George gets a bath

Much of the road from Mt Perry to Monto was on gravel - our first gravel roads since leaving NZ, although I have to say the gravel road was actually in better condition that the main roads, thanks to the floods.  Also worked out that grids in Australia are actually cattle stops - lots of long mile grazing between Mt Perry and Monto = lots of grids.  So on arriving in Monto we found a spot were we managed to give George a wash.

Headed off to Cania Nationa Park and dam - we have discovered that in general unlike NZ where you can actually get quite close to the dams Austalian dams so far are quite different and we havent been able to see an awful lot.  It didnt help that for the first hour we were pretty closed in by fog.

The lake was an old gold mine which was turned into a dam in 1982, since this time it has never reached its 88,500 megalitre capacity - until this year when it overflowed!!

Went for a short walk to see the Shamrock mine - some cool old equipment and a couple of old mine shafts - note the orange danger fencing - Tony!!

Same goes for the walk - did a 5.2km walk in the Cania Gorge to the Giants Chair, saw some nice wee creeks along the way and towering sandstone cliffs but were a little disappointed in general.  The signage and descriptions are certainly not as good as NZ.



Giants Chair lookout - Cania Gorge - looking out at sandstone cliffs

 So next stop Gladstone, where we found a nice spot for tea - once again free bbq's and this time an awesome sunset to go with it.