Day 93 – Wednesday 20^th October 2021 – 322 Km

Packed & away by 9.20am & off to top up the car with fuel & after that the Heritage Village dump point.  It is already starting to get hot. Back to the shopping centre & we bought a few more bits & pieces for our trip then off to the chemist. We had picked up some prescription medication yesterday & Tereza’s was not available, the chemist was ordering it in. This morning at the chemist they received the wrong medication. Damn.

We were away from Biloela around 11am & the drive west is pleasant through the flat farm lands. There are some big paddocks freshly ploughed for cotton & some paddocks full of sticky looking plants that are planted in even rows, we don’t know what it is. The roads are long & straight but very bouncy, there must be lots of big trucks travelling over these roads. We travel at around 90km/hour. There are big storms brewing but we seem to pass under them before they start storming.

As we approach Banana we get a bit excited about the town, no bananas, the town is named after a large bull that was named Banana because it was a yellowish colour.  More long straight flat roads with lots of bouncing & as we come into Moura the very large tailings heaps from the big coal mines dominate the landscape. Moura is a big town with lots of mining support being the primary industry. We check the only chemist if they have the medicine, but NO.  We have lunch at a nice little café in town (no lovely sea food any more) before continuing westwards.

Rolleston is our turning point southwards & is a small rural crossroads town with not much going for it (in our point of view).  More long flat roads with bounces, however, these are becoming less the further south we go. The mountains start to get bigger & there is lots of smoke around from burning off on some of the farms. The temperature is now 36 Centigrade. Around 80km south of Rolleston we turn off towards Carnarvon Gorge, a further 40 km in. To our surprise the road is bitumen, eleven years ago it was dirt. We are now driving through unfenced farms & after we pass a few ploughed cotton fields we come into cattle country with some cattle wandering down the centre of the road. The smoke gets thicker & we wonder if the National Park is burning.

We stop at the memorial to an aircraft crash in 1943 when a military plane flying from Darwin to Brisbane was engulfed in a storm & crashed at this site with total loss of life. It is a poignant reminder of how precious life is. The road into the national park is in very good condition & gets fairly twisty as we start to cross a few creeks & get into the National park. We are greeted into Takarakka Bush Camp by a big male kangaroo grazing near the creek crossing.  This camp has very nice clean shower & toilet facilities.  It is a very nice camp site because it has a lot of big trees & it is next to the creek, there are lots of birds flitting around. We set up in a very large site then go for a walk along Carnarvon Creek. It is lovely & quite & we meet & chat with a few other travellers. Back to camp then cheese, bikkies & red wine to finish another great day.