25 May 2017 - Monto to Rolleston

Once again the weather turned it on this morning, bright and sunny after some early fog.

We headed out onto the Burnett Highway for the 310km trip today, which was to take us to Rolleston in Central Queensland.  Our travels took us from Monto via Thangool to Biloela (Joh Bjelkie-Petersen country), then turning west onto the Dawson Highway, passing through Banana, Bauhinia and Moura, on our way to Rolleston.  

250517 A view of the countryside we passed through

250517 Another view of the countryside we passed through

We had always thought Banana was an unusual name for a Shire and a town, but today we found out the origin of the name.

250517 Proof for the record

250517 Statue of the bullock named "Banana"

250517 Plaque near to the bullock's statue

The Dawson Complex, located 185km south-west of the Queensland port of Gladstone, incorporates several earlier coal-mining operations in the area, including the Moura mine. Coal has been mined at Moura since 1961, making this one of the oldest operations in central Queensland. Moura also hosts Australia's first commercial coal-bed methane recovery operation.

250517 Coal preparation area for the Moura/Dawson mine complex

250517 Overburden from the Moura Mine

Nearby is the QNP (Queensland Nitrates) Moura operations. Queensland Nitrates’ fully integrated ammonium nitrate facility near Moura in Central Queensland is designed to produce 210,000 tonnes per year of explosive grade ammonium nitrate.

The QNP plant comprises three core state of the art process units, with an additional emulsion plant run by Dyno Nobel:

• Ammonia Plant: 254 tonnes per day of Ammonia for the manufacture of ammonium nitrate. All ammonia produced by QNP is used on site

• Nitric Acid Plant: 525 tonnes per day of nitric acid is produced for the production of ammonium nitrate.

• Ammonium Nitrate Plant: Two ammonium nitrate products are produced onsite, prilled ammonium nitrate and ansol (liquid ammonium nitrate used for the production of emulsion), All of QNP’s products are for the coal mining industry.  

250517 QNP Operations plant near Moura

250517 Third party aerial view of QNP Operations at Moura

The Rolleston area is the source of some of the natural gas originally supplied to Gladstone.

We even came across some wildflowers at our morning tea stop. They were not as prolific as the Western Australian wild flowers.

250517 Wildflowers at morning tea stop

Another interesting day, spoiled only by some very bumpy roads, particularly for about 50km west of Banana.