No internet or mobile reception for anyone on Optus out here .
Woken by traffic noise this morning , seemed to be louder for some reason , ah well , up & into it !!
The weather has improved with very little or no rain overnight , and blue skies still spotted with clouds , but not completely like yesterday .
It was time to leave Ravenshoe & head west . Packed up with little fuss as usual , we were on the road at 9am , but had to go down the road to empty the tanks out .
Yesterday we found out where the dump point was , and followed that road for a little bit to see what was there . It took us back to the main road just past some of the road works and muddy road, so we thought that would be good to bypass some of the roadworks - less mud everywhere !!
Well , after emptying the tanks we headed off , firstly to the single lane bridge which had a bit of a steep exit , so we slowed down and eased across the bridge . It was a bit slow for 2nd gear so I changed back , it was also a bit steeper than I wanted and didn’t like starting , stalling the engine . I put it in low range and restarted , by this time there were 3 cars waiting on the other side and one behind me , of course it didn’t want to go into low range , but did eventually ( felt like a long time , but really wasn’t ) and we pulled away . The next section was winding up hill and single lane bitumen with large corrugations on the inside of the corner , fortunately no one else came at that moment . We stopped & let the car behind pass , before selecting high range again and continuing down to the intersection with the main road . This section was all red dirt / mud , there was no way of missing this bit , so we pulled out and cruised along at 40klm / hr till we were back on terra firma - about 1klm . I could see the mud spray up the nose cone and front wall of the RV - it was never going to stay clean - may as well have just gone down the main road in the first place !!!
Our first stop for the morning was Innot Hot Springs . The hot springs are in the creek bed , and as we approached you could see steam rising from the water . The first thing we saw was a lot of green slime and shallow water , then we saw tadpoles swimming around , so it cant be too unhealthy . Further up was a larger section that looked much cleaner , the water was nice and warm , but we decided not to indulge , and went back to the ute , scraping off about an inch thick section of red mud off both sides of the front wall of the RV .
Back on the road again - while we are talking about the road , we have noticed the last couple of days that the bitumen has an orange tinge to it - must be something to do with the gravel they use - it makes a nice change to the normal bitumen colour !
The terrain is getting noticeably drier , and the trees shorter & a lot more ironbarks & blue gums , the only land use seems to be cattle grazing . The termite mounds are getting bigger and their colouring varies between light grey to dark red - the colour variation is very random , with lots of different colours all in the same spot - its a bit weird .
My head cold took hold again this morning , so I stopped for a driver change , and some more drugs . Before long Lyn had the dubious honour of having the first road train ( 4 trailers ) come past - she also had the first 2 three trailer road trains the other day as well !!!
Continuing on , the scenery was getting drier , the clouds disappearing and the temperature rising . Speaking of scenery , the landscape is a bit dominated by rocks - basalt and lots of them in many different shapes & sizes . You would swear they had been put into mounds , but then you’d come across a small ridge that was all rocks - probably easily explained by all the volcanic activity in this area - more of that tomorrow .
We arrived at Mt Surprise at noon , and found a park to stay for a couple of nights - Planet Earth Caravan Park $17 a night for a powered site . We chose our site , Lyn reversed into place in one attempt ! Before long there were another 4 vans coming in , followed by another 2 , then more after. We were set up , and I cleaned off the mud from this morning before having lunch . We sat and watched while the others fiddled around setting up .
We had a small walk around town ( the main road anyway ) , not a lot in Mt Surprise - a couple of petrol stations / general stores , gem stores , railway station that still gets used !! , police station , school and 3 caravan parks . It was getting pretty warm , completely opposite to yesterday , so we headed back to the RV for cheese , bickies & beer . The park owner came for a walk around later with his pet black headed python “ Clancy “ and invited everyone to come for a talk about snakes and the appropriate first aid treatment for snake bites . Clancy is 20 years old and about 8 ft long , and is very used to being handled . We didn’t offer !!! The talk was extremely informative and enjoyable .
Time for some tea . No TV reception either , its either ABC Country radio or ABC normal radio .
The sky was interesting at sunset , so here are a couple of shots .
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