The starting point

The starting point

Monday, 25 May 2015

Dam , Dam , Dam - Peter Faust Dam & Lake Proserpine

Woken at 6:20 by the neighbours , who decided to pack up and hit the road - maybe they could have packed a lot more last night !!!!! We got up about 20 mins later , had breakfast , got some washing on & out , did some shopping , got some more washing out and then got lunch ready - what a morning - sounds a bit hectic , but it really wasn't - just another day at the office .
 We started out , heading toward Peter Faust Dam & Lake Proserpine , about 28 kms west of Proserpine. The road took us through about 25 kms of nothing but sugar cane - a lot of it ready fro harvest , some just starting , and some part way through their life span . Each corner took us past another homestead stuck in the middle of another field full of cane , with a shed and 3 or 4 tractors and various other implements & paraphernalia to do with growing , tending and harvesting cane .




 After about 20 kms , we went around another corner and started climbing a little - the sugar cane stopped and there were cattle grazing in rather dry conditions . The road follows Proserpine River , for most of the drive we were no further then 200m from it . We started going up a bit more and into a small valley , where we found a dam wall in front of us . Following the road up to the left we went over the hill to find Lake Proserpine stretching out before us , and a viewing area , picnic tables  and further around to the boat ramp . Apparently this dam is renowned for having barramundi over a metre long ( I read that on the internet ) . 



 The road continued around to the south , then went back to gravel - we followed it - as we were going , we thought to ourselves I bet this road goes to a property like when we were at Callide Dam, and it did - it went to the Proserpine Station , owned by the Faust family - we turned around and came back . 
 There was a mountain peak that we could see as we were driving toward the dam wall on the way up - it is on the western side of the lake and is 610 m above sea level , some of the other mountains to the north of the wall are up to 640 m asl . 





 On the opposite side of the road to the picnic area is a fenced off , no access area , where they quarried all the rock used in the dam wall - which was quite a bit !!! They seem to do that a lot up here - quarry the rock onsite - truth be known , they probably do that everywhere they can when they build a dam . 
 Unfortunately for us , it was blowing fairly hard , so a paddle was out of the question , it was windy enough to blow your lunch off the table , so we went back to the RV to have lunch there .
 The afternoon was spent doing some alterations to the kayak cover , getting washing in , buying some beer and then going for a swim in the pool next door . 
 I used to be a reasonable swimmer , but a little tip for you - don't drown more than 50 metres away from me at the moment , otherwise I probably won't get there in time , or be able to do anything when I do get there !! - I'll have to work on that a bit !! By the way , the water was warmer than the air temperature , which was really nice !!! The wind chill on exiting wasn't so nice . 
 That's it for today , a nice relaxing one .

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