Day 2 Townsville to Burdekin Falls Dam

 We were awake and on the road by 8am today for an appointment with the mechanic who installed our levelling system. We just needed him to show us again how to operate the system.  It's easy peasy and we were simply over thinking it.

We decided to head to Burdekin Falls Dam Caravan Park for our second night.  We have driven past the turnoff pointing to Ravenswood and Burdekin Falls Dam a thousand times when we were living at Julia Creek and en-route to Townsville and always promised ourselves we would visit one day.  Today was finally that day and it did not disappoint.  

Ravenswood is around 40kms south of the Flinders Highway and what a lovely little town it is.  It is a mining town and the mine is right in the heart of Ravenswood. What do they mine I hear you ask.  GOLD, and lots of it.  It is in fact Queenslands largest gold mine. 

 The heritage listed town has won many awards for its beautifully restored buildings including two of the original 48 hotels.  We were invited into one of the hotels to look around and were very impressed by the level of restoration.  Philip was particularly taken with the dedicated billiards room.....

We spent a good hour wandering around the little town before once again setting sail to our overnight stay.

 

There were no bookings taken for the Burdekin Falls Dam Caravan Park. You just rock up to the pay station and select how many nights you need, how many people and whether you require power, all for the princely sum of $19.  It was by far the cheapest place we have stayed and also right up there with the best.  Lovely green campsites with cement slabs are placed spaciously apart. The trees have all been lopped but showing re-growth.  They were lopped because of the hundreds of thousands of bats that invaded the trees every night.  It was a nightmare for campers who had their belongings covered in bat poop each night.

After we had unhooked the van and eaten a light lunch we took the scenic drive to the Burdekin Falls Dam after a recommendation from one of the caretakers.  It was certainly worth the drive.  As you wind your way around the hills you are quite suddenly confronted by the massive dam wall.  The road goes right along the base of the wall.  I actually found it quite frightening knowing that there were millions of litres of water behind that massive wall.  There was a huge amount of water being released at one end of the wall that flows downstream towards the coast and the Burdekin Irrigation area.  We kept driving past the dam wall and stopped on the other side to walk along the top of the wall.  I also found this confronting and tried to look out and not down. Back in the car once again we drove back to the van park and on to the boat ramp and the day use area.  This is also a well maintained area.  A big shout out should be given to the SunWater staff who caretake the area.  They really do a magnificent job.

By the time we arrived back at our camp it was time to sit outside with a beverage in our hands and watch the sun slowly sink to the west.  This is livin' Barry.