25 April 2011 - Rivergums Caravan Park, Goondiwindi, Queensland

A "don't-mess-with-me cactus

Alas we were too lazy to rise before dawn and travel the forty kilometres north to an ANZAC ceremony. Instead we hung about our camp in the roadside scrub far later than we would normally, reading and doing Sudoku puzzles, until we thought we had better hit the road again. The short drive this morning contrasted with the almost two hundred travelled yesterday.

The Information Centre was closed as expected, but also, unexpectedly, was to remain so all day. We found our way to the cheapest and most central of the three caravan parks in town; we had decided we would settle in and wait for life to restart here, to investigate work possibilities before any further thought of travelling on.

Rivergums is a compact park, sheltered and tired. There are four cabins all joined like a motel block, a dozen or more permanent vans, some occupied and then there was us. Since midday a few more people have come in, and some have left hoping for greener fields at the other two parks further out of town. We are parked on gravel, with a bucket underneath our grey water outlet, but on power, water and have internet reception unlike our camp last night.

After lunch we walked along the riverside pathway, a four kilometre concrete path along the levee (constructed to cope with an almost 11 metre rise), much of it in the shade of lovely trees, in the company of many varieties of birds and in view of the McIntyre River, a substantial waterway which will finally become the Darling River and reach the sea in South Australia.

We returned to camp walking back along the main streets discovering a well appointed town, served by all shops and services one might require, every one of which were closed with the exception of the service stations, video shops, Crazy Clarks (the cheapy shop, formally owned by New Zealand’s The Warehouse, "where every on gets a bargain") and the cinema.

Goondiwindi is yet another rural town, of just over 6,000 people, on the junction of six significant inland highways. It is also a major centre for agricultural production with the district producing and growing a diverse range of crops and fibres. The mainstays of the local economy are anything from wool and beef production through to the growing of cotton, sorghum and corn in the summer period. The winter crop growing season sees the planting of wheat, barley and chickpeas. It is the cotton industry we are targeting for work for Chris; it is the peak of the harvesting season. The manager of the park here gave us a list of names and numbers to call, so armed with that, along with enquiries at the employment agency which will reopen on Wednesday, plus probably knowledge gleaned from a tour of the industry tomorrow if the Information Centre is open, we hope to arrive at some clear idea of the lay of the land.