Saturday 27th June - Rubyvale

Saturday 27^th June

On Saturday we drove from Charters Towers to Emerald but we decided we didn't want to stay there so we drove 45 more minutes to Rubyvale. At Rubyvale we booked 4 nights in a caravan park that looks after brush tail possums and most nights little kangaroo things that look like rats called bettongs.

This is a cotton bush with flowers on.

This is a bettong.

These are the possums.

Mum's note:
On the way to Emerald we saw cotton growing wild on the roadsides and the coal mine at Clermont. We stopped for lunch at a roadhouse and got mobbed for our food by rainbow lorikeets. 

There was a whole flock of them but these two lorikeets were the ringleaders.

"Remember..... I'm a dinosaur....... give me your lunch!"

The big mining bucket at Clermont before getting to Emerald.

At Emerald we saw the "largest painting in the world on an easel", one of a set of seven Van Gogh reproductions planned around the world. We did decide to move onto Rubyvale, although we had planned to stay in Emerald. We had made better time than we expected, so we decided we could stay in the Gemfields instead of 45 minutes away.

The big painting at Emerald.