Thursday , November 29 Townsville to O'Connell River Campground On the Road Again

      By remaining for a couple days in Townsville we had to book it south.  We plan to meet our friends Wayne and Lorraine at their place in Brisbane on December 4th, with Kristy arriving there on the 6th, so we had to get a move on, especially with our plan to travel on Fraser Island for a couple days before we get there.  

     We didn't leave the apartment until 10, still trying to book a place in Sydney, we stopped at a Bridgestone to get the 'new' tires rotated, and we had some shopping to do, so naturally we didn't leave town until around 1. But once we were back on the road, which actually felt pretty good after our three day sabbatical, we got to see more of Queensland.

The beautiful Queensland countryside

An old sugar processing plant ...

... and a newer one.

     Queensland is a beautiful place, but there is one aspect of it that makes it a little less appealing, at least to our Yank sensibilities; the haze caused by brush fires.  Some are set to clear out sugar cane fields just before harvest (doesn't hurt the cane at all), some to control the growth of underbrush in eucalypt woods, some to rejuvenate grazing lands, and I'm sure some are unwanted and accidental.  But it's unusual to be driving along and not see some sign of an active blaze fouling the air.  Usually you see the source of the smoke from a distance, but we did get close to a couple of the fires.

We saw this fire near the main road from Cairns to Brisbane

We saw this fire on a small mountain road...

... and could feel the heat of the blaze.

     Nearly every field or forest has signs of a fire having passed through at some time in the past few years.  The trunks of the trees are blackened and some smaller shrubs are completely charred.  Overall though, the fires don't appear to do lasting damage, and in fact probably improve the health of the local environment.  Still, there are an awful lot of signs warning against starting fires.  There must be some kind of problem.  This is a topic that obviously requires more study.

     We stopped at the small coastal town of Bowen, which was used as a stand-in for Darwin in the 2006 film  "Australia".  Nice little town, and very proud of playing their part in the film industry.

This jetty was an important part of the film

Strange plants

The 'police station', all that remains from the set.

There is a hotel similar to this in the movie, but it was blown up
and burnt down as part of the Japanese raid

      We drove until 7:30 pm, which is about a half hour after dark, found a decent inexpensive campground, made macaroni and cheese for dinner, and called it a night.