Red Claw

We reluctantly moved on from Mackay and started what really marked the beginning of our grand adventure, heading west into central Queensland, the gateway to the outback.  This was the bit that I had been looking forward to, heading towards unchartered territory.  As it turned out, you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere unchartered in Australia, indeed, anywhere even particularly far from civilisation.  I didn't know that then, though.  This was still yet to be discovered on the eve of our exciting adventure.

Again, my diary entries are fairly ho hum.  I noted that we had lunch at Nebo on 14 April. I described it as a small historic town. I wrote that we had passed mining shanty towns along the Peak Downs highway.  I certainly remember seeing fully laden coal trains thundering toward the coast to fill all of those waiting tankers that we noticed lurking off the coast at Mackay and Rockhampton.  I do remember remarking at the time that it was like we (Australia) were desperately digging up our coal and exporting it to China as fast as we possibly could.

On the night of the 14th we camped at Teresa Creek Dam. The only things I noted in my diary about this location was that there was mobile phone reception behind our tent, a spot light and that there were many drunk campers, loud music and revelry.  I can't now remember why I put a reference in about a spot light, but I do remember the bit about the only mobile phone reception being behind our tent.  This was not definitely to our advantage, as it wasn't us who used the opportunity to catch up on mobile phone calls, but every man, woman and child in the place. As is always the case with mobile phone conversations, they are never quiet as it seems necessary to yell down the phone.  We found ourselves privy to many private conversations over the course of the night, I wish that I had written some them down!  I am guessing by the revelry and loud music, we decided that even at $5 a night it wasn't worth hanging around, so we continued onto Lake Maraboon to stay at Fairbairn Dam.

We stayed at Fairbairn Dam for three nights and tried out a bit of fishing and hunting for redclaw.  Both Evan and I made diary entries about this.  Redclaw is a kind of yabby and is delicious.  people come from far and wide to trap redclaw, after tasting it we could see why.

Steve and Evan caught a Red Claw today. They put Alan's Opera House trap in Fairbairn Dam last night and retrieved it this morning.

Steve got abused last night by an old codger who thought he needed a lesson in campsite etiquette. Fancy driving through the campsite at 7.30pm!  Steve seems to have a way of upsetting people. 

Evan's Entry:

One day dad and Harry went down to look at good places to catch big red claw.

Late at night me and dad put in the red claw trap

In the morning we took the red claw trap out and there was a red claw.

The next night the whole family came. Dad threw the red claw trap about twenty yards.

In the morning me and dad went down and pulled out the red claw trap. 

And instead of one red claw there were..............................................................................

three red claw.