Belyando Crossing

4 – 5 October 2024

Well rested from soaking in the thermal pools, we packed up and started our long journey south towards Tasmania. We chose to take the inland route as it’s much less busy, and there are some interesting places to stop – unfortunately our first night would not fit into that category.

We left Innot Hot Springs with a view to staying overnight at Charters Towers, with a lunch stop at Greenvale along the way. We pulled in to a free camp on Fletcher Creek that we had read about. We had planned this as an overnight stop, but decided against it. It was still reasonably early in the day and all the shady spots were taken. There were some over the other side of the creek, across the road, but they were a very long way from the toilets. What was left was really just an open paddock – not very appealing – so we decided to press on.

We refuelled in Charters Towers and continued along the Gregory Developmental Road, arriving at Belyando Crossing late in the day. We checked in to the caravan park attached to the roadhouse and made our way to the unpowered section “down the back”. There were no marked sites, nothing near level and a very untidy area. To cap off the disappointment, the amenities were not in great condition, nor were they as clean as they should have been. The place was so awful, I didn't even take a photo!

Definitely not photo-worthy

We were up early the next morning, ready to move on, and vowing never to stay here again.

Lake Maraboon - Fairbairn Dam (near Emerald Qld)

23 - 24 February 2015

The Lake

We had been planning this trip for some time with our main destination Tasmania. Our eldest daughter has just moved to Devonport and the plan is to be there in time to celebrate her 21st birthday. We're still tent camping but have bought a new car - a Toyota Prado so we have 4WD to be able to do some more serious (but not extreme) exploring. We considered all the things we wanted to do along the way, organised friends to look after the house and picked our departure date - and then along came Cyclone Marcia which crossed the coast near Yeppoon on Friday 20 February. That in itself was not a problem for us - but the resulting flooding south of Rockhampton and the significant areas affected by cyclone damage (including loss of power and telecommunications) meant that we had to revise our plans.

So... we headed from Townsville on Monday morning, taking the inland route through Charters Towers, Belyando Crossing and Clermont. The weather was horrendous - a legacy of the cyclonic activity creating a "doldrum" of extremely high temperatures. We decided to go as far as we could on the first day in the hope that the further south we went, the cooler it would get - but we were wrong! As we drove through Emerald at 4.30pm the temperature was 40 degrees (Celcius) - there would be no camping tonight! We made our way out to Lake Maraboon (Fairbairn Dam) and checked into a cabin at the caravan park. The air conditioner struggled to lower the inside temperature so we adjourned for a late afternoon swim in the pool which was, thankfully, cooler than we had expected.

Apostlebird, hoping for a hand out on the cabin deck.

Laughing Kookaburra

One of many Rainbow Lorikeets on the railing of the deck.

There were lots of birds around and at one stage 10 rainbow lorikeets landed on the verandah at once - quite a sight. Before we left, we drove down to the lake front to have a look around - it looks like a nice spot and one for a future, longer visit.