30/4/17 Sunday Drive

  Saturday was cleaning and golf day , I played golf with a crew of guys from Toowoomba who were down for the weekend to play pennants golf against Goondiwindi , they were out for a good time !! My golf was good for the first 11 holes (26 points ), before a few errant shots wrecked the next 6 holes - I finished with 33points . The golf course is quite good for somewhere that can have a lot of heat and not a lot of water , greens were great and fairways good , enjoyable .
 
  Today was time for a drive out to the west to the small village of Toobeah , there's some houses , a pub , and a grain storage facility , otherwise not very much at all . We were looking at a road that would take us south to the river again and possibly come back to town from the southern side of the river . Well we don't believe in Hema Maps when it indicates there's a road that goes across the river . Checking on a satellite map , we discovered the road stopped at a property and didn't continue over the river , so we headed back to Goondiwindi and had lunch , also fuelled up - maybe because the fuel light had come on .
  Here's some photo's of a billabong beside the road .

 From town we headed out toward Boomi - another town to the southwest of Goondiwindi - and went to Boobera Lagoon . The dirt road leading to the lagoon wasn't completely dry , with some boggy sections that we could straddle or go around . Almost at the lagoon , we found a section that we didn't want to drive through , so parked and walked in the last 300m . Quite a large lagoon that stretches out to the left and right of us .

 After a few photos , the drone came out for some aerial shots , here's one -

 Looking at the soil here - it is a very fine , almost dust , and it's easy to see how it just turns to mush when you add water . The track that we walked along had so many kangaroo paw and tail marks in it, they must have been having a party there !!
 Butterflies were floating all over the place , predominantly white with black tips on top and with some yellow underneath . A couple were staying in one spot while we watched , they may have been getting moisture out of the sand .

  Back out and toward town , we stopped at a cotton field that's waiting to be harvested - the drone came out again , here's some pics -

  The short drive off the road on seemingly dry ground , was still very soft , I could feel myself sinking slightly as I walked in to the edge of the field .
  Back in town , right beside the old bridge is Customs House where they used to collect fees/tax's from traders coming across the river into Queensland with their goods many years ago .

 This is the main street on Sunday , when most of the shops are closed , and then there is the Victoria Hotel - the owners of the hotel were part owners of Gunsynd !

 Goondiwindi is a very tidy town , well looked after , and a pleasure to be in . It's the meeting point of 5 highways - Barwon, Leichhardt , Cunningham , Newell and Bruxner . A very busy highway hub , with many truck movements at all hours of the day & night , it's also very busy now with the grey nomads heading north for winter !!
 That's it for today , here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kfqr6qONxNMkoRMpwdbLOR93j3Q&usp=sharing

28/4/17 Low flying

   Back again , today we did a Cotton Tour , not something we'd imagined doing , but thought it would be interesting to learn something about cotton .
 A cool night , got down to around 4 degrees , so there was still a chill in the air with a southerly wind blowing as we walked up to the front office for pick up .
 With everyone picked up , they drove us around Goondiwindi showing some of the highlights before taking us over the river to the farm . The farm is 2,500 acres , one of 4 owned by the same family , and they are in the process of picking the cotton - at least they were until the 30mm of rain on Tuesday night - that put a stop to everything - nearly everything - the plants start to sprout new leaves which makes life difficult for the harvesting , so they have to spray the crop to defoliate it . They use salty water and spray from a crop duster plane . They fly millimetres above the plants , and even below the high voltage power lines that run through the field !!!

 On the way in we are going past the crop that has been harvested and the baled cotton , the crop duster doing his job in the distance from us . The new round bales are from new technology harvesters , which also helps with the processing of the cotton back at the cotton gin in town .

 This is the edge of the harvested field and the unharvested section across the irrigation channel .

    We then went over to the sheds near the trees in the photo and had the process explained , from seeding , growing , and harvesting .   They are much more efficient with their water usage than they used to be , and now lead the world in water usage - in fact it uses far less water than growing rice does ! As a side note , the boom irrigation sprays that were in yesterdays blog were in fact very small, they have one in use here that spans one kilometre !!!
  They use water probes to gauge how damp the ground is and only water when required . Water runs around the property via canals and channels , and is redirected back into the holding dam from all spots on the farm - everything is laser levelled to run the water into one point and is then pumped into the holding dam .
  The rain stopped the harvesting , and they won't be able to sort again until it dries sufficiently to get the heavy machinery back in , the cotton also has to be dry to be harvested .
  With all that information safely locked in , we headed back to town and out to the Water Park . The Water Park is a recreation area the local council built , it's a water ski area and is unique in that they ski in an anti clockwise direction around an island - a length of 3 klms . There's a beach and roped off area for swimming , grassed areas , picnic tables , an amenities block and boat ramp . This is it -

 Back to the tour , we headed around to the cotton gin , this is where they process the cotton into bales ready for export . Prior to that , the bales are delivered here and samples taken to a classing shed - not far from where we are staying - they class all the cotton that is produced around here and Narrabri , Dalby and other towns around here . Once classed the cotton is then processed and baled up . These are the new round bales and the other large rectangular bale - the size of a truck !! - are the older way - they still do both , but the larger bale is much more labour intensive .

 These are the finished bales ready for loading onto trucks .

 The cotton gin removes the seeds from the cotton , the furry seeds are then sold for oil or stock feed .
The cotton bush is a member of the hibiscus family - this is one at the retail shop in town , you can see the buds , some have opened and the cotton is expanding out .

  The retail outlet promotes Goondiwindi Cotton products - mainly clothing , but they also do soap and body lotions . Needless to say we didn't buy any clothes , we didn't have any clothes to replace , the price also was another reason !!! hahaha .
 And so ended the tour , back to the van and the many hundred Corella's that were squawking and flying around the billabong behind us .

 Lunch was next , then we headed back to town and went for a ride on the bikes along the levee bank beside the river , then out to the water park for a total of about 14klms .
 Day done , here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KB1nz33NM-u-3Ct3KUd6yMzwltg&usp=sharing

27/4/17 In or Out , up or down

   Here we are again , further up the road at Goondiwindi , just over the border in Queensland , and out of NSW .

 After a night at the showground , the show people arrived at 8am and started setting up , taking over just about everything , so after doing a pump repair , we packed and headed down the road about 2 klms , most others also packed & left or relocated . 

 Rain was forecast for overnight and it came in the middle of the morning - well before sunrise !! We got up to find the park had pulled out all stops and provided us with our own paddling pool !!

 We back onto the billabong , and the site is pretty flat , or so we thought . The showers continued , but dried up after lunch , providing us with the most intense rainbow we’d seen . We'd had almost 30mm overnight !!

 Goondiwindi is a reasonable sized town , with racecourse , golf club , bowling club , hospital , several pubs and many shops . It sits beside the Macintyre River and has an historic bridge built in the early 1900’s . Beside the bridge is a statue of Gunsynd - The Goondiwindi Grey - very famous racehorse !! 

 This is the billabong behind us looked good in the late afternoon light .

  Today , we headed off for a drive to Texas - Texas Qld that is !! Stopping at Boggabilla for a quick photo of the pub - the Wobbly Boot Hotel !!

 Next stop was at the Dumaresq River at Texas , there is a free camp site that you can stay at for a maximum of 2 weeks , just need to be fully self contained , and was very popular . There were at least 30 vans & buses there today on both sides of the river . 

  We found our way to Texas Lookout , should have been Texas overlook as you don’t see much of Texas at all - just a few roofs !!

  Just like the Texas in USA , it has it’s fair share of cacti , with lot’s of prickly pear growing .

An industry from yesteryear has been cleaned up and will be open soon for tourists is the old Rabbit  Works . It started operations in 1928 and ceased in 1992 . The unskinned rabbits used to be sent to England by boat - might have been a bit on the nose by the time they reached the mother country - probably could have smelt them coming !!!! Skins from rabbit , kangaroo and fox skins were sent to Sydney from about 1955 to Akubra to make hats !!

 The weather has certainly been cooler today and being outside in the wind is not pleasant , so lunch was quick and then we headed back to Goondiwindi . 

 Cunningham Weir on the Dumaresq River seemed like a place we needed to see , so we pulled off the road and headed to the river - only about 400m off the main road . It’s an old weir across the river , with most of the old timber posts still in place .

The recent rain has brought out many flowers on small plants beside the river .

 The road came back to the highway near a town called Yelarbon , which has a grain handling facility . It appears to be in a desert like area - apparently caused by a naturally occurring saltinity scald , it looked anything but desert today , as there was a lot of water lying around and had green grass and small stunted trees . There’s also a dingo fence , and it has Queensland most eastern spinifex grass . It’s a bit strange that about 20klms out is one of the most fertile areas in the district . They grow wheat , barley , chick pea and sorghum . It’s a highly irrigated are with many of these boom type irrigators - this one was a small one !!!

 There were lots of these boom irrigators around this area , after a few more kilometres they dissappeared , the fields got larger & larger and there were more wheat fields appearing . We headed for home only to find the temperature here hadn't gone above 17 degrees . 

 That’s it , in & out of NSW again , back in Queensland , and you're all caught up , here’s a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VzMgbw2-rF43Dd1o0wM7K8357WY&usp=sharing

22/4/17 Giant jigsaws & a gorge

 Out to the northeast of town today to Sawn Rocks , a section of Mt Kaputar NP . The mountains of the park look good coming out of the flatlands . About 25 mins and we had arrived , parked and wandered up the track . We'd seen some pictures and were looking forward to what was to come .                 Along the track we had a visit from a very orderly group of caterpillars , barely any room for another whisker in between each one .

 The walk in didn't give us a hint of what we were about to see , the trees and foliage were very thick. About 50m from the end of the track we got a glimpse of the rocks towering 40m above us - awesome !! We got to the viewing area and just stopped and looked , towering columns of rock , looking like they'd been precision cut , quite a sight to behold , very like a giant set of organ pipes !!

 The remnants of all the pieces that have broken and fallen lie in the creek bed below . These columns range in size , but are all around 300 - 500mm round . This is the creek bed & some of the blocks , Lyn's there as well !!

 The columns of rock have some cracks which trees grow into and their root system grows and pushes the rocks outward till they fall .

  The floor of the creek bed is like stencilled concrete , with patterns of the columns seemingly stencilled into the rock , apparently the columns go underground approx 60m !!
 On our way out we spotted a colourful little bird ( you like the technical name hahaha) who decided to pose for the camera .

  We drove up Killarney Gap for a look , then headed out to Waa Gorge ( pronounced War ) , it was about 35klm along a good gravel road , then another 5klms through properties to the northern edge of Mt Kaputar NP . Mt Waa is on the eastern side of the road just before the gorge - we were impressed to see that it too was made up of a lot of columns of rock !!

    We drove into the parking area and had some lunch before going for a hike to Mill-bullah waterholes , and then to the gorge itself . The waterholes are impressive , deep round holes in the rock about 5m across , ground out by the grinding action of the rocks & gravel being washed down during rain events . We were distracted by them and missed the track to the gorge , but in true pioneer spirit , made our own track over the top of the hill and up the creek bed till we found the track again ! Here's one of the water holes , there was another below this one as well .

  There are some plants out in flower , one extremely tiny .

 Golden Orb spiders call this area home as well , I stopped millimetres away from walking through one web - they are like fishing line and stretched between branches & shrubs , not to mention having the owner of the web sitting in the middle of it - nearly the size of the palm of your hand !!

Rock hopping through the creek bed from side to side and then finding the gorge to my left through an opening in the trees . There's a rounded rock valley stretching up into the cliffs towering above - up to 70m !!

 This is the view from near the top looking down back to the opening in the trees .

 Grasses & trees cling to life in a very thin layer of soil .

 The white patches on the rocks is where water is seeping out / or has been previously .
With that we headed back , and found the appropriate track to save blazing another trail over the hill back to the waterholes .
   An eventful drive back to the bitumen , with several kangaroos trying their hardest to get in our way , and then get out of our way , one of which did a mid air twist right beside our passenger side window - Lyn got a birdseye's view of it's paws & legs as she looked out the window !!
  Nothing else dramatic happened - that was probably enough for Lyn for one day !!
Here's a map link : - https://drive.google.com/open?id=16_-RO7wprw8XZd457ieiCFgo7R8&usp=sharing

 Another nice sunset to finish the day off .