I took a lay day.
While we were in town doing a bit of shopping, we stopped in the local cafe for morning coffee. On the way back to the car we saw a flyer for a concert in the Shire Hall tomorrow so we bought tickets.
i picked up a local tourist directory and found a reference to a scenic drive to a lookout above the town. The lookout is on the top of Mt Zamia in the Minerva Hills National Park. On the way into the park, we had a narrow escape when a Whiptail Wallaby ran out in front of us. I managed to slow down and the wallaby managed to turn back into the bush before we collided so all was well. The view of the town from the lookout was hard to understand because there was a small hill hiding all of the landmarks which we could recognise. The town reminded me of Barraba, quite small and nestling between the hills.
In the evening we went to the concert in the Shire Hall. The group is called the X-Collective and is comprised of musicians from the Queensland Orchestra. They are doing a tour of central Queensland sponsored by The Arts Council and other bodies. The group is made up of a first and a second violin. a viola, a double bass, a flute/piccolo, an oboe/cor anglais, a clarinet, a bassoon, a french horn, a trumpet/cornet, and a percussion player with drums/glockenspiel/marimba et al. The show started with The Planets Suite by Holst , and I realised that the balance of the orchestra was achieved by having radio microphones on the two violins and the viola. Three of the players doubled as singers. The show had a strong comedy story line and the music ranged right through from Vivaldi to pop standards. It was very entertaining and the audience which numbered forty to fifty all had a good time.
We needed a break from the Motley so we went for another little adventure.
We went back to the Minerva Hill National Park to see Fred's Gorge and the Eclipse Lookout. The road was a bit rough and we were happy to be in the Terios and not the Barina. While we were at the Lookout, a car pulled into the parking bay. They were a couple from a caravan in the Showground. I asked if they had enjoyed the drive up to the lookout and they just laughed. We chatted a bit and found out the she had gone to the concert last night and enjoyed it as much as we had. He had chosen not to go because he thought it would be too highbrow.
We went on to do the rest of the tourist drive identified in the town brochure. We drove about 45 km of dirt road, most of it good but with many cattle grids and lots of cattle on the road side. The area is characterised by many sawtooth hills, all the same height, some just cones but most long straight wedges. I have no idea what the underlying geology is.
We visited the site of what is said to have been the biggest massacre of white people by aborigines in the history of Australia. We were not impressed as it was not at all like the Myall Creek Massacre Monument near Delungra which records a huge massacre of aborigines by white settlers and police.
We also passed the Minerva coal mine, a huge open cut pit which is a real blot on the landscape. The existence of coal here at little depth makes the puzzle about the local geology even more curious.
In the evening I finished the update of the waypoint database and sent an email to Camps Australia Wide with about thirty new sets of co-ordinates.
Another lay day. In the evening there was a party in one of the pavilions. We heard the music but it didn't intrude too much.
I went to the laundromat but there were too many people there so I went back to the showground. It was a grey day so we hunkered down in the Motley. In the evening it started to rain again. It looks as though we will be spending a bit more time in Springsure.
I looked up the Matilda Rose website and found that Queen Gemma is up on the first page. Fame at last. On The Einstein Factor tonight the Queen Odille of the Tweed Valley Red Hatters was a contestant. Peter Berner asked her about the Red Hat Society and she said that it all started with a poem by Jenny Jeffrey - oops, that should be Jenny Joseph.
I spent the morning doing the laundry and the shopping.
In the afternoon I did a bit of work on installing the macerator pump. I searched high and low for the hoses I had bought for the job but I couldn't find them, I guess I left them in the shed at Barraba. Since they are really specialised hoses. I will have to wait until I can get to a ships chandler before I can finish the job.