20240705 Qld Moranbah to Dysart
20240705 I wake to Des tinkering around in the kitchen as I do every morning, it’s overcast and a bit shitty but hopefully that could change as we head into Moranbah. We arrived in town and I was surprised how big Moranbah was, not what we expected at all, they even have a Cole. The town was constructed as a single purpose mining settlement in 1970 and by 2011 had a population of 9,000 with the average age in the town of 29.
We camped in a gravel Pitt right beside the Goonyella Railway System so it looks like we will need a few drinks tonight to knock us out, I’m sure we can manage that. We sat outside and watched the trucks pass by on one side and the coal train on the other side then we have the bright star above, I’m sure we will sleep well tonight.
20240706 The coal trains are actually quite as they pass so we slept well, it was the dozer that turned up early this morning to scoop up some gravel for the roadworks just up the road, and it’s a Sunday. Once I got Des off the phone after talking to Doug we can get out of this gravel pit and hit the road heading to Bundoora, Des is keen to catch some yabbies, the last time here he caught heaps.
With this memorial we remember those who went to work in the Moranbah coal mines & never came home; our mates whose lights were extinguished in the rock & the dust. We also honour the lives of all of those workers we've lost on our roads, in our work camps & from coal-related diseases. Every tragic death brings this community to its knees. With this memorial we show our heartfelt support for the families, loved ones, mates & work crews they left behind. We give our gratitude to members of Mines Rescue; They sign up for a job that none of us want to think about. We show our respect for coal miners past and present. Because no-one knows the dangers of this industry like the people who face it every shift. And no one knows it like the people who wait for their loved ones to come home from work. It could be any one of us & yet it is all of us, standing side-by-side in unity, with pride & with sadness. Our grief ebbs & flows over time, but it runs as deep as the coal seams beneath our feet.
Such fitting words😢
Come sit with me
I'm watching over my comrades under the memorial's eternal light
It illuminates our memories of their dusty faces, the loyalty, mateship and good times we shared Let's tell their stories and forever remember their sacrifice.
With all our chores done and site seeing complete we leave Moranbah and directly in front of us is the Moranbah Mine that goes on forever. The mine has a coal reserves of up to 261 million tonnes of coking coal and is one of the largest coal reserves in the world.
Workers at the Grosvenor Coal Mine near Moranbah in Central Queensland were safely evacuated after a spark ignited methane gas on Saturday morning. It's the same mine when in 2020 an underground explosion seriously injured five workers and forcing its closure until February 2022, the mine employs about 1,400 people.
Sealing the mine is the only way to stop the fire, which is burning up to half a kilometre underground, remote control bulldozers have been brought in to push dirt towards the shafts.
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I can’t believe how dry all the river inlets are out here.
Travelling along Saraji Rd following a coal train all the way to the mine.
We turned off to check out the town of Dysart, drove around and left, there’s definitely nothing much to tempt any travellers to say apart from the Jolly Collier pub so we left along Peak Downs Mine Rd heading towards Middlemount.
Mining Cole Train
The End
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