Sunday 10th November - Taroom
A cold night last night and we had three blankets on, one of them being the latest crochet blanket Clive has finished. Well, you have to road test them don't you? It got down to 9 degrees and back to 31.6. Off to Miles tomorrow. There are several walks that you can do from the van park, so Clive set off for a walk around 9am. If you turn right in the park you head towards the Old Stony Crossing. This is near the site of the historic Bridge Crossing back from 1863. There are two stone crossings and there were 4 bridges built over the Dawson River to Tarcoom. A Prussian born explorer and scientist, Ludwig Leichhardt, set out in 1844 to travel from the Darling Downs in Queensland to Port Essington in the Northern Territory. During this 14 month expedition, he spent several weeks traversing the Upper Dawson, and soon discovered what was to become the Taroom District. Camping nearby, Leichhardt blazed his initials, LL 1844, into a Coolabah Tree. The tree is over 300 years old and still stands in the main street today. Even though the initials have long been grown over, this tree is recognised as a living monument to Australian exploration and pioneering spirit. At the base of the tree is a plaque commemorating the flood of 1890. Here the flood reached 8.74m above ground level, the biggest flood in this towns history. Early settlers came from the Hunter and New England regions in NSW. By the 1850's this area was a popular camping spot known as Bonners Knob, and is the precursor to the town. With the arrival of the post office in 1856, Bonners Knob was officially changed to Taroom. This is an aboriginal word believed to mean pomegranate or lime tree. We have been 'keeping in touch' with the Dawson River the past week or so. Crossing the Dawson several times and also driving on the Dawson catchment area. The Dawson River is 735km long and at its mouth, confluences with the McKenzie River to form the Fitzroy River, where this river flows to the Coral Sea near Port Alma. There are sixty-four tributaries that flow into the Dawson. Several weirs have been built to provide water, for dairy farming and cotton. In 2010-2011 the town of Theodore was inundated by the river and caused evacuation of the whole town, a first in Queensland's history.