Bluewater Springs

About a hundred or so kilometres north of Charters towers is the first roadhouse stop before you reach the mining town of Greenvale.

Roadhouses are becoming a but scarcer now due to the massive distance modern cars can travel on one tank of fuel. (Even though towing a caravan we are still on the fill from Mareeba and will fill up at Charters). Many passenger cars now can go close to a thousand kilometers on a single tank.

We had done a longer than average day of driving and decided to break here for the night. We could have gone on but there really was no need. This place turned out to be a nice stop.

The shower was hot and the walk down to the creek well worth the 100m walk. There were lots of birds including a large family of apostle birds with their characteristic happy chatter. This is why they are also widely known as happy jacks.

We could hear peewee and magpies as well as an occasional plaintiff crow. The next morning we were to awake to a full symphony of birdlife.

Birds here are pretty much spoilt for choice with the still running creek so our usual stakeout of a watering hole was not productive. Many birds just flew past on their way to another part of the creek.

One of the unusual sights was a flowering thistle. It always amazes me that some of the most unlikely plants have such delicate and beautiful flowers. It's a hard country so these flowers are a lot of effort for a plant to get noticed by an insect or bee so pollination ensures the seeds are fertile and ready for the next few millimeters of rain.Read more