St George - Day 1

St George is another town we have never previously visited.  This is despite the fact that Dad’s eldest brother farmed in the area for many years, up until his retirement.  I think Dad worked in the area for a bit before he was married as well.  Therefore, I was rather keen to see the area, with our plan being to stay for a few days.

After settling in at the caravan park, our first port of call was the Information Centre.  There is a beautiful quilt hanging on the wall.  It’s hard to see with the reflections on the glass.  It was created in 1996 to commemorate 150 years since St George was named.  It’s interesting to read about its construction.

Next, we went for a wander up the street, calling in to the two dollar shop to see if there was any of the yarn I was looking for - no luck and then the supermarket, which had been recently refitted and looked great. 

There is a store in the main street that looked like a rather old fashioned outfitters, Golders.  We had also seen one in Dalby, but had only walked past that one.  I went inside to have a browse.  As well as clothes, I’ve never seen so many Crocs shoes on display, or Ariat boots, and oh my, the toys.  They rival any large toy store.  But what really caught my attention was the wall of hats.  I’ve never seen so many.  You really know you are in outback Queensland when you see a display like this.

St George is located on the banks of the Balonne River and you can take a sunset river cruise.  We were lucky that they were running that evening.

This is a bit lower key than those that run at Longreach, with the flat bottom boat arriving on a trailer.

The name of the boat means Balonne River Girl in the native language.

There was just a small group of us on the tour and you bring your own drinks and nibblies if you wish.

The river height is governed in this section by the weir with the road bridge running across it in the town and a second weir at Beardmore Dam upstream.  St George wasn’t severely impacted by the recent extensive flooding, but the river is nice and full.  

We were blessed with the weather, as it was nice and calm, which meant that there were beautiful reflections.  Initially, we were just beside the town.

It wasn’t long before it was a more rural outlook and we started to see some bird life.  Greater egrets were one of the main birds we saw.

As well as native scenery, there are a lot of lifestyle blocks along the river, for about five kilometres from town.  There are some very flash homes and nice set ups to take advantage of the river frontage.  The river is very popular for skiing, fishing and kayaking.

The name of the river is from the local aboriginal language and means place of many pelicans.  Funnily enough, we only saw one on our cruise.

Our tour started at 4pm and we travelled upstream for about an hour before turning around and heading back to town.  We travelled about eight kms upstream.  As we progressed, we started to get to that glorious golden hour.

By the time we turned around, the sun had set, providing yet another view of the river.  So peaceful.

An added bonus was the fact that it was a full moon.

Oh, those reflections and the soft colours.

And finally, the weir and bridge back in town, before we disembarked.

What a lovely introduction to the area we were to explore over the next couple of days.

To cap things off, Mick cooked those delicious lamb koftas that we had purchased earlier in the day on the barbie.