Where we're gonna be...

[Greynomad]

S'OK... all helpful suggestions will be considered.

[Greynomad]

In Goondiwini for a coupla days.
Decided to treat ourselves...
Rather than cooking in the CP cabin, we went out for Chinese.
Local one with best reviews is the New Dynasty, so booked a table for two.

WOW!!

Not only was the cooking of a very high standard, the Mongolian Lamb was very close to the original sampled by SWMBO on a school excursion to China.
Serving size was about twice what you get in the Big Smoke, and prices were lower than comparable city restaurants.

Thoroughly recommend the New Dynasty if you're passing through Goondiwindi!

[Chuck]

Mmmmm... just told Trina that we're dining out tonight...might have to leave shortly to get there on time.

[Greynomad]

Just had a wander through Goondiwindi's Mechanical Gardens... uh, sorry, that should read Botanical Gardens.
Very peaceful walking tracks... until you reach the part which borders the highway.
Apart from that, an interesting walk. They started in 1988, and have collected all varieties of trees & shrubs native to the black-soil plains.
They have also collected specimens native to the red-soil areas, and imported red soil to plant them!

One of the Brigalow trees had recently been pruned, but SWMBO would not let me souvenir a piece of the beautiful timber...
Pity. Woulda made some very pretty turnings & pens. Cut into convenient 500mm lengths, too. I guess the local Men's Shed has dibs on them.

[RobertNotBob]

Can always go for a evening walk alone mate, cheers

[Greynomad]

Hmmm
Tempting.
Unfortunately I suspect SWMBO would notice that the car was missing.
She might also notice a new log in the boot.

[Greynomad]

She might also notice a new log in the boot.

Bad enough that we're carting another boot last all the way to Bundaberg and back home...

Did a tour of a cotton farm today.

Everything's BIG.

Paddocks are a square kilometre each, and there are half-a-dozen or more to a farm, and the family whose property we toured owns five farms (almost contiguous)!
The dam is a one kilometre square 'turkey's nest' construction.

Cotton farm panorama.JPG

This is a <180° panorama. The roads on the far left and far right are actually one straight road, at a right angle to the centre road.!

Turkeys Nest Dam.jpg

This shows the height of the Turkey's Nest walls.
The paddocks have been laser-levelled with a 1" drop over 15', carefully designed to cause a slow flow of irrigation water from one side of a paddock to t'other, where a tailing channel collects the runoff and feeds it to a sump where it is pumped back into the dam for re-use. Most ingenious. All paddocks are designed this way, so they all channel the runoff to the one sump on the farm.
All irrigation is gravity-fed, with syphons manually run over the channel wall. They might use a lot of water, but it is used to the max.
The only two pumps on the farm are the sump pump to return runoff to the dam, and another which powers the sprinkler/dripper system.
To minimise evaporation, all sprinkler heads are gradually being replaced with drippers.
Reason for this is the drought in Qld. Half of the farm paddocks were not planted in spring because they didn't have the water to keep the whole crop alive. Same again in autumn.

[Shirley]

Where does the water come from to fill their huge dams? We couldn't believe the size of the dams.

[Greynomad]

They only had half their normal allocation of water from the Murray River. Second year running. That’s why half the paddocks were left bare. Cotton plants don’t survive on half rations.

[jon_d]

A bit like everyone else down stream.