Clermont Qld. 27 July 2017

Up and away early from Roma, we have a long drive ahead, some 515km to Clermont. The road north out of Roma isn't brilliant, and gets quite hilly as we cross over the ranges onto the plateau. One thing we noticed was the number of vans travelling south, don't they know its still cold down there? There is one section of 'development' road, which is quite narrow but reasonably smooth and not as daunting as the map makes out. The thing is, there is a lot of not much between Roma and Rolleston, where we stopped after 250km for a rest.

Last time we came through here there was next to nothing in this quaint little town, a single short street with a few down-at-heel shops and a park. This time however, the park was sporting a coffee van run by volunteers raising money to beautify the park, and by the look of the park, doing a great job. There was at least twenty vans parked in the street and everyone was waiting for the coffee; and using the loos and checking out the old post office and the museum. The lady in the van reckons it's this busy from the time they open until closing, every day of the week. What a great initiative - good on them!

Coffee waggon doing a great job at Rolleston, Qld

Main Street,  Rolleston, Qld

From Rolleston its an easy drive up to Springsure, which looks like a nice place to stay a while. Unfortunately on the way a large truck slammed my driver's side mirror flat with its bow wave and the attached trailer mirror flew off into oblivion. We didn't even back off; there was no point, it would have been smashed to pieces for sure. From Springsure to Emerald the road opens up a bit and we started to make better time, reaching Emerald in time for a refuel and lunch in the park.

Finally, we reached Clermont some 120km up the road from Emerald, but an easy drive. The van park at Clermont has undergone a sort of resurrection: it was pretty worn out last time, and this year it's all nice and shiny. All the old vans have been pushed out into the back paddock, where they will be 'accidentally' consumed by flames in due course, and there are heaps of new cabins and dongas. Obviously there is more happening around Clermont than a bit of gemstone fossicking, which is why the majority of vanners are here. They're worse than fisherman, 'you should have seen the stone this bloke got - it was this big!' Good on them.

But there is this gem in the Clermont Caravan Park Rules which makes all this travel worthwhile:

'There is no dump point [a dump point is where you empty your caravan's toilet] in the caravan park. The dump point is located in Lime Street near the toilet block next to the Bowels Club'

Its way better than the one from Townsville a few years ago:

'No children passed this point'

Good night readers.