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We left Belyando Crossing earlier than normal in the morning, we were awake earlier probably because we had gone to bed by 8.00pm the night before. We made pretty good time to Emerald and drove to the first park we saw advertised but unfortunately they didn't have any vacancies for us. There are two other parks in town so we drove to the first one suggested from the first park and with a little bit of juggling on their part they managed to find a spot for us for four nights. We set up, had lunch and then drove to the Visitor Centre to get information on what to see for the next few days, unfortunately though they had closed so we returned to the park for a quiet afternoon. I took a few photos around the area but we will return tomorrow to the centre and have a better look around.
We did a bit of shopping first thing and then filled our prescriptions before driving to Harvey Norman to get Robb's birthday present, he was after a pair of Apple earplugs which, luckily, they did have and while we were there I picked up a new mouse because mine is playing up. We drove to the Visitor Centre to pick up information so that we could plan our next few days. It was getting a bit later now so we decided to have a look around the Visitor Centre where they had a few historic building, that weren't open to go through and a lovely mosaic path that told the history of the area. The other highlight here was 'The Big Easel' the world's biggest Van Gogh sunflower painting, this is in Morton park beside the Visitor Centre. From here we drove to the Historic Railway Station but sadly that wasn't open either. I had a bit of a look around the outside and took a few photos before we walked over the road to the Irish Pub where we had a look around before ordering a drink before returning to camp.
We drove to Lake Maraboon today about 14kms outside of Emerald, to get here we needed to drive over Fairbairn Dam. The road and bridge over the dam is 800+ metres long and there are some great views over this huge water area and the dam itself. There is a caravan park on the lake and a boat ramp, it seems like there are lots of water activities here but in this cooler weather it looks like fishing is the main activity. We drove back from the lake to the Emerald Botanic Gardens and had a very pleasant walk around here. The Botanic Gardens cover a very extensive area in Emerald on both sides of the Nogoa River and it seems to be a very popular spot for walkers and families, there is a very good children's playground here and there were quite a few young families taking advantage of the facilities today. When we returned to the caravan park we added another day to our stay here because we didn't think we had enough time to see all we needed to see. In the meantime we heard from friends who are travelling to Carnarvon Gorge on Friday and this is somewhere we would also like to go so we thought we would join them there. Our friends will be staying in the National Park in an unpowered site and we preferred a powered site so we tried another park without any luck. We then tried again where our friends were staying but they were also booked out but told us there was room on our friends site if they agreed to us sharing so we have been all day sending messages backwards and forwards trying to organise this stay today. I think we now have this organised, of course we owe Leila and Geoff a huge thank you for sharing with us and hope we haven't put them out too much.
We took the Sapphire Treasure Trail today from Emerald to Capella then Rubyvale, Sapphire, Anakie and then back to Emerald. We had a quick stop at Capella at the Pioneer Village but didn't go in, we didn't think there would be anything new for us to see here. We then drove onto Rubyvale a little gem mining town, we had a quick drive down the Main Street where you can find many gem shops a hotel and a supermarket. We drove back the way we had come to the Miner's Heritage where we were interested in doing a bit of fossicking. We had a lot of fun here and came away with a few sapphire pieces, nothing that will make our fortune and nothing we will be able to make anything out of but definitely worth the stopover. We then drove onto Sapphire passing a few other fossicking yards and many gem outlets. Sapphire is a very similar town to Rubyvale but not as big. From here we drive through Anakie before driving onto Emerald. The caravan park we are staying at has Happy Hour each afternoon between 5.00 to 6.00pm around the fire pit so we thought we would visit here tonight to listen to the entertainment and we had ordered fish and chips for dinner from The Yabby Trap a food truck at the park for pick up at 6.00pm when the music finished. It was a bit chilly today but we rugged up and it was fun to sing along with the very familiar songs from our time, there was a bit of a mix up with our order but it was ready by 6.10pm so we walked back to our van from here and had an early dinner.
I started the day trying to get a good photo of the gems we had earned yesterday with our fossicking but could not really get any decently focussed shots. We had added an extra day to our stay here hoping to spend a day driving to Carnarvon Gorge but when we researched how far we had to drive decided it was too far for us to do a day trip and have now decided to book in at Rolleston Caravan Park which is just over an hour away from the gorge. We have booked in here for Friday and Saturday night and we will spend Saturday driving to and around the gorge. So that has left us without much to do today but there is a cinema in Emerald and they are showing Top Gun - Maverick so I think we will take advantage of the spare day to watch this movie we have both wanted to see. On our way to the cinema we drove past the Railway Station hoping it was open so that we could take a look around but without any luck, so onto the cinema where we booked our tickets for 12.40pm. From here we drove back to the van for brunch before the returning to the cinema. We both loved this movie, it easily lived up to all the hype around it and we would both watch it again it was so good. Moving on to Rolleston tomorrow but there isn't any rush as it is only just over and hour and a half away.
We want to visit Carnarvon Gorge so have chosen to stay at Rolleston that is 106kms away from the gorge Visitor Centre. We were unable to get a booking at the Big 4 park or the free camping park at the gorge but now we are rather glad that we couldn't. It has been raining since we arrived and we have friends staying at the free camp and they have quite a lot of water around them. It is supposed to be sunny here tomorrow so we are keeping our fingers crossed that it is but we will be visiting the gorge regardless. We will drive to the Visitor Centre and then contact our friends to see if they are around or we can organise to meet up with them at some time through the day. We were lucky to get a spot at the Rolleston Caravan Park because one half of the park is on black soil and they can't put anyone on this when it is raining because it gets very soft and it is easy to get bogged here. We drove to have a look around Rolleston, a very small town, even smaller than the one we come from. We needed to pick up a few items so that I can make a picnic lunch for tomorrow, the servo is also a general store so we stopped in here and I bought the items we needed and then we returned to our van. It is a bit chilly so I don't think we will be sitting outside the van even though we like listening to the rain on the awning.
We had a bit of a change of plans and drove directly to the campground where our friends were staying before moving into the gorge. We had a cuppa here with them, we did plan at one time to join them on the site they were on but changed our minds because we wanted power because I needed to have the heater with the cooler nights and days. The site they were on was plenty big enough for both vans and they had some fantastic views but I was still happy with our choice. After our cuppa we drove down and into the gorge, we first visited the Rock Pool and then drove onto Mickey Creek where there is a fantastic walk through the gorge but unfortunately there had been so much rain the creeks were difficult to cross and we only managed to get to the first crossing before turning back. From here we visited the Visitor Centre and walked around the picnic area. It is a beautiful setting and so peaceful, there didn't seem to be any sort of breeze and you could hear all the birds singing in the trees. We returned to our friends camp and had lunch and more of a chat before retuning to Rolleston. We didn't get back until 4.30pm so we didn't worry about packing anything up for our move tomorrow. We will be driving down to Roma tomorrow, we haven't booked anywhere but we have researched the area a little bit.
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