With the temperature in mind , we headed down to the Botanic Garden situated either side of the Nogoa River . The western side is a more formal grassed area with lot's of trees , some gardens , playgrounds and a rose garden . It is in need of some TLC , there's still plenty of damage from cyclone Debbie , with broken branches still hanging in the trees . Another visitor to the gardens are the bats , not a huge colony , but enough .
There's plenty of picnic tables scattered around the river bank .
This is the Nogoa River .
There are paths leading through the gardens , a pleasant walk on a hot day . The rose garden is in the retaining wall on left of photo .
And here's some of the roses in bloom .
A different flowering tree , with dark red , pink & white flowers .
These are the 3 bridges going into Emerald - road bridge , old road bridge and rail bridge over the Nogoa River .
We drove around to the native section of the gardens and went for a wander around there . There's a double flower hibiscus - hadn't seen one like this before .
There's a large Southern Cross windmill that actually pumps water & not there just for show !
We headed around the Bauhinia Walk - these are the flowers of the Bauhinia Tree , they are flowering profusely at the moment .
The walk went around a lake .
From here we headed out to Fairbairn Dam - Lake Maraboon - 25 klms south of town . It has a caravan park and substantial picnic areas & access to the water . When full it holds 1.3million gigalitres , and has a surface area of 15,000 hectares - bloody BIG . It was built for water supply to Emerald & surrounds and for irrigation and a water supply to the mines .
The dam is far from full at the moment , no water has gone over the spillway for a long time .
The dark line near the water line above is actually tree stumps in the dam - this is them .
There's a loop road that takes you back to Emerald after you drive across the dam wall & spillway . It takes you past a huge citrus orchard with it's own equally large processing plant .
When we were here last - 2008 - it was after probably the last big flood , the water was flowing 5m deep over the spillway - that's a lot of water !! They are currently working on upgrades to the spillway , as can be seen by the huge crane towering up above the roadway .
We've spent a few afternoons at the aquatic centre cooling down , the show ground where we are staying doesn't have a swimming pool - shame that .
There's a lot of crops grown around this area thanks to the irrigation , including sorghum , cotton , wheat , sunflowers , citrus , table grapes, mung beans , chick peas & corn . There's also cattle grazing.
That's it for the moment , see ya
Here's a map link :- https://drive.google.com/open?id=1LIZ6BODhbpmNAHMtxAv_SP-03jw&usp=sharing
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