom! Now it’s all traffic, new urban highways, housing estates and bigger ports to feed the hungry ships that line up out to sea, awaiting coal for China. On flights north we have seen scores of orange coloured coal tankers off the coast here and at Gladstone. It’s all happening!
In Mackay we spent a couple of ‘family days’ with Janita’s brother John, his wife Peta and tribe… Lily, Catie and Sophie.
Catie & Lily came with us on a day trip through the never-ending cane fields outside Mackay, to the little town of Finch Hatton and the beautiful gorge nestled in the low tropical ranges to the west of the town. The girls (4 years) did very well, tramping 3 kms to the waterfall without a whimper. Just a lot of chatter!
Today, by-passing the touristy Whitsunday area, we have settled in the luxurious Discovery Caravan Park on the beach at Bowen. We consider ourselves authorities on camping grounds, having stayed in hundreds here and overseas. This is right up there with the best of them. What are the best you might ask? Easy. They are both in Italy. Camping Flaminia in Rome and Camping Michelangelo in Florence. So where is the worst?? Camping ’no name’ near Rabat in Morocco. Ugly!
May 30 - Home Hill to Groper Creek
After 30 years, some do things change.
Thirty years ago, we left the Burdekin after 5 great years teaching at the local High Schools. We came with nothing and left with two small children (ours!), a railway wagon full of goods and chattels, a lot of experiences that influenced the rest of our lives and a few friendships that have remained strong over all those years.
Ayr and Home Hill are North Queensland sugar towns, separated by the river and 12 kms of highway. Despite the ups and downs of the industry, both have prospered to the extent that they would be barely recognisable if we hadn’t had a few visits over the years of our absence. Chain supermarkets, the usual fast food outlets and restored or rebuilt government buildings have, sadly, genericised Ayr, the larger of the pair. Little old Home Hill is still the poor cousin. However, things in our old temporary home town have improved markedly. A well laid out, tree-shaded main street, a nationally known free camping spot in the middle of town and… traffic lights! But most of the progress has been north of the river. No matter. Home Hill still has its nostalgic pull for us. Walking the main street, we are still able to recall the business that operated during our short residence. A closed café here. The old hardware there…..
Catching up with a few old friends was great. Strange as it might seem, despite all the years, the people don’t change.
Tonight we are camped at Groper Creek, the site of many a legendary fishing and crabbing expedition of the past. In our time here, Groper was a squatter village of semi-permanent huts built on unusually high stumps to protect against the regular Burdekin floods. Now there are streets, new houses and a Caravan Park full of grey nomads. How things change!
2 June - Groper Creek to Upper Burdekin Crossing
In the late 1970s, crocodile hunting became a thing of the past in Northern Australia when crocs were declared a protected species. Since then, the habitat range of these less than charming beasties has expanded significantly to as far south as Yeppoon. What has all this to do with camping at Groper Creek one might ask? Well, the warning signs at the boat ramp were more than enough to send one of our fishing party scurrying for her caravan. Despite this loss of fishing ‘person power’, we managed a couple of nice crab meals. Forgotten just how GOOOOOOOOOD fresh, warm crab meat is!
On a rainy morning, we are camped by the Upper Burdekin just outside Charters Towers. Yesterday we visited the historic town of Ravenswood. Gold created this town that, in its heyday, boasted 52 hotels and a population in the thousands. Two of the grander hotels are still operating, but that’s about it for main street Ravenswood.
Mining has resumed here after a break of some decades. The mining companies have done a lot to maintain this historic little town. Several of the remaining buildings have been restored by the companies. A visit to the cemetery gave us some idea of the past size of the town. Burials commenced here in 1872, peaking in the first decade of the 20th century. A quick count put the number of graves at better than 5 times the current town population of 230. Of particular interest was the small Chinese section of the cemetery.
3 June - Charters Towers to TownsvilleRain! But it’s June in the tropics. How can this be?
Our camp by the Burdekin last night was relatively quiet - except for the trains that rattled over the enormous girder bridge that spans this sometimes mighty river. Oh, and the Road Trains that thundered over the nearby road bridge. A ‘sometimes mighty’ river because the Burdekin is mostly a placid stream that meanders from north of Charters Towers to meet the sea at our previous camp site at Groper Creek. When fed by a good tropical wet season, this tranquil stream becomes the original raging torrent!
At our camp site, the river has, in the recent past, reached a height of 22 metres above normal river levels. That’s a lot of water!
In our time at Home Hill we were lucky enough to miss a major flood. And major it would have been in comparison to what could happen now, because in the early 1980’s a dam was built some 80 kms down stream from Charters Towers, providing the north with an enormous water storage capacity and mitigating the flooding further down stream.
Charters Towers is another well preserved reminder of the wealth that Gold bought to the North. Once known as ‘The World’, the ‘Towers’ had scores of pubs and a Stock Exchange. Even today, the main street is lined with substantial 19th century buildings that would not have been out of place in New York, London or Paris at the same time.
We dropped into a small miner’s cottage museum for a bit of history and local colour and found far more than we had bargained for. Chatting with the local character who ran the place would have been experience enough, but when he mentioned that he came from Millmerran, Paul casually said that his grandfather had been a tailor there in the late 1930s /early 1940’s. “Not Jim Ward?” he said… Oh yes indeed! Our host, Alan (Tony) Christensen was even able to tell us Paul’s mother’s name and, with coaching, her older sister’s name as well! Alan is now 82 (looks 70) and still has a school photo of Paul’s mother and sister at home… How’s that for a memory after 70 years? Watch out Pauline!
But … that’s not all! ‘Young’ Alan also once lived at Holland Park, in Crump Street. As the crow flies, less that 500 mtrs from where we have lived for the past 30 years! Who said there were only 6 degrees of separation?
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