4 November 2016 - Around St George

Once again we woke to a delightful day and set ourselves for a self drive Cotton Tour around St George.

As mentioned yesterday, water is key for cotton but as we observed in passing, so is flat land, and St George has that in spades.  Plenty of warmth during the summer growing season is needed too, and it does get warm out here.  It is about 28 degrees today and it is not summer yet.

Our first point of call was the Jack Taylor Weir.  It is on the edge of St George town and banks up the Balonne River to provide a wide, long stretch of water with provision for boating, water sports, picnics, fishing and of course, water for the town. St George lays claim to being "The Inland Queensland Fishing Capital".  Downstream from the weir was not very flash and looked quite dry. This is also the site of Major Thomas Mitchell's crossing of the Balonne River in 1846.

041116 Andrew Nixon Bridge atop the Jack Taylor Weir

041116 Downstream of the Jack Taylor Weir

041116 Jack Taylor Weir

041116 Plaque at the Jack Taylor Weir

041116 Sir Thomas Mitchell plaque

041116 Sir Thomas Mitchell plaque

The Jack Taylor Weir was the initial storage for the St George Irrigation Scheme and was built in 1953.  The Beardmore Dam and its components were added 12 years later.

Next was the Beardmore Dam, 22km north of St George. Beardmore Dam and the Jack Taylor Weir hold back water for the St George irrigation system. From the Beardmore Dam, water is carried by the Thuraggi Diversion Channel to the broader irrigation area.

041116 Beardmore Dam

041116 Lake Kajarabie behind the Beardmore Dam

041116 Thuraggi Diversion Channel at Beardmore Dam

041116 St George Irrigation Scheme

Buckinbah Weir was next and it was close to the actual cotton farms. There is a pumping station on the weir.

041116 Pumping station at Buckinbah Weir

041116 The lagoon at Buckinbah Weir

041116 The lagoon at Buckinbah Weir

041116 Plaque at Buckinbah Weir

As we drove through the farms we passed several water storage dams which farmers use to capture rainfall and hold their water allocation delivered by the St George Irrigation Scheme. The water is siphoned from the channels on to the fields.  Planting has recently started and there were some small cotton plants appearing in the fields.  

041116 A large irrigation channel in the cotton fields

041116 Irrigation of newly planted cotton plants

041116 On farm reservoir

041116 Siphon tubes from the channel

041116 Last season's cotton plant

Cotton is harvested in March and April. Two types of cotton modules are produced - rectangle and round, the latter being a more recent innovation.  The average rectangular cotton module weighs 8.6 tonnes and the round cotton modules 2.5 tonnes. 

041116 Rectangular cotton modules - photo of a photo

041116 Round cotton modules - a not too good photo of a photo

041116 Cotton in the raw

St George has a cotton gin.  At the gin, the white, fluffy cotton lint is separated from the cotton seed and plant trash.  Cotton seeds have a high protein content and are used in cattle feed.  Oil is extracted from the seeds too. It is used in salad and cooking oils.

041116 The St George cotton gin

041116 The plaque at the St George cotton gin

We came across a farm which was harvesting red onions.

041116 Red onions freshly picked with onion plants in the background

We should not overlook the drive into St George.  The jacarandas are in full bloom. 

041116 Jacaranda trees along the road into St George

We had a great day today and a beautiful sunset last night.

031116 Sunset at St George

3 November 2016 - Goondiwindi to St George

Today was another warm, fine day, perfect for travelling 200km to St George from Goondiwindi via the Barwon and Carnarvon Highways.

The drive was through river flats country, with grain farms along both sides of the road. There were many grain silos on the way.  The harvest must be good because there were many instances where the grain was being stored on the ground, under cover.  The road trains were buzzing around, bringing newly harvested grain to the storage sites. 

031116 Grain silos just outside Goondiwindi

031116 - On ground grain storage

031116 Wheat ripe for harvesting - on both sides of the road

As we neared St George, cotton farms came to dominate with acres and acres of flat land with raised water storage dams. Water flows from the on-farm dams through channels to the cotton fields.  

Some cotton statistics:

• To grow well, cotton needs a lot of water, 5.2 mega litres per hectare, but not as much as rice, which requires 10.1 mega litres per hectare. 
• 75% of Australia's cotton is graded as premium quality and Australia is the third largest exporter of cotton in the world.  
• The size of the average Australian cotton farm is 496 hectares and the average yield is 10 bales per hectare.  
• A cotton bale weighs 227kg.

One little town we passed through was Toobeah.  We have always wanted to know what it would  be like .......Toobeah Hotel.

031116 Toobeah Hotel - one hotel and four houses

Apart from farms, there were many straight sections of road.

031116 Scrubby bush on the roadsides in between farms

We come across some unusual sights as we travel.  Here is one.

031116 An unusual sight, a plane's vapour trail and
its shadow on the clouds

Given it is a light day for photographic content, we will use this opportunity to include the many photographs of flowers we have taken so far.  They were mostly taken in the Bald Rock and Girraween National Parks near Stanthorpe.  Beyond the attempt at the first photograph, they are not labelled, simply because we do not know their names - our apologies.

Maybe a donkey orchid?

2 November 2016 - Around Goondiwindi

Today we toured Goondiwindi (pronounced Gundiwindi) and found some time to have lunch at the Victoria Hotel.  Goondiwindi is a country town on the Macintyre River, which forms the border between NSW and Queensland and is also at the meeting place of six major highways, Barwon, Leichhardt, Gore, Cunningham, Bruxner and Newell.  It had 10,628 residents in the 2011 census and is the centre for major grazing, dryland farming and irrigation producers.  Cotton is one of its major products.

During the day we visited the Town Centre for some retail therapy and an excellent lunch at the Victoria Hotel, the Natural Heritage Water Park, the Gunsynd Statue, the new (1911) bridge over the Macintyre, the Tree of Knowledge and the Botanical Gardens. 

021116 Main Street of Goondiwindi

021116 Lunch at the Victoria Hotel.  We felt like a steak

021116 Flame tree in the Goondiwindi Town Centre

021116 The famous Victoria Hotel in Goondiwindi

021116 Bougainvillia near the Town
Centre - very prolific out west

021116 The heading says it all.  This Lake provides a
3.3km course for water skiing competitions

021116 Mum, Dad and the kids at the water park.
Note the tree roots in the background, suggesting
the water level has been much higher in the past

021116 "The Beach" at the Water Park

021116 The monument to the famous race horse, Gunsynd,
 on the banks of the Macintyre River

021116 Gunsynd's  performance over fours years

02116 Crossing the Macintyre - old and new.  Note the marks
of the various flood peaks below the picture - worst in 2011

021116 The "new" bridge over the Macintyre R,
 built in 1914, and showing marker for river heights

021116 The "new" bridge over the Macintyre R, built in 1914

021116 Self explanatory

021116 The Tree of Knowledge - not to be confused
with the one at Barcaldine

021116 What is left of the corrugated iron sign
nailed to the tree by Naomi Rackham

021116 A lonely pelican on the lake at Goondiwindi's
Botanical Gardens

The Macintyre is very important to Goondiwindi and has been a source of joy and heartbreak to its residents.  Key is its propensity to flood and it was not until 1956 that a levee system was constructed.

021116 A photograph of the Macintyre in flood

021116 Sign explaining the relationship between the
Dumaresque, Macintyre, Barwon and Darling Rivers

021116 Plaque for the design of Goondiwindi's levee system

The plaque reads:

"In 1956, Edward Vernon Redmond, Engineer to Goondiwindi Council, submitted a flood prevention scheme for the town.  He and his foreman Bill McNulty, had surveyed the floods by boat, marking the heights on trees.  The levee banks that he designed have saved Goondiwindi from major flooding ever since".

One never ceases to be amazed at nature's beauty as evidenced by the photograph of some stunningly striking, sun-drenched strelitizia (nicolia) flowers - love alliteration. Seconds later, nature added more to the scene.

021116 Strelitzia nicolai flowers outside our caravan door

021116 Strelitzia nicolai flowers outside our
caravan door, up close

021116 And then came ....... nature at its best

We will remember Goondiwindi well.