Mount Morgan and Biloela trip

November 1999

In November 1999 we made a trip in the car south along the coast to Rockhampton, then inland via Mount Morgan to Biloela.

We set out around 8:30 a.m. on Friday November 5th. The Bruce Highway is relatively interesting as far as Mackay, as you pass through sugar cane country, plus some typical Australian bush. Various roads go off to east, down to isolated beaches or resort areas. We had visited a few of these resorts in the past, so we didn't stop to inspect them this time.

One of the more isolated petrol stations, at Bloomsbury, 60 km along the highway south of Airlie, has considerably cheaper petrol than at home or at Mackay, so we refueled there.

Soon after we came to the first traffic light (148 kilometres along the road), we stopped at the Canelands Shopping Centre at Mackay to share one of their jumbo chicken salad rolls as an early lunch. Canelands is one of two undercover shopping centres in Mackay (the other is in the northern suburb of Mount Pleasant).

Canelands has several large stores (Target, Big W, Woolworths supermarket) and a good range of smaller shops. One good store for us is Software Today, where we've bought several hardware and software items as well as our new mobile phones. Most of the mobile phone dealers we'd talked to didn't know enough about the technical side of the service (such as the type of infrared ports on the phones), so we were delighted to find that the manager and staff of Software Today were not only interested and knowledgeable, but enjoyed tracking down obscure bits of information for us.

Thirty kilometres south, we passed Sarina, the last hurrah of the Mackay area. After that the road to Rockhampton is one of the more boring stretches of the central Queensland coast. Even with the 110 kph limit on part of the way, it still takes about four hours to reach Rockhampton, longer if you don't crowd the limit.

As usual, we stayed at the Ambassador Motor Inn on the Bruce Highway, at 353 Yaamba Road, just before the highway bypasses the business district. The Ambassador has the great advantage of being closest to the large shopping centre north of Rockhampton, an easy stroll if it isn't raining. It didn't hurt that the Ambassador was having a cut price deal on rooms, and had really decent reading lights.

The Rockhampton Shopping Fair is much to our liking as it includes a Sizzler's restaurant, and their "all you can eat" salad bar. We had a Nottage Hill Chardonnay for $9.95 a bottle (pretty close to bottle shop prices), so a very full meal and wine for the two of us was about A$32.

We wish there were more of this chain restaurant around. We especially wish the nearest one were closer than 300 kilometres (in Townsville). The major reason we like them is that we can get a variety of "unadulterated" salad and fruit items. Although they have some premixed salads with weird ingredients, they mostly leave you to select what items you want in your salad. You wouldn't think such a simple item would be so hard to find, but it is.

We finished dinner in time for me to catch the 7:10 p.m. session of a film at the cinema next door to the shopping mair. The $11.50 ticket price shocked me somewhat, and the prices for any munchies were truly astounding! Then I reflected that the film price was cheaper than a paperback book.

Saturday 6th November

We went shopping at the Shopping Fair for all the clothes we had noted the previous afternoon, then drove into the central part of Rockhampton to do a bit of sightseeing around the historic old buildings. Some redevelopment work was going on along the river front. We're always happy to see cities and towns reviving the old, usually rundown, waterfront areas.

Naturally we returned to Sizzler's for all-you-can-eat salad for lunch.
 

Steam train at Mount Morgan

Mount Morgan

Afterwards, we set off to the south, along the inland road to Mt Morgan. This road is steep and winding, but every now and then provided a great view of the countryside.

Mt Morgan itself didn't initially promise much, except for historical material. Then we went down to the railway station to look at historic mining trains, and discovered a friendly little gang of railway enthusiasts, busy polishing brass and doing things with geared wheels. They told us there were lots of other enthusiasts from overseas and interstate visiting in Rockhampton and they were attending on Sunday, and the steam train would be running. That sounded like fun, so after chatting for a time we made our excuses and finally continued towards Biloela.

We phoned the motorhome owners when we finally reached Biloela, and had a thorough look at the motorome we wanted to inspect. You can read all about it (and see a photograph) here.

We came away very impressed, but the price was somewhat above our preferred range. The main problem, however, was that we were really intimidated by the sheer size of the vehicle. We went away to consider the matter.

There were a few sites to see around Biloela, so we booked into the Apollo Motel, close to town at 36 Gladstone Road, Biloela. The motel restaurant sounded a little high end, and were expecting a large party later, so we bought a pizza. The motel didn't have good reading lights, but we had brought our own.
 

Callide power station

Callide coal mine

Callide dam

Sunday 7th November

A day for sightseeing, first in the Bileola area and then at Mount Morgan.

Callide power station, mine and dam

We encountered some bad roads on the way to the viewing points for the Callide power station, mine and dam, about 15 km out of town on the Gladstone Road. Beside being steep, the road to the lookout was sticky with mud, and the tyres ended up with gravel embedded all over the mud. However the various views made up for the road. It was the wrong day for the power station tour, or to view the Cultures Coming Closer Museum, containing aboriginal material as well as power generation information.

Biloela

Back in Biloela we had a quick look at The Silo (Simulated Interactive Learning Opportunities) in Exhibition Avenue, the Primary Industries Exhibition tourist site. It has a whole lot of interactive exhibits, mostly aimed at school children, covering coal mining, electricity generation, redclaw aquaculture, stud cattle, ostrich farming, dairy farming and a range of other country industries.

We drove back towards Mount Morgan and Rockhampton, stopping at Mt Scoria, the musical mountain. This tower of scoriacious basalt rises 150 metres, and emits a musical note in the wind. It is the only example of this formation in the southern hemisphere (there is one in Sicily and another off the caost of Scotland).
 

Fettler's trolley

Driving the steam train

Track and tunnel

Display in Ladies' Rest Room

Mount Morgan

Mount Morgan is on the Dee River, and is a small former mining town in hill country towards the coast, now attracting tourists with historic relics. Gold was discovered here in 1882, and copper mining followed. Open cut mining commenced in 1934, and continued until 1984, followed by treating the tailings until 1990, a total of 108 years of mining operations. The town boasts the oldest high school in the state, and a fine array of mining railway memorabilia, as well as man-made caves, dinosaur footprints, bentwing bats, and mine tours. There is a historical museum.

Every Sunday the Railway Historical Society at Mount Morgan run their Hunslet steam engine, and it is great fun. Built at Hunslett in Leeds, it began service at the mine in 1904, and worked until 1947. It sat at the Rotary playground at the dam until it was restored starting in 1995. We got a Rover ticket, good for lots of trips along the three kilometers of remaining track. The fettler's trolley is a two stroke engine driven open trolley, very noisy and primitive. The 2000 Class railmotor was built in Brisbane in 1961, and donated in 1989. These two operate Monday to Saturday. On the first Saturday of the month all three trains run, and there is a craft markets. Details from (07) 4938 2312 or dmrrmm@cqnet.com.au

Rockhampton and Mackay

We finally returned to Rockhampton, agonised over whether we could fit in a Sizzler lunch at 2:30, and headed off towards Mackay instead. Refueled at Carmila, ran into rain, and ran out of time.

Stayed at Gorries motel, 186 Nebo Road, on the outskirts of Mackay, which had a really decent reading light, and was cheap as well. Domino pizza for dinner, despite the rain.

Next day we went shopping, and managed to organise to get new mobile phones (at Software Today), since the analog system was being closed down at the end of the year. Jean bought a Qualcomm CDMA/analog phone, and Eric got an Ericsson GSM model. Both are data capable, so when the phone services provide what we need, we're ready.