Day 61–62 Sat. 24th May….Maroochydore to Dalby

It was Jassy’s birthday today and boy was she excited!!!!! We awoke early as usual and had “Presents in Bed”. We had had such an enjoyable time travelling up the coast that it was a little daunting leaving it, knowing that we were heading into the interior of Qld.
We decided to head back down towards Caboolture on the Bruce Highway and turned off to get to Beerwah (near Australia Zoo) and travel through the Glasshouse Mountains. We passed through towns such as Peachester, where we had lunch on the side of the road, through to Cedarton and then Stanmore. All this was quite lush countryside with heaps of pineapple plantations and fruit gardens and plenty of roadside stalls in which to purchase these items.
From here we turned on to the D’Aguilar Hwy and began to head west, gradually climbing through valleys until we crossed the Great Dividing Range near a place called Cooyar. It was very surprising how quickly the countryside dried out and the trees and vegetation became smaller and more sparse as we approached the town of Dalby.
Dalby itself is in the heart of the Darling Downs, which of course contains some of the most fertile ad arable farming land in Australia.
It has however been so dry in these parts that it was very difficult to recognize it as being capable of producing much of any thing except despondent, depressed farmers.
It turns out however that Dalby is a thriving, substantial town with a lot of income being generated through the discovery and mining of natural resources such as coal, oil and gas.
We found a suitable caravan park on the banks of the Myall Creek and set up right on dusk. It was a great little park that as luck would have it had a campfire set and ready to go (or so it seemed to us).
We celebrated Jassy’s b.day with Burritos (her request), very nice I must say and mud cake and then lite the fire as it was quite cool.
Just as we were settling in around the fire the owner came down and apologising profusely explained that we would have to put the fire out or at least not put any more logs on it so that it would die down. Turns out that it has been so dry in the area that campfires were just a big no no. Anyway we were satisfied that at least we’d had an hour or so of warmth. As we were sitting around having a cuppa and waiting fro the fire to extinguish itself the owner reappears in his van and walks around to the side of it, opens the side door and pulls out a……..$4000 Maton Jumbo Guitar and a harmonica and says “Listen Folks, I feel so bad about havin’ to get ya ta put the fire out that I thought I’d try to make it up to ya by bringin’ me guitar down and singin’ a few songs for ya” Andy and I looked at each other and thought, “Well this is quaint!”
So we spent the next hour and a half being entertained by this fella who sang old bush and country songs, including a few of his own. He was actually very good and a very nice bloke to boot.
Turns out he’s a bit of a legend in the area, having been invited to Slim Dusty’s funeral and made recordings etc.
We retired to bed that evening pleased with our efforts that day and the results of them as well.
Sunday was a beautiful clear morning and we packed early for the trip to Carnarvon Gorge National Park.