And The Wait Goes On
20st May – 17th June 2025
Flanagan’s Reserve is only 44kms west of Darlington Park and unlike the open grassland of Darlington, it has a rustic bush setting, with the Logan River flowing through the property. We have stayed there before but I don’t remember much about it. I was quite unwell for the first few days last time we visited and I slept most of the time, then my appendix burst, and I spent the next 5 days in Ipswich hospital (never again). So, I was looking forward to re-visiting it (Flanagan’s, not the hospital, 😊) even though it was a bit further away from Victoria Point and our Doctor
I have to say Flanagan’s was looking pretty tired. The campground is poorly maintained, with rubbish lying around the camp areas. Peter collected half a dozen beer cans, plastic bottle tops and some food wrappers before he set up camp for us. We’ve never really seen that in a managed campground before. The firepits were the standard half steel drums, but these were old and rusty with dangerous, sharp, jagged edges. The garbage bags went into an open trailer (you can imagine how the birds and possums loved this set up). There are only two toilets and one shower for the Ladies: one toilet and one shower for the men, plus a row of 6 portaloos near the amenities block. Flanagan’s has twenty-eight acres available for camping. That’s a lot of people. All I can say is I’m pleased that we’re are self-sufficient.
The neighbours were pretty cool though.
We had a good camp spot at the far end of the property which backed onto cattle grazing area. Even though the gamp ground got really busy over the weekend, we had our own little spot. Maybe it was our hobby that kept people away form us.
There wasn’t much in the way of birdlife, though I did see my first Pale-Headed Rosella so that was lovely.
On our first day there we spotted a small mob of kangaroos in the neighbouring property, they were quite a distance away, but I was able to get some shots of a couple of young bucks practicing their fighting skills. There was a lot of pushing and wrestling, maybe even a bit of boxing. I’m pretty sure that they were only training, had they been fighting in earnest I think there’d have been a bit of blood flying around. Check out those claws on their paws.
But it’s not really the claws that inflict the damage, it’s those incredibly strong legs which produced powerful kicks. What really surprised me though, was how they use their tails. I’ve never seen kangaroos fighting before, but those tails must be solid muscle, and a strong, long tail is an obvious advantage in a fight, look at the height he’s getting.
Even though they are “playing” they certainly don’t hold back their punches, or in this case kicks. You can almost see the wind being knocked out of the guy on the left.
I have to finish off with the junior boxing squad. Super cute.
While here, we had our first real hike in what seems like forever. The 4.5km return trip with and elevation of 660m, is considered to be a challenging route. But we did it, and it was worth the effort.
And as for Peter. Well, he had his ultrasound on the 27th and after another week of waiting we got the results. It turns out that he has some rather large gallstones and…you guessed it, they’ve got to go.
We have an appointment to see his surgeon on 17th of June, until then…we wait and continue to explore the Great South East.
See you out there somewhere
On tow and on the go!
At least you are having fun and good photo opportunities amongst a couple of medical episodes. Better around civilisation than on an isolated inland ‘road’. 🙂