Today we were to have a rather longer drive than we’ve been completing each day, in the past few weeks. This meant we were up and ready to leave Rainbow Beach before 8am. Our drive took us through some very busy highways and motorways including those of the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane and the Gold Coast hinterland. Our route took us through central Brisbane and we travelled on the road tunnel which goes under the Brisbane River, for over 5 kilometres. Our route also took us back through the magnificent Scenic Rim and up the windy mountains. Once we’d completed this part of our journey we had reached an area known as the Granite Belt. We stopped for a lunch before continuing on. We noticed signs warning of smoke ahead. Sure enough we were soon in the thick of it. In fact it appeared that the road-side “controlled” burn-off had got completely out of hand! It was nearly impossible to see a metre in front of the car. On the opposite side of the road, there had been a rear-end car crash, where a vehicle had crashed into the rear of the car in front due to not slowing down enough and not being able to see the car. All occupants of the cars were fine but there was a bit of a mess to add to the drama. Later, we saw a Country Fire Services truck racing to the out of control fire, followed by a water-truck. Anyway after this excitement we arrived at Stanthorpe in the mid-afternoon. This will just be an overnight stop for us but it does look an inviting place to explore. Its claim to fame, is that it is the coldest place in Queensland. Well, today the temperature rose to nearly 30 but was around 23 in Stanthorpe so we weren’t worried. (Apparently it has actually snowed here!) We thought the fact that the other attractions in the town and nearby region of wineries, breweries, distilleries, dairies with cheesemakers, apple orchards, berry farms etc. made it a good place to check out in the future. Just to complete the day, as the sun was setting, the authorities started to do a controlled burn-off of the field across the road from the caravan park. It was quite spectacular and very interesting to watch. With no wind and the sun setting, the smoke rose straight up into the sky. The people that do this, certainly know what they’re doing (most of the time). The owners of the caravan park were out watching along with many of the tourists from the park and said that the burn-off we had driven through had “jumped the road” and that was how it became out of control.
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