Dust and other Disasters
As we headed north-west towards Oakey, we could see a big storm building up to the south. The sky was black and there were flashes of lightning. It still hadn't hit us when we arrived, with time to do one op shop before closing time. Alas, it appeared the one we had chosen had moved. Then I remembered a vague flash of op shop in the main street down near the railway line when Michael and I drove through the town a few months before, and so it proved to be. Unfortunately, there was nothing we wanted to buy there, so we headed outside, to find that the rain was fast approaching, preceded by a dust storm. The photo doesn't do it justice. It was quite eerie.
The next stop was Goombungee, not on our direct route, but where we hoped to buy a coffee, and check out another war memorial. But first there was a trip to the showgrounds to find a tree that had been planted in memory of the father of one of Jan's friends, one George David Scarlett. We eventually found it, and Jan could report back that it is doing just fine.
The coffee shop was closed, but the general store sold coffees, so we were in luck. And it was almost right in front of the memorial. The name I wanted to see was C G Martyn, and he was right it the top. Charles George Martyn was in my father's battalion, the 26th, and he was killed during the Battle of Menin Road in September 1917. This was the engagement where Dad found four bullet holes in his haversack. Private Martyn's death was sad enough, but when the Goombungee memorial was opened in 1920, his mother sat up the back weeping through the entire ceremony and no one comforted her, or even went near her. Charles, you see, was aboriginal. I was sorry I didn't have a flower to leave for him.
Clutching takeaway coffee we headed north through the backroads towards Cooyar, surviving a scare from a wallaby that darted out in front of the car. We were booked in at the Cooyar Hotel, our most basic accommodation of the trip. There isn't a lot left of Cooyar, after a severe thunderstorm over the Cooyar Creek catchment in 1988 washed half the town away and two locals were drowned. In this photo from the balcony outside our room, you can see the memorial park where the missing buildings once stood.
The publican was away, so the woman behind the bar showed me our room, and asked if we would need tea or coffee in the morning. I said yes, so she took me into the hotel kitchen, showed me where everything was, and explained that we would have the place to ourselves when we woke up. Great. We lugged our bags upstairs, checked out the very basic facilities, and headed for the bar. Wednesday night is weekly Social Barbecue Night, which means most of the town comes to the pub; and once we explained what we were doing, we were welcomed into the fold. The woman on the barstool next to mine told me how localised the flooding was. Her family home was ten miles out of town, and they had had rain on the fatal night, but when they heard on the radio that Cooyar had been washed away they thought it was a mistake. It must have been somewhere else; Cooroy perhaps?
After our dinner, we retired to our room with its strange wall decoration, and I dug out our entertainment for the evening. At a Vinnies in Toowoomba, I had found a You Are The Weakest Link game, complete with a spooky cut-out mask of the late Cornelia Frances. There were all sorts of weird playing pieces, discs and dials but no instructions. What do you expect for $3? So we just used the question cards and had our own trivia night, before retiring for the night, to the sound of semi-trailers rumbling past on this last little northern stretch of the Cunningham Highway.
As we headed north-west towards Oakey, we could see a big storm building up to the south. The sky was black and there were flashes of lightning. It still hadn't hit us when we arrived, with time to do one op shop before closing time. Alas, it appeared the one we had chosen had moved. Then I remembered a vague flash of op shop in the main street down near the railway line when Michael and I drove through the town a few months before, and so it proved to be. Unfortunately, there was nothing we wanted to buy there, so we headed outside, to find that the rain was fast approaching, preceded by a dust storm. The photo doesn't do it justice. It was quite eerie.
The next stop was Goombungee, not on our direct route, but where we hoped to buy a coffee, and check out another war memorial. But first there was a trip to the showgrounds to find a tree that had been planted in memory of the father of one of Jan's friends, one George David Scarlett. We eventually found it, and Jan could report back that it is doing just fine.
The coffee shop was closed, but the general store sold coffees, so we were in luck. And it was almost right in front of the memorial. The name I wanted to see was C G Martyn, and he was right it the top. Charles George Martyn was in my father's battalion, the 26th, and he was killed during the Battle of Menin Road in September 1917. This was the engagement where Dad found four bullet holes in his haversack. Private Martyn's death was sad enough, but when the Goombungee memorial was opened in 1920, his mother sat up the back weeping through the entire ceremony and no one comforted her, or even went near her. Charles, you see, was aboriginal. I was sorry I didn't have a flower to leave for him.
Clutching takeaway coffee we headed north through the backroads towards Cooyar, surviving a scare from a wallaby that darted out in front of the car. We were booked in at the Cooyar Hotel, our most basic accommodation of the trip. There isn't a lot left of Cooyar, after a severe thunderstorm over the Cooyar Creek catchment in 1988 washed half the town away and two locals were drowned. In this photo from the balcony outside our room, you can see the memorial park where the missing buildings once stood.
The publican was away, so the woman behind the bar showed me our room, and asked if we would need tea or coffee in the morning. I said yes, so she took me into the hotel kitchen, showed me where everything was, and explained that we would have the place to ourselves when we woke up. Great. We lugged our bags upstairs, checked out the very basic facilities, and headed for the bar. Wednesday night is weekly Social Barbecue Night, which means most of the town comes to the pub; and once we explained what we were doing, we were welcomed into the fold. The woman on the barstool next to mine told me how localised the flooding was. Her family home was ten miles out of town, and they had had rain on the fatal night, but when they heard on the radio that Cooyar had been washed away they thought it was a mistake. It must have been somewhere else; Cooroy perhaps?
After our dinner, we retired to our room with its strange wall decoration, and I dug out our entertainment for the evening. At a Vinnies in Toowoomba, I had found a You Are The Weakest Link game, complete with a spooky cut-out mask of the late Cornelia Frances. There were all sorts of weird playing pieces, discs and dials but no instructions. What do you expect for $3? So we just used the question cards and had our own trivia night, before retiring for the night, to the sound of semi-trailers rumbling past on this last little northern stretch of the Cunningham Highway.
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