Easter Weekend - The Queensland 'Bush'

Last weekend was great. Ella and I 'went bush' for the weekend. Jana (who you've seen in a previous post) was down in Brisbane for a Cello lesson on the Thursday, and Ingrid (Ella's other sister) flew into Brisbane from work in Sydney for the weekend. Early Friday morning we drove north for about 4 hours (it wouldn't have taken as long if I hadn't been booked for speeding ... Police are the same all over!) and met the Ella's parents and Unle Art in Biggenden (what a great name!). We then convoyed, with Ella's Dad (Jacque) on motorbike and the rest of us in two cars, down a really rough but great fun 4x4 track for about 10km into the bush. When the track eventually petered out we stopped and set up the picnic Ella's Mum brought along. After lunch and a swim at the nearby waterhole the rest of the family headed back home to Bundaberg, and Ella and I set up our tent for the night in this totally desolate spot.

On Saturday morning Ella and I climbed up Coongara Rock. It's very different to England - not only is it seriously dry, even at the end of the wet season, and hot, but there were no other people around. In fact much of the path was tricky as we had to avoid webs with spiders like this on it!


Saturday afternoon was my first experience of a serious Aussie storm. I was amazed at the biggest hailstones I've ever seen! Check this one out that Ella's modelling:



The storm passed quickly but we got thoroughly soaked ... and it was tricky to get a fire lit that night.

The next day we drove back up the track, hindered briefly by a large herd of cows, and then went round the other side of Biggenden to Mount Walsh. By the time we got there it was getting pretty hot, and there didn't look to be too much shelter as you can see from the photo:

We decided to climb it anyway. This was a bit trickier, very steep and the heat sucks the energy right away. Still after an hour of walking, climbing and scrambling (and Ella waiting for me!) we got to the top. Fortunately there were a lot less spiders around on this route. At the top there was a surprising amount of shelter and scrub, and as Ella's Dad has suggested it would be fun to camp up there, after a spot of lunch whilst sheltering between some boulders we traipsed back down.

As there's little else to do in the area, and it would have been a pain to drive back to the camping ground we were at the night before we drove the hour to Bundaberg to surprise Ella's family again, and enjoy a great barbequed steak! Here's a picture of their house, and the BBQ area out the back.