Night out in Brisbane

That night was our only non-concert night, so we had planned a big night in Brisbane! I had bought a pack of playing-card-sized cards - each one contained information about a bar in Brisbane. I had selected about 10 for an area where we were going to eat so we could have a pub crawl from the restaurant. The restaurant we chose based on a leaflet about Brisbane restaurants, it was such a tough choice but we decided on one eventually and booked a table. It turned out to be a sensational dining experience, quite expensive but definitely worth the money. I then got my pack of handbag-sized cards out and we headed to our first bar – which looked like it had been transformed into a shop, ah! We had more luck with the next ones, and as we followed the route we ended up in some fantastic bars; trendy bars, a bar with a live band playing, a café-bar looking onto the main street, a huge converted post-office and a jazz bar with live jazz!! We would never have found many of the ones we visited so it was great having the inside information! It was a fantastic night, but sadly we couldn’t party too early in the morning as we had a date with an aussie bloke called Steve Irwin at his zoo the next day…

Koalas hangin' out during the storm

It’s not a huge place, but big enough to have a good few hours there. We had a great afternoon which actually got abruptly ended by the arrival of a mini cyclone to Brisbane!! Luckily for us, the centre of the cyclone was in south Brisbane so we just got really heavy rain for about an hour! South Brisbane had their power cut off, hail stone the size of cricket balls and severe winds. We had to shelter in the koala area so we were sat on benches surrounded by koalas who didn’t seem remotely bothered about the weather around them!!

Feeding a pretty faced wallaby!

We also saw wombats, cassowary (huge bird), echidnas (look like hedgehogs - one of the only two monotremes (egg-laying mammal) along with the platypus), dingos which are wild dogs, crocodiles, snakes, emus (second largest bird in the world) and a selection of tropical birds. Trevor the Tasmanian Devil is the most dangerous animal at the sanctuary – they are so called because they eat large prey from the inside out and therefore come out covered in blood.

Andy with an old kangaroo

The other main feature at Lone Pine is the huge field where all the Kangaroos and Wallabies hang out (about 130 of these too). You can buy some roo food and have them eating out of your hands (and have evil brush turkeys trying to get to the food first!). It was fantastic just strolling in amongst all the kangaroos lying around in the field! They are such sweet animals too – it’s so sad that all the ones I’ve seen in the wild are dead at the side of the road. We took loads of photos feeding a range of wallabies and kangaroos – it’s not something you get to do every day after all!

Andy's new friend

The koala keepers present two shows a day to tell you all about koalas, the first thing they tell you is that you shouldn’t call them koala bears as many people do – they aren’t bears, they are marsupials! Koalas are closely related to the wombat. The unbelievable thing is that the joey (baby koala) is born the size of a jelly bean, it then wriggles it’s way into the mother’s pouch where it feeds and grows.
Koalas sleep a great deal, on average 18 hours a day! This is because their food of eucalyptus leaves is very low in energy. The eucalyptus leaves have a very high water content which means that the koala very rarely needs to drink water, the name ‘koala’ comes from an aboriginal word meaning ‘no drink’.
At Lone pine, there are different areas for the koalas – a kindergarten for the ‘kids’, a bachelor pad for the young men and a retirement home for the elderly to relax in!
We both got our photo taken cuddling a koala, which was great!! They also let you take as many photos as you want on your own camera, as well as getting your own souvenir photograph. Koalas do ‘mess’ quite a lot, so it is advisable not to wear a white top if you decide to hug one…

Me and my koala

One of the main attractions to the koala sanctuary is that you can have your photo taken ‘cuddling’ a koala! There are lots of photographs there showing all the celebrities who have done this – including Janet Jackson and the Pope! Koala cuddling has actually been banned in New South Wales since 1997, but is still legal in Queensland – although koalas can only be cuddled for less than 30 minutes per day!! It’s not a 5 day working week for the koala – they must get every fourth day off to ensure that they get plenty of time to eat and sleep. At Lone Pine, they "clock on" and "clock off" the koalas when they go to the koala cuddling area. I’m not sure what the rate of pay is!

Koala dude chilling in the Batchelor Pad

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

On the Sunday (27th November), we caught the bus to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary which is about half an hour from the centre of Brisbane. Lone Pine is the world’s first and only koala sanctuary and has over 130 resident koalas, amongst a variety of other animals, birds and reptiles.

Oasis in action: An excellent photo if I may say so myself!!

Oasis - Saturday 26th November 2005 - Brisbane

That evening we were going to see Oasis play at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre! After checking with the hotel receptionist where our venue was, we set off walking from the hotel aiming to get something to eat and drink first at South Bank on the river – a short walk from the venue. Our first problem was that our chosen eating location was extremely busy and popular and people were queuing out of the dorrs to get tables. We found a pub that served food, but although we are nearly 11 years over the legal drinking age we weren’t allowed in without ID cards!! To our dismay, our first meal in Brisbane was a sausage roll and a bottle of water from a bakers!! We decided that we might as well go and watch the support band and forget about having a drink before the concert. We arrived at the Brisbane Exhibition Centre (anyone spot the mistake yet??!) which was strangely quiet, although with it being so huge we thought the concert must be at the other end. We checked with a taxi driver nearby who confirmed that this was the location and the concert was probably right at the other side of the building. As we passed couples in formal attire – tuxedos and ballgowns, we were beginning to feel a little worried. I asked the lady at the reception where we should be heading for the Oasis concert and she just gave me one of those horrified sympathetic looks and explained that this was the exhibition centre, the entertainment centre is on the outskirts of Brisbane about 45 minutes away in a taxi!! Luckily for us, a taxi had stopped just outside to drop some more dressed up people off so we explained our situation to him and jumped in. He was very understanding and sped all the way there in record time so it was about 8.30pm when we arrived. After handing our life savings to the taxi driver, we were confronted with huge queues of people, every single person was frisked and all bags were checked before anyone was allowed into the building, so no water or any kind of drink allowed! We finally got into the venue and got a good space on the floor (we were at the front of the back section of the floor area so good view). It felt like we were back in the UK, we have never seen so many English and Scottish people in one place since arriving here!! In fact we struggled to find any Australians!! All the travellers, backpackers, holidaymakers, and ex-pats were here en force to support Oasis!!
The band was really good and played all their classics as well as new songs from their last album. However, Liam only said about 3 things and Noel didn’t speak at all apart from to dedicate ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’ to “Australia’s sh*t cricket team”! So, the music was fantastic, but I felt a bit let down by the concert as a whole due to their unsmiling arrogance on stage – even though I know that is the way they are, it just felt as though they were going through the motions and not personalising the show or doing anything extra to really make me think, ‘wow’. Plus the set was as though they had bought some strings of lights at the last minute and draped them over their speakers and drums!
The set list for those interested was: F.in in the Bushes, Turn Up the Sun, Lyla, Bring it on Down, Morning Glory, Cigarettes and Alcohol (I’m so glad I’ve heard this live, it is one of my all time favourites! Liam aptly dedicated this to George Best), Importance of being Idle, The Masterplan, Songbird, A Bell will Ring, Acquiesce, Live Forever, Mucky Fingers, Wonderwall, Champagne Supernova, Rock n roll Star, Encore: Guess God Thinks I'm Abel, The Meaning of Soul, Don't Look Back in Anger, My Generation

An old friend I met in the shopping centre!

Brisbane

On the 26th November, exactly 4 months since we first set eyes on the land of Oz, we touched down in Brisbane. It is a 1 hr 40 minute flight from Mackay to Brisbane, or a 14 hour drive (the equivalent of driving from Dundee down to Land’s End to put that into perspective!). It is slightly cooler in Brisbane than the temperatures further north in Mackay, but it is by no means cold, averaging around 30 degrees while we were there!
After dropping our cases off at our hotel in Brisbane we had a walk through a lovely park into the city centre to do some much awaited shopping! There is a main mall lined with shops right in the centre which is pedestrianised and also a few shopping centres at either end of this street. My hard earned cents from Coles were jingling with excitement as the big name shops came into view, shopping is so much more exciting when you are deprived for so long! In the centre there are international shops like HMV, Borders, Nike and Tiffany’s as well as big name national shops and department stores with all the designer handbags, perfumes, clothes etc. in. We decided to split up and meet in a few hours so I ran off like I was on a 1 minute trolley dash and started spending. I managed to buy a record 5 pairs of shoes, CD’s, DVD’s and 2 bags! The shoes were mostly ‘thongs’ because that is all anyone wears, it is too hot for anything else, and it is just not practical wearing heels in the bush!! My current shoes looked so jaded that I changed into a new pair I had bought - yes, you will be wisely saying that that was not a good idea, and indeed it wasn’t as I still have the scars to show for the blisters I endured that afternoon and couldn’t wear thongs for a week afterwards!! When I met up with Andy I could hardly get down the street with all my shoe boxes and other bags of stuff, and he, bless, had one postcard-sized bag containing 6 postcards he’d bought!!

Oasis in action: An excellent photo if I may say so myself!!

Apologies for the lack of blog postings and e-mails recently, as we have recently moved house, we had to get the phone line here connected, which has taken a long time to sort out. We should be getting broadband connected in the next few days so everything will be a lot whizzier! I will be gradually catching up with bloggage and mails in the next week so bear with me!

Our First Barbeque!

As I may have mentioned previously, barbeques here are so not the disposable cardboard boxes with charcoal in that us English are accustomed to. That fortnight each year where the weather suits, we all go dashing to get our 2-pack disposable barbeque, empty Tesco of every single type of barbeque meat they had on the shelf and then actually buy some of that charcoal that has been sat outside the petrol stations for years, only to get home and … it’s spittiiiing!!
Here however, the barbeque is not a cheap, disposable, charcoal burning affair – it is a sophisticated machine of status. It matters how many burners you have, how big your gas bottle is, if you have an add-on wok burner at the side, or a hot plate to keep things warm, a rotating kebab skewer, a cupboard underneath for utensils, a hood to cover the food etc. etc. Most people here hardly use their oven grill, why bother when you have a spaceship docked outside to char-grill your meats with, cook potatoes, fry the vegetables and even cook eggs?!
We purchased a reasonable spec of barbeque and have parked the gleaming silver beast outside on our patio. However, our problem was that we didn’t really have much of a clue what to do and when to cook things and since these are the focus point of any social get together here, we decided to have a sneaky practice run one evening. Andy took up the man’s role of chief barbeque controller, whilst I, the lowly Sheila, prepared the salads in the kitchen. It actually went really well, although we did, in our excitement, cook enough food for 6 people.

The upper garden to the right of the house

The estate we are in was purpose built for Anglo Coal (Andy’s employer) so the layout is fantastic with paths and green areas everywhere, and a huge park which is literally over the road from our house. Our street, Fenech Court, is a small cul-de-sac so we don’t have a lot of traffic going past. All the streets round this area are named after famous Australian sporting people. Jeff Fenech was a boxer, so in my quest to educate you all, here is some information about him which may come in useful in a pub quiz one day!

'Our greatest achiever in the ring'
Few sportsmen, let alone boxers, have captured the imagination of the Australian public like Jeff Fenech.
Arguably one of our greatest fighters, it is without argument that he is our
greatest achiever in the ring.
He first caught the public's attention at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic games, where he was unlucky to miss a gold medal. Fenech turned pro immediately and the 'Marrickville Mauler' was a world champion within an astonishingly quick space of six months and seven fights. That was the IBF World Bantamweight Championship in April 1985 Fenech took from Satoshi Shingaki of Japan. In a pro career of 32 bouts, more than half were with one title or another at stake. He made three defences of the bantamweight crown before moving up a division to claim the WBC Super-Bantamweight belt. Three times he defended this title before stepping up for a 3rd time - on this occasion to the WBC World Featherweight title, and made three successful defences. A fourth title narrowly eluded Fenech in a poor Las Vegas decision' when he drew with Azumah Nelson for the WBC Super-Featherweight title. Fenech was not the same boxer after this and advancing years precluded further glory. He remains one of a very select group of boxers to have won three world titles and throughout the 80's the passion and sincerity of Fenech ensured unqualified support and admiration from many Australians - boxing fans and non-fans alike.

The pest control man came yesterday; I was expecting a John Goodman
(Arachnophobia) look-alike! He has sprayed and treated all inside and
outside the house for bugs like ants, cockroaches and spiders so hopefully that
will keep the little dears away.

Kitchen with wash room to back, living area to lefthand side, and Ben cooling off on the floor!

Some of you will know the commotion we’ve had with the house situation, but for those uninformed, then basically there is a huge housing crisis going on here (yes, all that land and they can’t build houses!). The rules are because we don’t have children (Ben doesn’t count) then we can’t have a 4 bedroom house, instead we have to live in a duplex (which is basically a semi-detached bungalow). We were rather annoyed about this for a while; however when we went to look at it our house is lovely, and still fairly big. To be fair, we wouldn’t have even gone into most of the bedrooms anyway, and they are more places for bugs to hide out and to vacuum! Our house has 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, toilet, huge open plan living area joining onto the kitchen and a wash room. The garden wraps round 2 sides of the house and Ben loves it as it is one two levels and had trees and plants, he is out there all the time! It also has a shaded patio area where our new BBQ and chairs are. We have air conditioning in both bedrooms, ceiling fans in bedrooms and living area as well as an evaporative cooling system throughout the house, so we should be cool enough anyway! It does feel really comfortable and homely, and we only have 2 boxes of freight left to unpack now so almost there!

Living Area from patio

So, with MTV playing in the background we began to unpack our belongings from England, with a mixture of excitement (all my CD’s and DVD’s and the stereo are here at last!!), happiness (the sette – ahhh, we’ve missed it), dismay that we actually brought 20 jumpers between us, embarrassment that the poor freight guy in England individually hand wrapped 10 pairs of grotty smelly shoes that I will now be throwing away, and home-sickness (is that a word??) when we unpacked all the photographs. It was like Christmas for Ben to get all his old toys and his bed!

The Living Area

We had also just had Austar (the Aussie version of Sky) installed – with a satellite dish so huge I think we may pick up communications from Mars, so we were excited about finally having MTV and Fox Sports which shows all the English football. I must point out though that Austar isn’t a patch on Sky – it has less than 100 channels for starters, honestly, where is the choice please?!! It was great to have Andy back flicking inanely through the channels though – I had missed that…

Our new house! Kitchen window hidden by trees, garden to back and right.

Freight and moving house

On the 17th November our freight arrived in Moranbah, 4 months after it had been packed at our house in Eggborough. I can’t believe it is a third of a year since we left, excited and very emotional, wondering what the future had in store for us.
Chas and Dave, the delivery men, arrived late on the Wednesday night and asked if we wouldn’t mind them sleeping in our new house and having a shower... Andy went round to help them start unpacking the 100 boxes of freight at 6.30am. It wasn’t long before they asked if the missus could knock them up a bacon and egg sandwich, oh, and could Andy nip to the supermarket to get some sugar for their coffee?! They were off on their way to the next ‘hotel’ around lunchtime, bless!

Sydney the Stick Insect

For the last few days we have had a lodger at our house, Sydney the stick insect mostly sits on the outside of our screen door and watches the world go by. He is the biggest stick insect I have ever seen, (and certainly makes Jenny’s old pets seem like dwarves!), measuring at least 6 inches long! His little head moves around and watches us going in and out of the house. This morning though I am sad to say he has moved on (or been eaten :-( ) and vacated his position.

View from the our room at the Clarion Hotel at the Marina

We dropped Ben off in kennels for the night and then went to go to the hotel that Andy had told me he’d booked in town. On the way Andy told me to divert to the Marina because there was a surprise there for me! He had actually booked us in at the best hotel in Mackay, the Clarion at the Marina which is really really nice!! Our room was fantastic - huge with a sea view!
We had a walk along the Harbour Beach at teatime and then ate at the posh restaurant at the hotel and even squeezed in a bottle of wine after swearing I wouldn’t drink again for a long time!

The next morning we sunbathed by the pool and then had a booking for the car to have an initial service at Ford. We dropped the car off, went shopping for a few hours, spent a fortune, and then picked Ben up and back to Moranbah.

Grass Tree Beach

Even though we had had a massive drinking session the day before at the races, we had decided that we would head off to Mackay at dinnertime on the Sunday, as we had a car service booked for the Monday. After a medicinal KFC meal to kick-start our bodies, we set off to the coast. I had decided that we’d try a different beach and go to Sarina which is South of Mackay so we took a lovely road through the countryside and arrived at the very beautiful beach front at Sarina, only to find that dogs had to kept on a lead on the beach. I totally agree that dogs shouldn’t be allowed off the lead where people are sunbathing, but on these huge beaches usually they say that dogs are ok as long as you aren’t in the main area so it was a bit disappointing. We eventually ended up at Grass Tree beach (after several more unsuccessful beach stops) and just decided to keep him on the lead until we got to the sea. Grass Tree beach was gorgeous, very picturesque with a lovely park at the side with the obligatory BBQ area.

The Bar!

The drinks were all served from big containers filled with ice!

We called it a night at about 11pm and got the bus home. My one huge mistake was now apparent… I’d had no water and my head was screaming at me before I even went to bed. I woke up feeling extremely delicate and had one of those horrible hungover days where your brain grumpily tries to regain some moisture and your body feels like you’ve gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson.
But, I always say that a hangover is bearable if you had a great time creating it, and we certainly had a fantastic day!!

On the Dancefloor!

As the blazing ball of fire in the sky started to set, the temperatures became more bearable and as it got dark there were some great fireworks!
Then it was disco time!! I think Andy phoned everybody on his phone book while I danced the night away!

Bundaberg Rum and Coke in a can...mmmm!!

My outfit

Sorry about the unglamous toilet block background!!
As you can see, there is some grass about now because we had a week of heavy rain in the evenings. However, the ground is very sandy soil and it was like walking on a beach - people were washing their legs in the toilets (mine just stayed dirty!)!!

All dressed up!

Coming up to the finsish line...

There were 5 races in all, and some had about 15 or so horses competing so that was quite impressive. We were very amused by the rather over-sized jockeys who we think must have just finished a shift at the mines before mounting the horses, one man was almost chewing his knees – he must have been 6ft! There was also a good selection of bookies to throw your money at, and they all did extremely well out of me as I didn’t manage to pick a single winner. Andy had a couple of big wins though so that was good.
There was also a camel race (you don’t tend to see that at York) which anybody could enter!

The Racecourse

The day began with a bus picking us up to go to the racecourse at about 12pm, by the time we had waited for the bus for 5 minutes in the searing midday heat then Andy’s shirt was already stuck to him and his feet were on fire in his black shoes! Needless to say, there weren’t many men in suits and the ladies didn’t have to fork out the money for jackets to go with their dresses! We were very glad of the marquee which had a few fans blowing into it and kept us out of the sun a bit, but if we ventured outside to watch a race we frazzled instantly in temperatures around 35 degrees! The only thing for it was to drink more!

Moranbah North Race Day

Last Saturday, when all of you in the UK were celebrating bonfire night and huddling round burning Guy Fawkes effigies, we were all dressed up for the Moranbah annual race day.

Ever since we arrived in Moranbah in August, people have been talking about how drunk they were at last year’s event and what they were wearing this year. It all seemed like a long way away back then, but 3 months has passed and there we were getting ready for the big day. The day is organised and paid for by Moranbah North Coal Mine (where Andy works) and it is free entry for everyone. All Moranbah North employees however get the chance to pay $50 (£22.50ish) for the pleasure of having free drinks all day and a huge seafood (oysters, prawns, bugs (like lobster – not the other kind!), meat, salads etc etc) buffet all in the comfort of a big marquee. Champagne was on hand for everyone and all the ladies got a Moranbah champagne glass as they arrived (yes, even me!). Luckily for me, the manager of the mine drinks Strongbow cider and insists on it being served at the bar so I helped him out with drinking a few bottles. All the men got commemorative stubby holders to keep their cans cool and hands warm.

HAPPY 18th BIRTHDAY KATE!!!!

Hope you have a fantastic day/night!!

For those who don't know who this gorgeous girl is staring at you, it is my little sister (or daughter number 2 as she prefers to be called ;-) ) who, as you will have gathered, is now legally able to drink and go to 18 certificate movies!

The Whitsunday Islands

The hotel from the ferry

Sunset from hotel beach

Wallabies by the Pool

On our way back to our hotel room we saw a sight that you will only ever see here in Australia… next to the other pool were 4 wallabies munching away on the grass without a care in the world!! We stopped for a while and went really close to them, they just don’t seem to be bothered by humans at all.

Long Island

Long Island is one of the Whitsunday Islands and is accessible via a boat from Shute Harbour up near Airlie Beach. Long Island is mainly national park with 13km (or 20km as stated elsewhere!) of bush walking tracks amongst rainforest leading to secluded beaches.
There are 3 resorts on the island, and we were going to the Long Island Beach resort as we had got a good deal on t’internet and booked it, packed and headed off at the weekend!
However, this particular time we weren’t there for the walks, we just wanted to relax in the sun for a few days. We caught the ferry at 2pm and 20 minutes later we were being transported on a golf-buggy train to the hotel. We had a hotel rep go through all the facilities (pools, spa, games room, free buffet meals, mini golf, tennis, walks etc etc) and we felt like we had arrived on a two-week holiday!
We were straight down to the pool and sunbathed for the afternoon at the main pool overlooking the beach and sea – instant relaxation!

Stingers

It is Stinger season from October to May, which means that if you stick your toe in the water and happen to brush past a box jellyfish then you could potentially die. Box jellyfish (stingers) are incredibly nasty creatures, with tentacles so long that you are usually stung several times before you even see the jellyfish. The pain of being stung by one is meant to be excrutiating and can cause your heart to stop beating due to the shock.
It’s a bit like Russian-roulette walking along the edge of the sea, especially when it looks so tempting. Alternatives to being stung and possibly dying are wearing a wet suit, or a very unflattering stinger suit, which is just like a fine net body suit. Ideally you should be kitted out in foot, hand and head covers too – so by the time you are ready to go in the sea you look quite ridiculous. This is the time of year when Ben can really gloat, as according to the vets we have asked, his hair acts as a stinger suit so he can’t get stung.
I have put up a photo of the signs you see at every beach here, because we find the line “Don’t give up, most victims recover’ amusingly scary.

Ben is back in action!

After an agonising 3 week wait (for us and him – he is not a good patient) it was finally time for Ben to go to the beach again. He couldn’t contain his excitement when we opened the car windows and he smelt the sea air, then he leapt out and raced straight into the sea for a swim!! After his swim we bundled him off to kennels for a night like the caring owners we are! Then it was time for our much deserved trip to Long Island for a night.

Copperfield Store

This shop has remained in one family for over 100 years and traded from the late 1800’s to the 1970’s. It still stocks merchandise from years ago and operates now as a tourist attraction for a few hours a week – hence it was shut when we got there!
After stopping here we set off back home to Moranbah. To say we were only away for 6 hours, we managed to see loads of things and had a great afternoon out.

Copperfield Chimney

In 1862, a 10m wall of solid copper ore was discovered here at Copperfield (unsure what came first, the place name or the discovery – but I could hazard a good guess as it would be an extreme coincidence and incredible foresight otherwise!!). Queensland’s first copper mine opened and operated until the 1880’s. Only one of the 22 original chimney stacks still stands. Incidentally, the bricks were made in Clermont by Welsh tradesmen!

Duncan’s Dozer

Don’t think this needs any explanation, other than how cool it is!

Theresa Creek Dam

I had read about this dam alongside information about Clermont and discovered it was a reasonable 22km journey from Clermont to get there. We didn’t really know what to expect, other than a lot of water, but we headed off to see it anyway. Part of the fun getting there was that 6km of the journey was on unsealed (dirt) road so we got to challenge the Territory (our car) a bit on the way!! The dam apparently holds 10000ML (I assume the M isn’t ‘milli’ otherwise we’d have been looking at a small pond) of water and contains enough water to support Clermont for 2 years when full.
It is a gorgeous place, very picturesque, with camping and BBQ (of course) facilities all for a bargain $5 a night (about £2.25). It also has a powerboat and ski club, and it is a popular fishing spot (due to a fish stocking group kindly topping up the numbers of fish every year). There is also a designated swimming area there. We’ll definitely be back!

Clermont Race Course

No, don’t mistake this for the Knavesmire at York or Cheltenham… this is Clermont race course, bless! Most of the courses here seem to be of the all weather (no grass) variety and this is no exception. There had been a few days of rain before this which has helped but I don’t think the going will ever be ‘soft’ here.

Railway Wagon Murals

The railway station at Clermont was built in 1884, and it took 100 years for the railway line to be extended to Mackay on the coast. There are four wagons near the station painted with murals depicting the industries within the area. The paintings were excellent; the one shown above is showing the farming industry.

Commercial Hotel

This is (according to the Clermont history guide) the last remaining example of the old style hotels.

Hood’s Lagoon

After visiting the flood memorials we found the lagoon which I had read about previously. The lagoon is natural but has had a footpath/boardwalk constructed all the way around it (about 1.8km), along with statues and monuments to detail the history of Clermont as you walk around. It is also fully illuminated so can be walked around at night too! It was all very impressive for a small mining town and it turned out to be a beautiful walk. There were lots of birds around, but the highlight was when we spotted some little terrapins sunbathing at the side of the lagoon! They jumped in when they saw us so no photos but it was great to see them in the wild!

The Tree Stump Flood Memorial

This is the official memorial for the 65 people who perished in the flood, it has been designed as a tree stump because trees saved so many lives during the flood.
Again, the line on the stump marking the level of the flood waters isn’t as high as the infamous piano allegedly rose to – although I guess a tide of water could have temporarily reached higher?

The Piano in the Tree

On 28th December 1916 a flood destroyed the original township of Clermont and left in its aftermath a reminder of how high the water reached in the shape of a piano stuck 32 feet high up a tree. At the entrance to Clermont there is now a fake piano in a tree, with an original photograph of the actual piano/tree next to it. The one thing I don’t understand is that they went to all this trouble and then didn’t put the piano 32 feet high when they replicated it – which surely defeats the object of illustrating how high the water got?!! Anyway, here it is, (alas, not as high as the original) still an unusual sight!

Wide Loads

When driving along the highway, we frequently come across wide loads. Now, us English are accustomed to this meaning that we need to give the lorry a bit of a wide berth due to the odd holiday home being moved, or the machine on the back sticks out by a few feet. Of course in Australia, where everything is big, they don’t mess about with piffling little machines with a sign on saying ‘wide load’. No, at least 2 police escorts will drive quickly towards you on the wrong side of the road, forcing you to actually off-road before they smash into you. If you don’t get yourself fully into the field/grass/bush at the side of the road then a monster of a truck with an impossibly big piece of machinery on the back, taking up the full width of the road, will hurtle along the road at about 100km/hour and crumple you like you were a matchbox car. The photo above is an example of one we saw on the way to Clermont. Yet another hazard to Australians - I am quite surprised that they live to any age over 30 here, or aren’t nervous wrecks by the time they are that age.

Clermont

Sorry about the delay with this post, this working lark is no good I tell ya!

A bit of a historical read for you today!

After a few weeks of not going away, due to Ben’s foot and my new job, on Sunday 23rd we spontaneously decided to go somewhere for the afternoon. The challenge was where to go that was less than an hour away from Moranbah. I had picked up some leaflets a while ago about a place called Clermont, about 110km away from Moranbah, so we decided to go and explore there. We left Ben at home as his foot was still not healed and we weren’t sure whether there would be anything there for him.

We set off in the opposite direction to our usual route to Mackay on the coast. It was amazing how totally different the scenery was as we drove along. At first there were thick trees, and then it became totally barren land apart from huge odd-shaped rocks jutting out unexpectedly on the horizon. We were driving through the Peak Range National Park at this stage which we will have to explore further another time.
A section from ‘Geological Elements of the National Estate in Queensland’ describes the Peak Range as:

“A chain of prominent and picturesque mountains to the east of Clermont which is visible from a considerable distance across the plains of the central highlands. It consists of a number of groups of sharp peaks separated by flat plain country similar to the surrounding district. The Peak Range district is underlain by an extensive sequence of basalt flows and rhyolite/trachyte intrusive bodies, which were erupted and emplaced between 30 and 26 million years ago (middle of the Tertiary period), probably as this part of the Australian crustal plate drifted northwards across a ‘hot-spot’ deep below in the Earth’s mantle.”

It is amazing to think that these strange rock formations are a result of activity millions of years ago!

A bit further along the road I was surprised to discover farmed land, this is the first we have seen (apart from sugar cane) since we got here. On stopping at a plaque at the side of the road we discovered that the land in the area of Wolfang (named due to one of the rocks/mountains which is in the shape of a wolf fang) was first used for farming after the second world war when the Queensland British Food Corporation used crops grown here to be sent to ‘Mother’ England. The plots of land here still continue to be farmed by various landowners.

I have a job!

I am now training to be a till supervisor at Coles supermarket in Moranbah (www.colesmyer.com.au) !! It’s not the job of my dreams, but I have always enjoyed working in retail, and the pay is good for what I’m doing. It’s only 25 hours a week and they are flexible with the hours, they have also given me 3 days off in a row every other week so that we can still travel around and see Australia. It is the only supermarket in Moranbah, so I will definitely meet people! The company is huge and own lots of different retail outlets, including a posh department store called Myers.
The bonus is that we get a huge (?!) 5% off all our supermarket shopping, as well as at any of the other retail outlets that they own.

I have done a day till training, and it took me 8 solid hours to go through their training program! It was very impressive actually, I just put headphones on and training software on the till computer screen took me through all the theory, practise and tests! It even gave me a round of applause when I got my test questions correct! By the time I had finished, the toll of standing on my feet for 8 hours had got to me and I was exhausted!

Yesterday I did a four hour shift working on the till, it felt like a full day! It was so busy that I didn’t stop for more than a minute. There were customers with 2 trolleys full of stuff, people with every imaginable type of fruit and vegetable (which are a nightmare – however, the clever computer system actually has a lookup screen where I can do an alpha search, or search by attribute (i.e. green, hard, round) and it will show me all the photographs of what it might be!!). I didn’t do too badly though, and I had the “Hello I’m New” sign removed from my till after an hour!! The only thing I messed up was putting a cheque through the wrong way up!

I’m supervisor training tonight and then start my rota next week. I’m going to stick it out at least until after Christmas so I can save some pennies for our trip back to England in May!

Moranbah Rodeo (not the best photo, but it got dark just after this)

On the night we got back from our adventures in Mackay it was the Moranbah Rodeo! We hadn’t been to a rodeo before so we decided to just go for a couple of hours as Andy was at work early the next day. There had been events on all afternoon and they go on until late night. They provide free buses to ferry people to and from the event to allow everyone to drink which I thought was good.

When we got there I was amazed at how many people were there, all with camping chairs, blankets and cowboy hats on! The heat was incredible; it had hit 39 degrees during the day and was still 36 when we got there at 6pm. It was also very dusty due to there being no rain for months, so you had to concentrate on not sweating too much! A grass hill surrounded the rodeo ring so you could sit there and watch the events. We saw the junior bull riding which consisted of some teenager being tossed about like a rag doll on the back of a very determined bull, if they lasted 8 seconds they got to the next round. We also saw some events where the competitors came out on horse back and had to lasso the bull as it raced away.

It was good entertainment, watching other people being ungracefully chucked to the ground! There were proper cowboys there rounding up the stray bulls, with chaps, hats, boots and even chequered shirts on! I have never seen so many cowboy hats in one place; you could even buy them there! Apparently, there is a rodeo somewhere every week and a lot of the competitors just travel from one place to the next to compete.

Our hotel in Bucasia (15 mins up the coast from Mackay)

Chilling out on the settee with dad!

We were warned of the fact that a GA is dangerous for a dog, but because he is young and fit then he should be ok. After a few hours worrying that we were going to lose him all because of a cut on his foot, we got the call to say all was well and we could go and visit him. He was really drowsy when we got there and had a huge bandage on his foot!
Eventually at about 3.30pm we managed to get to the hotel where we were meant to be relaxing. We ended up only having a few hours by the pool because we had be at the vets the next morning to pick Ben up and take him home. He is on antibiotics and is not allowed to go for a walk for two weeks, which is a nightmare! Ben now is putting all his time and energy into removing the bandaging on his foot, which is driving us mad! We had to go and get it re-bandaged at the vets here, and he is halfway through removing that one as well. We have tried everything, but the more bandaging/socks/nasty tasting things we put on there, the more of a challenge it is for him!