After a long drive from Biloela yesterday we arrived at Lake Maraboon, which is about 25 k’s south of Emerald. Lake Maraboon when full is about 3 times the size of Sydney Harbour but the drought has not been kind and its well down as the photos below show.

I said it was a long drive, really only 300 k’s but the Dawson Highway between Biloela and Emerald would have to be the worst highway I’ve ever driven on. It was atrocious and at times simply dangerous as the Cruiser went into full emergency mode re VSC, TRC and Sway Control. When that first happens its rather frightening but the Cruiser and the Van were stable, which is the main thing. Any speed over 80 k’s, in some places was just plain stupid, so the speed was down and hence the long drive. We have over 400 k’s to Longreach tomorrow and I’m informed the road is not any better so we have a long day ahead of us it seems.

As we have only a day here, we went into Emerald township for a walk around. It’s a lot bigger than I expected but being the central town of the region, I suppose it has to support a large regional population. It’s easy to see that the region is on a mining boom, plenty of new houses and very few empty shops that we saw. A lot of people in town, so the actively shows a vibrant town.

The weather is starting to heat up, low 30’s here and mid 30’s expected in Longreach. I’m sure when we get home and have one of those Melbourne cool summer day’s of 18, we’ll wonder what’s going on. We’ll be out of the region before the really hot days begin which is good, at least the nights are reasonably cool.