Day 31: We circumnavigate Lake Tinaroo (02/07/12)

Joke’s cold was having a bad effect on her. She was not feeling very well at all. So we decided to tack on an extra day at Walkamin, rather than having to migrate to new quarters that day. The lady in charge of the park is very friendly and could fit us in even though the “Park Full” sign was up every day.

We drove south towards Atherton, and stopped only a couple of kilometres from Walkamin to inspect the Rocky Creek free camp. There were a couple of dozen caravans there already, although it was still reasonably early in the morning. We discovered that the site was actually a huge Australian Army base in the Second World War, devoted to providing hospital services to repatriated soldiers. There was provision for 5000 beds, let alone all the hospital staff to look after the soldiers.

Memorial stones for the units involved in the hospital effort

Over 5000 beds, all in semi-permanent tents!

We then turned off at Tolga to drive towards Lake Tinaroo, along which we had earmarked several free (or almost free National Park) camp sites in the Camps 6 book.

Lake Tinaroo Dam, built in the 1950s

Front side of the dam

The lake looks very nice. However, as we drove around to the first and nearest camp site, the road deteriorated with washouts and very deep potholes. The road down to the waterside camp was even worse. But the setting and the views were stunning. So we stopped to have lunch there.

Tinaroo Dam from first campsite.

Campsite under the kauri trees

Some people still get in - like this enormous fifth-wheeler

Lovely setting for a picnic

Kauri trees and water

We decided to go on and have a look at the other camps, but realised we would not get the caravan in there very easily at all. We drove on down the forest road on the eastern side of the lake,

Kauri Creek

Kauri forest

Bridge over Kauri Creek

Dirk at Lake Euramoo

Twin chimneys - remnants of soldier-settler farms

The bush stone-curlew, thinking he can't be seen because he has frozen on the spot.

to finally re-enter the cultivated world

The cultivated world south of Lake Tinaroo looks like a part of Tasmania!

More Tasmania-like scenery

Err, until you see the depth of the creek crossings

and drive towards Yungaburra. At Yungaburra we “happened” to pass by a bookshop in the basement of a private home. Joke bowed to the inevitable and said “you go and browse, and I will do some shopping and come back and extract you” or words of similar meaning and loving and caring intent. So I browsed and she bought and then she came and browsed too (“Yessss!” I said). Much later, we managed to escape with only one book – a sensible result seeing that we are travelling with a Kindle containing about 400 books...