Monday two weeks ago I headed further to the East. I got out of the outback after arriving in Emerald. The town has all important supermarkets and retail stores, as well as the major fastfood chains. In Emerald I went to the solar farm just west to the town and had a drive around. The solar farm is now owned by a finance investor. It’s one of the poorly operated solar farms I’ve seen so far. The weed is more than 2m high and is heavily spreading throughout the solar panels. This puts a lot of shade onto the PV panels, and definitely affects the electricity production. I went to the only open pub later on in order to enjoy my last beer before they had to close at noon for indefinite time. In the afternoon I headed out to Lake Maraboon. It’s the second largest lake in Queensland but due to the drought, it’s almost empty. The lake had it’s lowest filling level, with just about 10%, by the end of 2019. It wasn’t busy over there, just one woman was sunbathing and some people took the opportunity to get out onto the lake for fishing with their boats. In the late afternoon I headed further south to Springsure. That is a lovely community next to the Minerva Hills National park. I had a walk around the park area, where the families met with their children next to the playground. After a short break I headed on and stopped at the Stairway Range lookout. The spot wasn’t that good, as all the heavy road trains plagued their way in the low gear up the range the whole time.
B' on Tour 