Our night at Emerald wasn’t as bad as we expected. The road quieten down fairly early, we did have a very long coal train go over our heads about 2.30am and another one a bit later, that woke us up.
We stopped at the Blackwater International Coal Centre that had only been open for 2 weeks. There is a free cinema showing a 15min video and then a full Interactive display that cost $19A. We thought $19 was a bit steep $15 would have been more appropriate but it was very good and we were there for several hours. Heaps of coal trains went past some can be up to 1km long.
We have stopped for the night at Duaringa rest area no Q322. A really big area and well off the main road a very popular spot, has toilets and free showers. Some have been here several nights. Near us there are at least 4 Honda generators going hopefully they will quieten down before too long. The rest area is next to a really lovely little park has a pond and lily flowers, later we will check it out for frogs.
We went chasing cockatoos but we just succeeded in pushing them further away from us we are hoping they will fly back over the camp area. It’s been nice to just sit under the awning and read a mag.