MONDAY 8 JUNE     EMERALD

It was the same early morning for me. A pleasantly warm day.

I washed John’s jeans, by hand. That was not too onerous, after the long soaking they’d had.

I was able to book us here for an extra day.

Making up patches for my quilt was really flying along, with so much time to fill in, here.

Got chatting to a neighbour, two sites over. They had been here for two weeks, due to their vehicle breaking down. They were towing a fifth wheeler that was also a horse float. She said that they sometimes took their horses away on a trip with them. My imagination ran a bit riot about that! Wondered if the division between the residence and the horse part was totally smell proof? I gave her some books I didn’t want to keep.

John fancied a Subway lunch, so off we went to get that. After, went for a walk in the Botanic Gardens, but not all that far, nor fast. The Gardens were on the small side, so it did not take long to feel we’d “done that”.

Took a drive, out to Lake Maraboon, about 25kms out of town. There were “lifestyle” small acreage blocks along much of the way, irrigated from the Nogoa River. I bought a couple of $2 bags of mandarins from a roadside stall.

The road crosses the top of the Fairburn Dam wall, which created the large Lake Maraboon on the Nogoa River.

It was very impressive – the second largest dam lake in Qld. Despite that, Emerald still had a major flood last year, when there was so much rain that the dam spillway overflowed, big time. The Nogoa drains north from the flanks of the Carnarvon Ranges and can collect a lot of run off in a short time.

Back in December 1998, we stayed at the Lake Maraboon Caravan Park, for a week, on our way south. It seemed to have really been spruced up since then. It was really crowded. We hadn’t tried to book in here, this time, as John wanted to be closer to bowls. It would have been a far more pleasant place to stay. I was surprised at how much I had forgotten about being out here – and about Emerald in general.

We bought icy poles at the shop in the Park, and wandered about whilst we ate them. There were not as many people using the water as I expected, it being a long weekend. Visited the lookout over the dam. The water area was vast. I had some recollection of taking sunset photos across it, back when we stayed here.

Returned to Emerald. That had been a pleasant little outing.

Tea was battered fish, bought frozen, and salads. Whilst making it, and delving around in the fridge for lettuce, I managed to tip over a large tub of yoghurt. The lid popped off and yoghurt spread everywhere. It was a big clean up job. Note to self: from now on, only buy small tubs of yoghurt.

A rare computer night for me: emails, looking at forums, playing my mahjong game – till 1am. That damned Emperor’s Mahjong is addictive! John was up even later than me.

The night was cold. Maybe I was premature in stowing the heater under the bed? There were forecasts of minus 5 degrees for the Granite Belt. That would not be much fun in a caravan!