Another leisurely start today after a good sound sleep last night. It is coming into daylight here at some ridiculous hour like 4.30am and there were some very vocal birds up early! While we were packing up, Doug noticed a very long line of cormorants stretched across the opening to the bay, and told me to go down towards the shore and photograph it. By the time I got there, one end of the line turned in towards us, and as I watched the right hand end of the group kept turning back on the line forming a V formation while those way off on the left end just stayed in place. Even from a few hundred metres awy, I could hear them paddling like crazy. They kept this going until the line was about half the length it had started at and then the left hand ones flew over to join the other side of the V, but they seemed to fly around the outside of the V shape rather than across the opening. Soon after there was a free for all of birds diving and flying around in what appeared to be a feeding frenzy. There were hundreds of them. What fascinated us was the straight line formation to start with and the beautiful choreography of the rest - and we wondered how they organise themselves so well. Anyway, that was s special sight to behold!
We emptied our grey water tank there and made sure the fresh water one was full.
The lookout over the town of Esk on the western side of Lake Wivenhoe was our morning tea stop after we had bought a few supplies at the local supermarket. These Queenslanders need to learn a bit more about lookouts - like lopping trees that block the view and plant replacements on the non-view side.
Lunch was overlooking a park with a lake on the other side of it in Gatton. This area of QLD that we've been in for the last 2 days is very dry, and the grass browned off. Quite a contrast to less than 2 years ago when they had a disastrous abundance of water. Also a contrast to our recent travels in south eastern NSW & Vic where things were quite lush and green.
From Gatton, we drove through some interesting contrasting landforms from rugged mountains to flat flood plains, wheat & other crop fields, sheep & cattle farms to Leyburn via Clifton. A dry but small, clean park with clean amenities was the afternoon tea stop. There were a few interesting things in the park...a Little model of a sprint car, memorial to the Z force from WW2 which was based near Leyburn, historic water pump and a sundial made from metal wheels - one of which came off the wagon that hauled the first load of alcohol between Leyburn & Toowoomba.
Continuing on via Karara towards Inglewood, we have stopped at Lake Coolmunda Caravan Park for tonight. It is busier here than the other places we've stayed and the railway line runs passed us about 50 metres or less away - we have had one goods train go by already. There are also 3 resident peacocks which were very noisy until they settled in their various trees for the night. Memories of Percy come flooding back!
Today's lesson in Motorhoming is...when you pack up your water inlet hose, make sure you also remove your brass connector from the tap. Oh well, at least our tank is full and it will be replaceable somewhere along the way!
Dinner, wash up, nightly blog - and our chores are done!
More kms than steps today - just 3735.
