As most people know parts of Australia are experiencing a dreadful drought. The stock farmers and crop farmers are suffering badly. There is not enough water and feed for the animals, there is not enough water to plant crops, and country towns are running out of water.
Many city folk on the coastal areas are trying to help the people suffering from the drought. Some time ago our village raised money to buy bales of hay and send them to the cattle farmers in the country town of Quilpie.
This week a tour company, "Fun Over 50" invited villagers for a free trip to Stanthorpe in their newest Diamond Class coach. The idea is for us to go to Stanthorpe, a rural town on the Southern Downs of Queensland, to spend money in businesses there. Town businesses are suffering because the farmers don't have money to spend in the towns anymore. So city people are encouraged to go to the country shops to do Christmas shopping.
Besides taking groups of city people to Stanthorpe to spend up, "Fun Over 50" also paid for 10 tankers of water to be sent to the farmers in the area, especially to the vineyards to keep the vines alive.
So we set off at 6:30am for the 220k/140m trip up the ranges to Stanthorpe. The main road was closed due to bushfires so we had to take a back road. The scorched, parched land was a sad site.
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| A dry brown land, no cattle, no crops and a thirsty town on the hill. |
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Some farmers are diversifying into solar farms.
These are banks of solar panels a poor phone photo from the bus. |
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| We enjoyed the wine tasting and we bought lots of wine. |
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| We were taken to 'Jamworks' where we tasted and bought jams. |
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| We bought Christmas gifts |
Then we walked the main street and this message on a shop window says it all. We found an air conditioned hotel where we ordered a big lunch. The temperature was 40°C/104°F. We didn't have a lot of time left to spend in other shops unfortunately, because we had to get back to the coach for the long drive home. We hope our little bit helped the poor people of Stanthorpe. This is only one country town out of hundreds that are suffering.
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| Main street of Stanthorpe |
So we set off at 6:30am for the 220k/140m trip up the ranges to Stanthorpe. The main road was closed due to bushfires so we had to take a back road. The scorched, parched land was a sad site.
