After leaving Ayr I stopped a few nights in Home Hill and caught up with some friends where I spent a couple of days updating my blogs.
I went out fishing one day in his boat. We caught 3 good sized Grunter. My contribution was zero. To be fair I did catch one fish but it was just undersize. After Home Hill I went to Groper Creek. There is a great caravan Park there right on the river bank. You can actually sit in your motor home or caravan and fish from inside if you wished. Further south and on the coral sea is Wunjunga, with campsites at Funny Dunny and another just south of here, though this one was a bit too sandy for Rhonda.
I then headed down to Lake Proserpine. Since my visit here about this time last year they have upgraded the amenities significantly. There are now 3 fishing pontoons and new showers and toilet blocks. There will be a Kiosk and cafe opening before Christmas when it will go from a 72 hour free site to a paid campground. Happy to pay the going rate here. It is a magical spot and one of my favorite lakeside camps.
Next I headed inland to Collinsville which is known as the Pit Pony Capital of Australia. A coal mining town it was once known as Little Moscow for it’s links with The Communist Party. It is the only town in Australia to ever have had elected a Communist Member to Parliament. It is a very clean and tidy town with friendly locals. The free campsite in town at the showgrounds is directly opposite the Workers Club and is one of the best I have stayed at in a town. The Workers Club has a memorial out the front and a Museum upstairs known as The Coalface Experience. It is dedicated to those miners that worked underground and who fought for better pay and conditions and safety. They were constantly at loggerheads with management over safety issues and it was said that the miners only worked 7 months of the year. The rest of the time they were on strike! It was a very good history lesson. I was there on Rugby League State of Origin 1 night so it was a great atmosphere as Queensland won.
I called into Glendon which was a town established by a mining company. A typical mining owned town layout. Further south was Nebo. An interesting little town. The museum here was closed but they did have a nature walk beside the dry Nebo Creek. I stayed just south of Nebo overnight at a gravel pit and was the only one here. The only town between Nebo and Dingo was Middlemount but I didn’t go in here as it was off the highway. Dingo on the Capricorn Highway didn’t have much to offer and I stopped at Bluff. Not that there was much here but the pub looked (and was) friendlier and they had camping out the back.
It was then a reasonably short drive to Blackwater where I did a couple of loads of washing. Blackwater is billed as the Coal Capital of Queensland. There is plenty of evidence of this. There is a huge Coal Museum but strangely they only open it Monday to Friday so being the weekend I missed the opportunity to visit. A local mine worker that I met at the next town told me I didn’t miss much!
Then it was on to Emerald for an overnight stay before getting my 6 monthly blood test done the next morning.
rayaroundoz 