Springsure, Queensland

February 10, 2009

With the difficult decision that we won’t be going for the Great Barrier Reef behind us, we are faced with making up a lot of kilometres to work our way back down the country.

The rain was still falling as we left MacKay and the rest of the day was much the same with overcast skies and wet conditions. When we hit Emerald, we were going to try to stop and see some sights (Emerald is the largest producer of sapphires in the world) but then the skies really opened up.

For anyone who has not seen a tropical downpour it is hard to explain. Let us just say that we kept our sandals on as we had to almost wade around town to find something to eat. With such a large amount of water in such a short period of time the streets, parking lots and walkways were all ankle deep.

Our route for the next little while will be what they call the “Great Inland Way”. It is considered by many to be the outback but I just think of it as being in the bush. It is one of those places where you carry extra water in the car and fill up the tank whenever you hit one-half empty. This is really rural Australia.

We make it as far as Springsure since we are not going to risk driving at night. The roads here are littered with hundreds of dead kangaroos and it is no coincidence that most of the trucks here have heavy duty bars across the front. Hitting a 30 kg (80 lbs) roo at 100 km/hr can do some awful thing to your evening.

When the nights are nice we try to find a caravan park to set up the tent in since they are so cheap. When it is raining, we look for a hostel or a cheap motel. In Springsure it is a small motel with just a few units that caters to the various mine workers moving through the area.

Springsure is a booming town of 300 people who provide services to the surrounding stations (ranches). We had the small deal meal for $10 at the local pub where the beers were cheap and some of the locals ogled Lana. I think that she liked the attention but not the flies or lack of air conditioning.

It rains hard the whole night and we wonder what the roads will be like tomorrow.