Bramston Beach - Lightning
Ridge (Sept 5th – 18th)
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjde52qTfZ9uQWt_hEXIKjEd-pUMEn6-knsicK2W_j3D-7SDqy5R-hdrGyygUZ-DG1o24BIQrE3JDt9qzkfFbnrlZr6UFzJ6FUVwovGwgOXnn3nNhqU99pReuDmeOge5EQ4Z1mmkYprmRwk/s320/Travel_map7.jpg) |
Updated map |
We had a pleasant couple of days relaxing at Bramston Beach
– walking along the beach, collecting shells, reading. We decided to slowly
move our way down the coast towards Townsville, so our next stop was about
40kms south of Innisfail at Hull Heads. We had stopped off to visit Sonja’s
brother, Garry and Jill who were staying at Kurrimine Beach, about 20 kms south
of Innisfail. Our stop was in a small park beside the Coast Guard building.
When the bloke came to collect the fees for the night ($15 – toilets and hot
showers) he had some photos of the area after the cyclone had been through. Our
van would have been well and truly underwater. He also had a photo of the resident
4m crocodile that lived in the river mouth just beside the park.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_4GNPtuco6dx4lmrEVF_E86poxqHePb9WHlXHnEl0lI59_AF53zjxzW05ZHxhZMv-r4CdT1EFpDl1390nhqfi9u2KDYiV-q3x8Rao4FntpWEnC5jGXqhJmXYJTN48eU4qWpfjV5BcZ_CW/s320/sunset_bartle_frere.jpg) |
Mt Bartle Frere at sunset from Hull Head |
That points out the problem with tropical north Queensland –
beautiful beaches – all of them with crocodiles, making swimming a no-go. If
you’re not worried about the crocs, the rather poisonous jellyfish arrive
around October and hang around for a number of months!!!
Our next stop found us in a large park just behind the sand
dunes at Toomulla Beach. Another pleasant free place to stop – very quiet,
grassed and a good beach to walk along. Unfortunately, the mozzies and
sandflies took away some of the paradise side of things!
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Toomulla Beach |
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The Beach at Toomulla |
After travelling about 20km down the highway, we next found
ourselves at Saunders Beach, about 20kms north of Townsville, where we spent a
couple of nights again, just relaxing. It was a small spot, but had a great
grassed area where we spent a large part of the day in our chairs overlooking
the beach. We decided to use the generator on our first day here – again,
because we hadn’t used it since Gregory Downs. At around 6:30pm each night,
1000s of bats took off from nearby and filled the sky for ages as they took off
in search of food for the night. A really amazing sight!
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibgyegx28y6KSDQYCTHbZVSUwd2ppTVQ7M1ZeQmIgTIAbfKf3xj_u4HxbQ1MqPRTi6tAcmuWlhRRvEzrgSWl6mcpeGUmtYvUbXzwdnkeRjHHMEq2oMnMYKuPPe3i9fl3saNPZypq92cu7A/s320/saunders_beach.jpg) |
Saunders Beach |
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Thousands of bats on the wing at Saunders Beach |
Having decided we would move back inland again, we did a
quick drive around part of Townsville, hoping to stock up on some perishables,
only to find, being Sunday, the supermarkets didn’t open until 11:00. We found
a hot bread shop and decided we could wait another day for the rest. Around
midday we pulled into a free camp area called Marcossan Park overlooking the
Burdekin River. We decided, wanting to continue to do things on the cheap, to
spend a couple of nights here and do a day trip into Charters Towers (about
20kms away). When we left Saunders Beach in the morning we had discovered the
gas bottle we were using for the van fridge had run dry at some stage during
the night. On arriving at Macrossan Park we discovered the fridge had obviously
started to defrost and so we used the generator to make sure it got a really
good going and also to allow the solar panels to do their thing as we haven’t
had power for about a week and been in some shade over that time.
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Our site at Macrossan Park on the Burdekin River |
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Flood levels on the Burdekin River - 21.97 metres being at the top (1947)! |
We spent two nights at Macrossan, with a day trip into
Charters Towers. Whilst here we did a bit of a walking tour around the place,
David had a hair cut and we decided to have lunch at one of the hotels.
Usually, a roast pub lunch is quite good. This was the worst we’ve had –
cauliflower and broccoli were overcooked, limp bits, whilst the pumpkin was so
uncooked, we couldn’t cut it to eat it. The spuds were definitely NOT roasting
potatoes. VERY disappointing.
From here we headed down to a delightful camp spot at Theresa
Creek Dam and then on to Rolleston (where we took 15 minutes to walk around the
town) before heading to Carnarvon Gorge.
After leaving Carnarvon we made a couple of free camp stops
by dams and the Balonne River before reaching Lightning Ridge. Here we had to
deal with thunder, lightning (Lightning Ridge living up to its name!) and some
rain. As the weather was going to be dodgy for a couple of days we decided to
stay in a caravan park just opposite the thermal pools. We also had a second
spectacular, noisy thunderstorm late on the second day – being very glad we had
solid, compact stone under us, not the soft, easily turned into mud, soil where
we have been free-camping recently. The weather will determine if we free-camp
or caravan park on the rest of our journey.
Our first day was just a bit of rest and some washing. David
was up early on the second day for a quick whip down to the thermal pool for a
dip. The temperature of the water is around 41°C, so there were a number of
short dips and some walking around to cool off!
Lightning Ridge has four self drive trips around the town –
each drive marked by different coloured car doors. Car doors and bonnets seem
to be a popular form of signage around the place – there must be a number of
door-less, bonnet-free vehicles hiding around the area!
It is different to Coober Pedy – here it’s quite hilly,
compared to the flat area of Coober Pedy; It seems to be a different soil type
here, although there are still the hillocks of white tailings from each mine
site in both places. Coober Pedy seems to have more blowers (large trucks with
a huge vacuum on the back for sucking up all the rubble) and larger
constructions around each mine site. Most of the mine sites here tend to have a
caravan and shed construction on them. They use diesel, solar or wind generation
for power. We quite enjoyed our time here, but have decided it’s too much hard
work (involving a lot of luck) for us to consider taking up fossicking at any
time!
We managed to spend an hour or so dipping in and out of the
thermal pools later in the afternoon – right through the thunderstorm. Very
pleasant watching the dark clouds overhead, lightning flashing (off in the
distance), thunder rolling overhead and rain cooling us down from the heat of
the water in the pool.
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Approaching storm at LIghtning Ridge |
We move on again tomorrow – not sure where we will end up,
but not worrying about stopping for anything we haven’t seen before. This will
probably be the last entry before we get home. I’ll include another one when we
do finally arrive – mainly to finish off the map!!
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