Westward from Brisbane

After an extremely wet Easter camping holiday with the family we were very happy that the rain had at last stopped as we left home for another excursion. This time it was just the two of us going westwards to Roma en route to the Carnarvon Gorge National Park. As we have often travelled west from Brisbane passing through Toowoomba before taking the New England Highway into New South Wales or the Warrego Highway to Roma we decided instead to take the DÁguilar Highway to Yarraman. From Yarraman we switched to Highway 61 which ends up in Toowoomba. We left it near Cooyar, making a right turn into a far less travelled, but good road eventually ending up in the back of Dalby. We live not too far from the Bruce Highway start of the DÁguilar, however although this route is longer by some eighty kilometers it proved to be an interesting and pleasant alternative route.

Near Blackbutt

As we travel through our country, supposedly ticking off places and activities on our "bucket list" but in reality adding to it as we come across places that tempt us to return for further exploration, we are constantly in awe of the SIZE of our homeland. Long, straight roads with little traffic take us everywhere. America is the only other country I've been to that comes close in both size and straight roads, by comparison.

Sorghum

We travelled through many kilometres of road lined with sorghum with their beautiful flowers standing tall and proud in the breezeless fields.

Cotton Fields

After Dalby we travelled along the familiar Warrego and noticed bits of white fluff along the roadside. Then we came to the cotton fields! As with the sorghum fields these weren't fenced off so I was able to get close and pick off one of the many little fluffy bundles that are on each plant. Oh! So soft!

Another feature of the vegetation were cacti standing taller than the grasses, sometimes singly but often in clusters and I wondered how these plants had got established in a country so far from their point of origin in South America. As I took this photo I had no idea that, a few kilometres down the road, I would learn a whole lot more about these prickly plants!

Cacti - Prickly Pear

Along the road side between Dalby, Chinchilla and Miles there are roadside plaques indicating several Historic Sites. I decided to pull up at one to take a look and found myself looking at a Community Hall. Puzzled, I looked around for an explanation and subsequently learned a lot about Prickly Pear cactii!

Boonarga Community Hall

The plaque indicates that the Boonarga Hall was built to commerate the area's victory over the Prickly Pear Cactii which, in less than four years in the early 1900s, smothered 60 million acres causing farmers to abandon the land and the best brains of the nation to struggle to find a way of eradicating it. At first digging it up and burning it was tried with no success. Then arsenic was tried with the only effect being that the work gangs were easily identifiable by their bald bodies. In 1901 a reward of GBP5000 was offered to anyone coming up with a successful eradication idea and this was increased to GBP10,000 in 1907. Those sums would be equivalent to millions in today's money however no one ever made a claim. Both  a Royal Commission and a Land Commission were set up. People traveled to South America and elsewhere - by sea - in an effort to fine a solution and rid the country of this sturdy, determined, prickly pest.

Physically and chemically undeterred from its advance across the land this spiny, cushioned plant with beautiful flowers was conquered by the larvae of, firstly the cochineal moth and then some other insects. 

Cactoblastis cactorum - wikipedia

The land was returned to the farmers and the Hall was later built to commemorate the battle between plant, man and insect. I haven't heard if the moths then became a pest.

Onwards to Roma we went with the last 50km spent hoping that the fuel tank actually had more in it than the gauge was indicating - it did! 

After one surprisingly cold night in Roma we were again on another long straight road, this time on the Carnarvon Highway heading for Injune where we planned to stay a night or two to explore the Expedition National Park. 

Injune Railway Station

Despite an excellent Information Centre and a claim to be the Gateway to Carnarvon, Injune was seriously lacking in accommodation of any sort so we followed the road directly onwards to Carnarvon National Park, our main destination for this road trip.

Carnarvon Highway