Along the Herveys Range Road

I’d been camping along the Running River, a tributary of the Burdekin River in Northern Queensland, sketching and taking photos – although Rupert and I seemed to spend more time swimming and kayaking in the beautiful clear warm running shallow water pools of the river than actually doing any work. Even tried fishing but the only thing I found was a curious little turtle that came paddling by and as they do, hung around like a begging puppy hoping I’d throw him a snack.

We trekked up into the surrounding hills a bit, hoping to find some suitable painting subjects, which as it happened, were everywhere – but it was just too hot on top of all that baking stone so we retreated back to the shade and coolness of the river banks.

We’d made our way to the Running River through the thick mountainous rainforests of  Paluma, north of Townsville, but after a week I headed back to base in Townsville via a more direct route as I was under threat from my wife to be in phone contact by a certain day or she was calling out the cavalry to find me!

The Herveys Range Road heads inland from Townsville. The road up the mountains affords some magnificent views of the coastal plains before rapidly crossing into hot dry Outback cattle country. So it was along this road that Rupert and I were trundling along when I went by this stand of great big boulders (among many such groups) sitting squatly in the dry grass amongst the scraggly trees. I took some photos and notes before carrying on and recreated the scene later in my studio when I was back in Western Australia.