Camping here adjacent to the trotting track in the showgrounds brings memories of camping at race tracks in New Zealand over the years; Blenheim, Wingatui, Oamaru, to name but a few. It is just such a delight to watch the trainers with their horses late in the afternoons or early in the morning, to wake to the trot, trot sound of hooves or to listen to the trainers’ words of encouragement, sometimes bullying, sometimes more gentle. Although a sign at the gates suggests there are races this coming Saturday, there are also notices to advise that the local summer cricket series starts here this Saturday. I do not think we are to be treated to horse racing after all, but then we might have moved on again by the weekend. The jury is still out.
And so the days pass, the heat relieved by the stiff afternoon breezes which in turn act as a deterrent to having the awning out or even wrestling with large sheets of newsprint. The third test of the cricket series has finished, triumphantly for the Australians and I have learned more about the game, or at least the art of listening and watching it. I am sure there will be more to come in the weeks and years ahead. For a very non-sporty person, my retirement is turning my limited sport’s education on its head!
A morning after-breakfast ritual is in place; a gentle wander down to the village for the paper, or bread or whatever falls in the need-to-buy category. Once we wandered about the main street, crossing the bridge over Black Snake Creek and learning that in 1912 the rail came through from Rosewood and that for many years road traffic was stopped by massive gates for the passing of the trains. Now there is little but a sign to remind us that this was once the impact of the rail. Now a concrete pathway stretches out along the side of the creek, or wet area, because the swamp-like depression hardly deserves the name “creek”. Flood measuring poles do confirm however that Black Snake Creek can at times become a force to be reckoned with. We have agreed, that my initial impressions were correct; this is indeed a charming little settlement we have temporarily settled into.
Returning from our walk one morning, we caught up with one of the trainers whose mare was improving form, having dropped her circuit time from one minute and three seconds to fifty eight seconds on the third trial. We watched as they continued on to a property overlooking the grounds; hopefully she spent the rest of the day grazing in the shade, resting her weary legs.
Yesterday we relieved our itchiness to travel and explore by doing a short road trip, of about one hundred and thirty kilometres, taking in a good part of the Cobb & Co tourist route which runs from Ipswich to Toowoomba, more or less following the rail line.
We joined the route at Rosewood, about eleven kilometres directly south of Marburg passing over a low hill from where we enjoyed wonderful views north back toward our camp, up to Lowood and beyond, and south to the mountains of the Scenic Rim, before descending into the Bremer Valley to this charming township of just over 2,700 people.
We parked near the railway station and walked up and down the main street, past rather dilapidated commercial buildings full of people and business; the town was buzzing with commerce and friendliness, apart from one young couple who were obviously stressed by the whole Christmas affair and their two tiny children, exhibiting their discontent with the world by their foul language. It sorrows me to think that when we are all gone, we people of a certain age, the streets will be full of the sound of F-language, foul and unfriendly.
Coal mining commenced in Rosewood in 1904, and still continues today, and yet if it had not been for a glimpse of an open cast mine as we came down into the town, we would never have guessed it to be a mining town. We thought the whole place was quite delightful.
We travelled twenty five kilometres west, passing through more picturesque country, reminiscent of the sugar cane growing country around Mackay, but here now only supporting small holdings grazing horses, a few beef cattle and smaller mobs of sheep.
Passing over the low Little Liverpool Range, from the Bremer Valley into the Lockyer, through the tiny settlement of Grandchester , formerly Bigges Camp and once a coal mining settlement, we arrived at Laidley.
When we first arrived in Brisbane to purchase our rig, we then learned that Brisbane’s vegetables were all grown in the fertile black soils of the Lockyer Valley at Laidley, Gatton and Grantham. This is a bit of an exaggeration, but it is true that this area does produce much of the fresh produce that makes its way to the markets in Brisbane. Silt from the flood-prone rivers makes for good growing, even though those same floods hamper reliable and regular cropping.
In fact Laidley regards itself as Queensland’s Country Garden, the local industry being dominated by agriculture since the end of the 19th century. Today it has a population of about 3,000 and is a surprisingly vibrant place. I was disappointed that the town was not surrounded in tilled or heavily cropped vegetables. These we found a little further west. Here we walked up and down the street as we had Rosewood, and purchased an apple bun that turned out instead to be full of caramel rather than more healthy fruit, but we ate anyway. Here the maintenance status of the buildings was also like Rosewood. These old wooden buildings and the fine old Queenslander residences, albeit disintegrating, are expensive to maintain and the painting beyond the average Joe Blow, especially if they are of senior years.
Alan Cunningham, whose name graces the highway between Ipswich and Warwick, first explored the area in 1829, naming it Laidley’s Plain after the Deputy Commissionary General of the colony of New South Wales. The town developed around the Cobb & Co staging post, and later operated in the same way when the rail passed through. The land around was initially cleared for sheep grazing; horticulture came later.
A few kilometres further on, we called into Lake Dyer or the Bill Gunn Dam which offers camping and day recreation. We read the camping tariffs and stored the information of possible future use, however in the weeks ahead I suspect this will be full of holidaying families, an ambience we prefer to leave for the younger ones.
On we went, still westward, to Gatton, which we had mistakenly remembered as the centre of the Lockyer flood disasters of December 2012 and January 2011. We had also thought it to be a small settlement similar to Marburg where we are based for the moment. How very wrong we were!
Gatton has a population of about 7,000, traffic lights, a wide and long busy main street, an additional shopping centre, a MacDonalds and a Coles, all which announce the fact that this is a place of substance.
The area was explored by Major Edmund Lockyer in 1825, the town gazetted thirty years later and the post office opened eleven years after that, however it was not until the rail came through to Grandchester in the mid-1870s that significant growth occurred.
Gatton is very proud of its university, on the site of the Queensland Agricultural College and experimental farm, opened way back in 1897. The University of Queensland’s campus remains the base for much of the university’s rural focused research and teaching.
Gatton is also known for an ugly piece of history; the unsolved Gatton murders; in December 1898 three local youths from Blackfellow’s Creek were murdered. Such skeletons in one’s “closet” add an interesting allure.
On a more positive note, the town is part of the “Salad Bowl” of the Lockyer Valley, the area primarily agricultural, with vegetables making up the majority of the crops. Fruit was apparently grown extensively here until the 1990, when economic conditions caused many of the orchards to be uprooted and replaced by more lucrative crops.
We found our way to the Lakes Apex and Freeman, adjacent to the town’s Cultural Centre and picnicked in a shelter amid a colony of roosting cattle egrets; those beautiful graceful apricot tinged birds we first became acquainted with at Minden, just up the road. Perhaps graceful is an exaggeration, because they are anything but as they descend ready to land on a skinny bough with their great weight.
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| Cattle Egrets perched high |
All about were a host of other water birds; ibis, ducks, coots, pelicans, Purple Swamp-hens, to name but a few. The recreational area and bird sanctuary are a relatively new addition to this surprisingly pleasant town. Lake Apex was originally known as Cleary’s Swamp which tells you a lot. In 1975, it was developed as a recreational park by the local Apex Club, then the Freeman’s, who lived next door, donated and area of land surrounding the adjacent lake. The council now cares for the lakes although you get the feeling that it has been left mainly to the birds. There are apparently 153 species of birds within the boundaries of the parkland.
The Cultural Centre is an even more recent development and houses the Information Centre, the library and art gallery as well as a cafĂ© which stretches out onto a wide verandah overlooking the lake and the bird-infested trees on a few tiny islands. The current exhibition on at the gallery is one by local sculpture Birgit Grapentin, a woman of incredible talent, titled “Diversity in Stone”. Obviously we were impressed, as we were by other sculptural works about the gardens outside the Centre.
From here, looking west, we could see the sun glistening on the roofs of Toomoomba’s city buildings, high above us. You may recall that Toowoomba sits on the edge of the escarpment, accessed by a very steep road. Here at Gatton we were 94 metres ASL; Toowoomba is at 600 metres ASL.
It was Grantham that saw the worst of those terrible floods of the summer of 2010/11, and this was our next destination. There is little left where Grantham used to be, if our Navman was to be believed, but we could see new houses at some distance on a hill to the north. This is where most residences have been moved to and presumably commercial services have gone with them. We did not bother finding our way through to the new settlement; I know that three years have passed, but somehow it would have felt just too voyeuristic.
However on the flat land of the valley, carved out by the insignificant little Lockyer Creek, there were many hectares of cultivate horticultural land and vegetables at varying stages of growth. We had at last arrived in the “Salad Bowl”.
I was interested to read later that this is also a significant beef and dairy cattle farming area with a growing equine industry. The latter did not surprise me because all through this area are horses and the where-with-all that goes with owning these magnificent beasts, not least of all the trotting track beside us which is as I write this, receiving a good watering.
We returned via the Warrego Highway, a distance of about forty eight kilometres, which would have been speedy had it not been for all the road works. We realised too that most of the return route was new to us as we had only just touched part of the route before travelling further north of the highway to Esk and beyond, so this turned out to be an unexpected bonus and an excellent way to finish to a day that had exceeded our expectations.
It also had
been an excellent opportunity to exercise the new navigational device; there is
much about it we like and much that we do not. I miss our trusty TomTom.
This morning when we returned from our walk we spent some time chatting with Wayne and Sharon who have been living in their bus motorhome for some years, who suggested we were mad to be considering returning to New Zealand and ending our travels in Australia. One could not help agreeing with much of what they said; however there are always aspects of one’s argument that cannot be shared with all and sundry. It was interesting to speak with them anyway.
This afternoon as we returned from a walk up the Black Snake Creek, we noticed several cauliflower heads on the pub verandah across the road. I suspect they most of these were our fellow campers; a better commercial proposition to the village than the likes of us who returned to the caravan for a cup of tea and the companionship of several willy wagtails who never cease to delight.
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