Day 33: Herberton Village in the village of Herberton (04/07/12)

A day of cold winds, even for us with our still-thick Tasmanian blood. Today Joke had recovered sufficiently to venture out, so out we ventured. Today we would go north, and uphill, to the coldest regions of the Atherton Tablelands.

Our first stop was at Tolga, where they noticed that the local station had not been used for 40 years, so they turned it around and turned it into a museum (that is, to be precise, a physical turn and a metaphorical turn). The museum depicts the railway, mining and military history of the area, and contained family and social history resources as well. I couldn’t help comparing the amazing resources packed into a little country railway station with the meagre information supply of the Melbourne Museum we visited a couple of years ago. These little community and volunteer-run museums might be chaotic and might not be organised according to the latest museum science, but they certainly have a lot more interesting material than the dumbed-down displays of the big-city museums. Here endeth my mini-rant.

Turned-around Tolga Station

Great little museum that great big museums can learn from

We trundled on to Atherton, climbing all the while, and walked up and down its main road which was funnelling a wind straight from Antarctica. (Hey, we say that about the southerly winds in Tasmania, but we are in the Tropics at 17º South of the Equator. What is happening??)

The main street in Atherton

The Atherton CBD

One end of the Atherton main drag

We had lunch there, and then moved on to Herberton with no more reason than that there were adverts for a nerdy spy camera museum there!

Just before the town, we spied the Herberton Historical Village and pulled in there on a whim. What a good move that was! Another museum packed with interesting stuff. Not too much science involved, just old-time stuff sorted according to an occupational theme: the butcher, the baker, the radio shop, the blacksmith, the logger, the miner, the tinsmith, the school, the farmer etc. etc. Buildings had been moved in from their original locations in the district and decked out and filled with artefacts of the appropriate era.

We meant to stay an hour, but were still there at closing time, hours later. Photos are supplied, but my best advice is: if you are in the area, go see for yourself!

Herberton Historical Village promises to be interesting right from the beginning

The Radio shop with lots of old valves on the shelf

A hand drill like one Pa van der Graaf used to own

The tool shop

A functioning printing press

Joke next to a press much like the one she saw at the Meppeler Courant where Opa van der Linden worked

All the latest cameras. These are almost pre-digital: they only require 10 digits to operate.

A working pump mechanism in a large windmill

Joke checking out the ute. It's not a twin cab, so we didn't buy it!

Tea and tobacco at the grocery store

A 1923 Harley-Davidson

A hearse with class

The toy-shop: by the comments around us very popular with the grey nomads.

A village street

An original drover's dwelling

Shopfronts...

...and the street they are on

Repairs while you wait

Man in uniform

Joke in her natural environment

Joke admired the wall-charts, all done without the aid of computers, by hand, in the teacher's spare time!

500 lbs of TNT in a navy mine, casually thrown in among the other exhibits! Naturally we did not poke it...

My Mum would have been at home in this shop!

Flowers at the gate.

The pub is modelled on the Ettamogah Pub, right to the old bomb on the roof.

Tickets to a great afternoon's outing.

Sated and satisfied we drove home to our little caravan. Oh, and we never got to see the spy camera museum.

Day 32: A tuttle-dag (03/07/12)

Yes, the title does malign the Dutch language. But that is what Joke wanted to nurse her cold, so that is what it is to be called! No arguments.

Joke nursing her cold on her tuttle-dag!

Late up, very late breakfast, and then a mad rush to the amenities to beat the cleaners. Visions of broom-bearing ladies knocking down the shower door.....

Today was a windy day, and the awning took a bit of a beating from time to time. But we had our backs  to the wind and with the awning feet down on the ground and the guy ropes firmly set, the awning seems to cope better with the wind. I have put the anti-flap things on as well, so that the gusts don’t pick up the edge of the awning and flap it.

Very spacious, very relaxed, all at a very good price.

Beautiful blossom

The Shed, free mandarins, open fire on cold nights (cold, that is by Queensland standards!!), an ongoing crossword puzzle for everyone to do their bit on and a vintage car in one corner.

Bits of old farm machinery dot the grounds.

This old bloke parked here all the time during our stay.

Welcome it was, and highly recommended.

West Australians are sometimes larger than life. This bloke had an X-Trail as his tag-along car behind his enormous motorhome!

And this bloke kept his beady eye on me, so I could not get close to him.

Joke was really not feeling well, so I went off to Mareeba to look for a haircut. I had also found a tent maker in Mareeba who advertised side shades for caravan awnings. Worth a try. So I went there and was told that they could make one for me for $100. As far as I could see, it is identical to the one we saw in Cairns, and on many other caravans. We can pick it up on Thursday.

We have not yet reported on the Queenslander habit of putting “ay” at the end of every sentence. Some people do it all the time, and it sounds quite funny to the educated Tasmanian ear. However, we try not to be snobbish about it and are practicing on each other, trying to include it relevantly in every sentence. Important to be able to blend in with the locals, ay. When in Rome, do as the Romans do, ay. Not easy, though, ay. “Yes, mayte, we’re a long way from Tasmaynia, ay”. Don’t overdo it, ay.

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...