A little detour

Driving north from Brisbane to Gladstone to visit my youngest brother and his family, just north of Gympie I saw a sign for a Scenic Tourist Route that would take me to Biggenden.  Up flashed a memory of my Uncle John being stationed as a policeman in Biggenden in the 60s.  I remembered visiting him there and that was enough for me to decide to leave State Highway One and take the scenic route.  The road less travelled always appeals to me.

I owned that road, traffic was scarce, the road good.  In places the road passed through private property with no fences beside the road, the odd cattle grid between properties.  I saw hardly any stock and they weren't near the road.

It was easy to pull off the road and take photos.  I had to have stern words with myself about stopping to take photos of those ghost gums.  I know tourists to Australia complain about the constant gum trees but not this soul.  Never.  I love them. 

I saw the smoke from a big fire miles before I reached it.   Several fire appliances had it under control and had held it at the road and I passed another hurrying to the scene near Woolooga.  Thanks to Wikipedia I can tell you I was 221 km (137 m) from Brisbane and that Woolooga and the surrounding area has a population around 320.  I didn't go into the tiny township, I know what I'm like, I get sidetracked and my brother was expecting me that day.  It's hard to imagine this area under flood, it was so dry and I didn't notice any large rivers but in the 2010-2011 Queensland floods a 2 metre (6.6 ft) wall of water rushed through the town.

Near Biggenden I stopped to admire this rocky mountain range which I'm pretty sure is the 703 metre high, 215 million years old Mount Walsh.

I would have liked to get closer but once again had to remind myself about the time.

 

I stopped in Biggenden and looked for the police station.  The lady who prepared me a sandwich for a very late lunch told me the original station was now over the road at the museum and pointed me in that direction.  I decided my memory had failed me, at the museum I was on a side street and where I had visited had most definitely been on the main road through town.   Disappointed, I took no photos.  I could have kicked myself when a few days later one of my brothers told me the road path through Biggenden had been changed years ago and what was the main road was now a side street.