Capella to Clermont

 Capella to Clermont = 57km
Cummulative totals =2806km and 22,807km
Clermont Caravan park = $23 unpowered

It was another hot day today - in the high 20's or early 30's.  We only had 50 odd kms to do today but we still left early to beat the heat.
We walked Kouta last night around part of Capella and it has alot of new accomodation for the mining, so it has sort of donga style accomodation with meals included.  Now last night most of these were empty.  It would have to be close to 500 accomodation units available as there are heaps of corrugated pop up type motels that look very tasteful and nice on the outside but most of them are empty.  We are assuming the mining has finished in this area for the moment.  These accomodations look relatively new (in the past few years) so you would hope that whoever built them made a quick buck and can still carry all this empty accomodation until the next mining boom.
The road to Clermont is relatively flat, a little bit rolling but no real dramas.  Lots of fields here of Sorghum and maybe other crop that has recently been harvest.  We did come across this not so healthy sorghum field and it was full of these birds, I think they are Brolgas.  At first they kept flying off whenever I tried to get close to them along the road.  so I stopped and told Neil to continue so I could get a photo of them flying off ...

The traffic is pretty light along here and if it wasn't for the carnival folk leaving Capella and making their way to Clermont then you could say therre would be next to no traffic along here!  Eventually the caravaners started to come through and a few trucks.
We did see the Peak Down Rangers a bit until they disappeared on us and I managed to get this photo - although it is not great quality as it is taken facing the sun...

We get to Clermont around 11.30am and find the IGA closes at 4pm and isn't open tomorrow so we set up tent and have something to eat and I go off to shop for food for the next week!
1 and 1/2 hours later I finally return ... Neil was getting worried and thought something had happened to me ... I was touched by his thoughtfulness and then he informs me he needs to go to take a dump and was happy that I am back!!!
So loaded up with food and in the end I got myself all mixed up with dinners and the number of brekkies I am buying that Neil makes me sit down and I draw up a table to check list items off to make sure I have enough brekkies, lunches and dinners.  I forgot we will buy one dinner at Belyando Crossing and this mucked up the amount of brekkies I have so I am short 2 pieces of fruit and a third packed of wraps.
The campground is big, the unpowered section is a massive area at the end of the park with very little trees for shade but we are early enough and select a spot that will give us shade from 11am onwards tomorrow.  We are about 200m from the toilets and 150m from the camp kitchen!  It doesn't matter we need the exercise!  The only other place to camp is next to the main camp kitchen which is in amongst all the caravaners and it has happy hour each night ... no thanks!  I am happy to be miles away from anyone so that Kouta can roam .... here is our spot ...

and another view looking back towards the main part of the camp ground.

Tomorrow is a rest day and the campground is pretty full.  Apparently alot are here for the gold prospecting.  I will post tomorrow with some photos of the mural on a train.