Things go smoothly for a couple of days as we take time to visit some of the attractions enroute set up to entice the hoards of grey nomads who seasonally ply these parts.
We call in at the Big Easel in Emerald. The sunflower intent of this piece of work is fine given the area, but the Van Gogh association is a bit of a stretch out here under the sizzling Aussie sun, so I, personally, think this commission might have taken an Aussie slant in creativity. But, still, people do stop to view it.
We took a brief diversion up to Rubyvale and Sapphire to visit the odd little mining settlements there that look so cartoon-like with their remnant pieces of corrugated iron, canvas and buried wreckage strewn creatively all over their slag heap settlements. Still wishing and hoping most of them. But the earth must be giving up a few of its treasures as some are plodding on, characters all by the looks of them.
Over the Drummond Range and down into Alpha we drive, admiring the panorama.
Here we find a small faded community making a real effort to enhance their local business with interesting historic murals. These would benefit from clarifying information plaques that might develop into an informative mural walk around the entire town; the works are so beautifully done.
The fossilised forest installed in the town park is an excellent piece, too — beautifully conceptualised. The rocks represent a family of tree forms with fossilised remnants inserted in the felled and split trunks representing aeons of growth. Similar to the rings of a tree. Among the inserts are pink zeolite and black granite representing the mineral wealth of the region today. A lovely piece. Well worth stopping for.
We camp on the river Jordan at Jericho and as this turns out to be one of those iconic creek camps that are so appealing it is hard to move on the next day. So we stay. An easy decision on this planless, timeless trip we seem to be on.
We pull out our fishing rods, load the red claw pots with what little bait we have, then plop both into the gum-coloured water. And wait.
And while we wait we invite neighbours over for a fireside chat and a ‘billy boil’ and chat into the night with the stars as our canopy, learning about modern day drovers who still ride the range for a crust.
The creek fish must have objected to our chatter, though, as they hightailed it elsewhere, but we still managed a delicious appetiser of red claw wrapped in bacon thanks to a kindly camper who thoughtfully gifted them to us at a previous stop at Lake Maraboon, outside Emerald, the night before. Gourmet fare. This particular couple come up from New South Wales for six weeks every year to throw their 4 crab pots each into the lake, pulling out 10 or 12 red claw each pot harvest, blanching and shelling them, then wrapping them in freezer bags to take home to last the rest of the year. In between pot pulling they fish and freeze that catch, as well. Catching their Omega 3 intake for the entire year in one six week span.
We left Joshua, the trumpeter of Jericho, on the banks of the Jordan and investigated the Tree of Knowledge at Barcaldine.
This fabulous installation of separate pieces of carved timber hanging from chains, simulating branches and twigs over a crafted trunk, now stands instead of the tree that offered the shade that protected the early trade union movement in Australia. That tree was deliberately poisoned with Roundup, by disgruntled persons unknown, over a decade ago.
As the railway moved west from Rockhampton, so, too, did settlement. Sheep men built their runs. Workers came in droves: railway gangers willing to hammer iron rails under a hot sun; miners with their wheelbarrows, shearers with their blades, hobos with their swags. All hunting down any sort of a job enroute that might give them the fixings for a meal.
As Spring approached in 1891, the pastoralists on the runs decided to lower the pay for the shearers they would need for the season. The workers, as in Eureka, revolted. They gathered together in the shade of the old tree in front to the Barcaldine station and decided to quit work. To strike. And to prevent others from scabbing their jobs they set up an hourly watch. The strike went on for months, until the armed forces were brought in and the leaders imprisoned: some were sent to prison on St Helena Island off the coast of Brisbane’s bayside; the others soon disbanded.
But, their rebellion marked the beginning of the trade union movement in Australia. Striking for better pay and better conditions for the hard working man. The Tree of Knowledge in Barcaldine stands to this day as the symbol of the beginning of that labour movement in Australia. And, in fact, the Labour Party in Australia stemmed from that movement.
This beautiful built installation is now a permanent reminder of that. A real drawcard, too.
Barcaldine has other appealing attractions, as well: a wonderful old Art Nouveau cinema that still plays to the townsfolk, operated by volunteer movie buffs.
The Masonic Hall down one of the side streets is an architectural gem with its exquisitely crafted frontage and original features repainted now in its first colours: many shades of dun and clay red. The earlier Masonic Hall that this one replaced, in 1901, was an iron structure that literally moved as the railway terminus moved. About every 18 months or so, as the terminus moved further west, so, too, did the temple. Similarly, the school and many of the hotels were relocated from surrounding small towns to make an instant railway terminus of Barcaldine. Though many buildings came to a halt here, as they simply could no longer be moved.
Remnants of wonderful old places survive on many street corners. Huge, many of them are, too.
We drove, then, toward Longreach, stopping only when we ‘popped’ something else in our motorhome. This time a hose under the bonnet split, sending the engine into limp mode.
Disconsolate at the repeated problems we are having we hobbled into Ilfracombe, sank behind its old historic bar made of a wool press, ready to drown our sorrows only to hear that there is a great mechanic just a block away who will look after us. And he is cheaper than the “Golden Spanner” in Longreach we are strongly advised.
After we had had the Cook rustle us up a steak sandwich, we left the worn Shearer’s Moccasins on the pub wall, then headed off to find the mechanic and order the necessary pipe.
It will only take two days to arrive, he said: and in the meantime we have two new tyres waiting in town to be fitted to our back axle, so that will keep us busy for a time.
We head, then, to the Apex Riverside Park just out of town and join many campers. Some of whom we have already met enroute: a lovely couple with Nordic accents use their bicycles to visit the loos at the far end of the camping space. And a newbie friend we call Aquarius, as his wife is washing and has him lugging 20 litres of water on the trot all afternoon, as she has four loads of washing to do today in her caravan. We ask him if he can do pushups with his water weights. He can. Easily.
We end up going to the town laundromat later just to fill in time. Ours wash takes barely an hour and we don’t have to even break a sweat.
Next morning Aquarius jokes he is never again going to install a Jacuzzi in his caravan. The drained washing water is still a big wet puddle. So, he moves his rig. And grins.
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