We had experienced many of Hervey Bays publicized highlights
over our 8-night stay. It was time to head bush again into a more sedate
relaxed atmosphere. As a hypothetical destination we made our way towards Cania
Gorge National Park about 250 kilometres drive from Hervey Bay.
Our first stop was at Childers where we walked around the town’s
main shopping area stopping at the information centre. As it transpired,
Childers information centre was located downstairs in the renovated “Palace
Hostel,” a backpacker hostel which was devastated by fire in the year 2000.
Fifteen people died whom are now known as “The Palace Fifteen.” Located upstairs
was a memorial wall with 15 boxes, each one dedicated to those individual
victims with photos provided by their grieving families from around the globe.
A volunteer talked us through the memorial and how it came about. We found
ourselves overcome with emotion from the sadness of the fire and had to remove
ourselves from the room. We sat outside on the buildings beautifully presented balcony,
recomposing ourselves, reading the acquired literature for available options in
the area. One of the literature pamphlets showed some of the back packers had
jumped from that balcony, to escape the fire and it had been rebuilt using the
original iron lacework. We inspected the towns free camp which was so packed
you couldn’t lift up your arms between all the vehicles. For us Childers felt
unappealing and we decided to move on.
A bit further along the road we stopped for the day at
Biggenden in a much-appreciated quiet RV park. We walked around town in the
afternoon and again the following morning, enjoying the casual relaxed country
atmosphere.
We continued ambling along travelling down some narrow back
roads observing the country side, deviating to view a couple of early 19th
century, built rail bridges. One constructed of concrete, “Chowey Bridge,” and
the other, “Ideraway Upside Down Bridge.” We did have the need to be alert for
cows as well as kangaroos hopping out in front of us.
We inspected a couple of possible freedom camp locations along
the way, finding them unappealing due to overcrowding, continuing till we
located a quiet road side stop. It was a bit like a road trip with locations we
would have considered for an extended stay, over crowded with other campers,
unappetizing to us. We did spend time walking around some of the small country
towns with some photos of Mundubbera’s viewings.
We were still winding back finding driving any distance
greater than a hundred kilometres to be tiring. Disappointingly we were missing
the inspiration to stay at any of the stop over locations for any period of
time in this region. Possibly partly due to the very dry, lifeless feeling
country side and unsurprising to us, that same week, the Federal Government
announcing drought relief help for all the farmers located in the inland regions
of Queensland and NSW. After about 35 kilometres we called it quits for another
day camping at the RM WILLIAMS AUSTRALIAN BUSH LEARNING CENTRE. It was $10 for
the night which was in-between those who prefer the comforts of a caravan park
and those who prefer no cost camping transpiring with only two other caravans
staying the night. We did utilize the camp kitchen and enjoyed watching the
night time sound and light show for our $10. We enjoyed time in the centre
reading the literature and viewing the current local artist displays.
We had a good day with Mary finding a swing to her liking.
Steve rode a flying fox finding it somewhat more strenuous to hang on, than his
flying fox riding days, from a couple of decades earlier in life.
Our next stop about 65 kilometres along at Monto was to be
our last stop over before making our way to our planned destination of Cania
Gorge located about 34 kilometres up the road from Monto. We walked around
Monto township where we saw a sad soul waiting out the front of the old court
building and enjoyed a lively happy hour gathering lasting well into the
evening.
There were a few non-thoughtful caravan owners, parking
their caravans where they ought not be.
Then there were those who would utilise any means to address
the negligence of un-thoughtful caravaners moving them along.
Fortunately for those caravaners, there were some restraints
in place around “Mary’s” train!
Of note the old rail lines and sleepers were in the process
of being removed and some of the local townships were utilizing the towns old
neglected rail sidings to provide cheap RV parking areas to attract people to
the declining towns with the railway no longer in existence.
When leaving Monto, we visited the country butcher for some
meat. We purchased one T bone, which lasted the two of us for three meals.
We thought Cania Gorge National Park sounded like a good
location to explore. Our research showed it was a bit like a mini - less
spectacular version of Carnarvon National Park which was located about a couple
of hundred kilometres NW. We had previously camped at Carnarvon a couple of
times mesmerised each time by its magnificence. No camping was permitted in
Cania Gorge National Park with our next best option to stay in a caravan park next
to the National Park. The caravan park provided basic amenities within a great
bush setting. Each day at 4 pm they put some bird seed out attracting some of
the locals.
Only one pair of king parrots participated in the 4 pm bird
feeding display. Our second night onwards at feeding time (which we didn’t
return to,) up to 7 king parrots appeared in the tree above us with some
landing on our caravan roof loudly walking around to get our attention to come
out side. Steve went outside to obtain a photo and the first photo shows a king
parrot landing on Steve’s hand photo bombing the picture. The king parrots seemed
to be targeting us, not pestering any other people around us whom were all
coming out for a look. It may well have been they just liked to have their
photos taken?
There were a selection of eight different walks in the
National Park, most with a start point about 900 to 1800 metres from the
caravan park. Generally, people drove from the caravan park to the walks carparks
start point. We chose to walk along a walking track from the caravan park to
the different walks location, utilizing the flat terrain to warm up and wind
down, aiding our bodies.
For us Cania Gorge provided good scenery, plenty of bird
life and offered a variety of walking tracks, all aiding to a friendly people
environment with plenty of smiles and happy greetings. We enjoyed a week at
Cania Gorge before we thought it might be time to resume our journeyings.
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