DAY 9 - WASHING, MONTO & MULGILDIE....
Love that our days out here always starts with visits from these guys...
Today we decided that we weren't going to do any walks out at the Gorge today. Although both Barb and I were feeling heaps better than we had expected too after our big walk yesterday, we didn't want to tempt fate and wanted to make sure that we were really feeling recovered before tackling another big walk, so instead we decided to drive into town and do a little more sightseeing around Monto.
We had read about the newly painted Silo's in Monto and these were high on our list of things to check out in the district.
Before heading out though, we all had quite a bit of washing that needed to be done, and since the weather report was favourable today, decided to do it first and get it in the line, whilst we could.
We were away around 9am and today we ended up taking a couple of cars. John and Barb took their car in and Ian and Kathy joined us. Steve was keen to take our car to give it a good run to make sure that the car battery was well and truly charged as we had been running a car fridge on it...
We had also planned to check out Mulgildie today and since it was a further 10km south of Monto, we decided to head there first and work our way back to Monto. We also knew that the painted Silo was on the highway out towards Mulgildie, so it made perfect sense for us to head there first....
Our first stop was the painted Silos on the Burnett Highway....
My goodness were they IMPRESSIVE....
The 'Three Moons' silos along the Burnett Highway depict several stories of yesteryear: from gold mining, to mustering and the Dreamtime.
The installation is now the most northern point on the popular silo art map.
The result for the silos, is an imaginative retelling of the legends that surround the name of the region's Three Moon Creek. The legends surrounding the Three Moons is about the Chinese people who arrived in Australia's gold rush era and saw the moon reflected in the creek and a pannikin, another surrounds a cattleman who saw much the same thing, and the other is wrapped up in Aboriginal tradition.
According to the artists Joel Fergie and Travis Vinson, who go by the names of "Zookeeper" and "Drapl', they actually went out and met with an elder from the region, and he told them some really interesting stories. One story was about the Gooreng Gooreng people and how they returned to muster cattle. He had grown up on a cattle farm and, just like the Three Moon story, was asked to go and move cattle every three months.
The artists tried to depict some of his Dreamtime stories so up in the Milky Way they have got an emu hidden inhidden in the night sky. He's telling the story of the three moons to his granddaughter sitting beside him...
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The silo artwork pays homage to the community's past, present and future...
From the Silo's we headed on to Mulgildie. I was keen to revisit Mulgildie as I had a close friend who was a teacher and was transfered out here almost 40 years ago as a teacher and we often headed out there to visit her. There was very little there then, and there is very little there these days, although the town did not look anything like I remember it, except for the pub.
The school looks bigger than I remember it also and we had difficulty finding the house that Helen lived in back then.
Mulgildie has an interesting history. The town was named Mulgeldie in 1925, and is believed to be derived from the Aboriginal name bulgeldee referring to a deep waterhole on Three Moon Creek. The spelling was changed to Mulgildie on 15 March 1945. The town has a very active hotel, a grocer, the primary school and a sawmill and not much else...
This pub is presently up for sale, as the current owners have been there now for 14 years. The pub has a colourful history with the present owners, artist-publican Julie South and her husband Tony Davenport nearly not the owners of the postcard pub.
If there was a rule book for ‘colourful country pubs’ it would say, see the Mulgildie. Both sporting artistic tendencies, the couple have adorned the pub in hand-painted murals with something of a cowboy theme. Over the years many passers-by have also made their mark or signed the wall, including country singer James Blundell.
The decorations and dedication to social events sees people outside every day taking photos of themselves and the venue, providing constant social media coverage and furthering its fame.
The other noteable thing about Mulgildie is the legend of the Mulgildie bunyip which has lived long in Australian History. Elders and long-time cattlemen have told of bubbling water, disappearing cattle and eerie sensations throughout the generations.
The Bunyip hole is a still pool blanketed with green slime and largely remains silent except for the occasional buzz of birds and flies. Known to bubble and gurgle, some Aboriginal elders believe the hole is connected to a network of underground waterways.
On the side of the highway as you enter Mulgildie stands a tall statue of the famed bunyip. He looks like a cross between a crocodile and a small dinosaur, and he's the creation of Brett Benecke. The bunyip statue, which holds a cow's skull in one arm and a lungfish in the other, is made of 6mm plate mild steel and took 18 months to construct.
There were a couple of other noticable buildings in Mulgildie where the owners have tried to cater for the passing nomad tourists as they journey though and although there wasn't a lot at Mulgildie it was obvious that they were trying to attract the passing by tourists....
By now it was lunch time, and we were all a little hungry so it was time to head back to Monto to fill our tummies so that we could continue our sightseeing.
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| Welcome to Monto... |
John and Barb had missed the impressive water tower the other day as they had headed home before we discovered it, so we were very keen to show them this impressive piece of work.
As we drove back into Monto we also wanted to stop and take some photos of the impressive art work that was their welcome sign into town.... These signs were painted by the same artists that had painted the silo's and the other amazing murals and water tower in town....
By now our stomachs were really growling so we headed straight to the main street to find somewhere to have lunch....
We found car parks close to the Albert Hotel so thought we would check out this hotel for lunch...
This historical building was first built in 1929 and it originally catered for homestay withing the town of Monto. It is a two storey classic Queensland which served food and drinks on the bottom storey whilst a big verandah lays out around the outside of the Hotel on the top level...
We all liked the look and feel of the pub so it was a unanimous decision to make this our lunch venue...
The menu looked go so we proceeded to order our lunch and were pleasantly surprised when it came...
By the time we had finished lunch it was almost 2pm, and whilst the others were keen to head back to camp, I still had one more piece of Street Art I wanted to check out and Steve wanted to check out the Historical Museum a little more as we had only skimmed the surface the previous time we were in Monto..
The art work I wanted to check out was a little hard to get too, as it was under the railway bridge and wasn't easily accessible, however, they are developing an art trail that will allow people ot get up close and personal with this piece in the very near future... Monto also has several painted cows prominently placed around town also, and I tried to capture tjese wherever possible...
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| Latest piece of Street Art under the railway bridge in Monto.. |
From here it was straight onto the Historial Museum so that Steve was able to have a good look....
Once Steve had a good look around the Historical Museum, we then headed back to the van park also. Steve was keen to do the walk to the Giant Chair Lookout, which the others had tackled the first full day that we had at Cania Gorge...
The path has a lot of steps, and when there are no steps it still goes up. There is a reprieve part way with a dip after an initial peak which has a seat to stop at for a rest if needed. There are cliff edges not too far from the path.
The first thing he noticed when he reached the Giant’s Chair is the thoughtfully placed picnic table. It isn’t that it is placed in a good spot to admire the view, you can’t see it from the picnic table, it is because it is there.
Then the reward, the view looks out from the high mountain cliffs he had just climbed. The road is not too far away so you do get a sense of how high you have climbed for a relatively short distance and you can appreciate the effort for the climb. I don’t think you would get the same appreciation walking the circuit the other way.
Whilst Steve was up hiking to the Giant Chair Lookout, I decided to go feed the birds again. I have looked the bird feeding out here at Cania Gorge... I have loved facetiming our grandchildren and sharing the birds with them also...
