#4: [15-Jan-21]

#3: [07-Dec-12]

#2: [14-Dec-06]

22-Sep-2006 --

While planning a trip from our home on the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane to the Atherton Tablelands, west of Cairns we marked confluences on a map with an idea to visit some as time allowed.

Armed with our new GPS, we headed off discussing the concept of latitude and longitude with our girls, Rachel (9) and Sarah (10). From Rockhampton we left the coast and headed west towards Emerald, crossing the Tropic of Capricorn. We passed a steady stream of coal trains along the way. The country is open savannah mostly used for cattle, with irrigated cropping and some dry land wheat and sorghum around Emerald.

We spent the night in Emerald and the girls checked out the world’s largest painting on an easel. The next morning we headed north on excellent sealed (asphalt) roads through Clermont. The map indicated the confluence was about 400m to the north of the access road to Elgin Downs Station. We drove to the station to ask permission to visit the confluence and after answering the inevitable ‘why?’ question we headed back and stopped the car about 400m by GPS south of the confluence.

It was an easy walk dodging prickle bushes to the confluence. The land was flat with low scrubby eucalypt and wattle trees.

After taking the photographs we returned to the car and headed north to the old gold mining town of Charters Towers. The road was still excellent but down to single lane bitumen in places. We started to see Road Trains, double tiered cattle trucks with three articulated trailers and over 50m long, as we headed further north where we made an incomplete visit to 20°S146°E.