Stanthorpe to Brisbane via Toowoomba

Last weekend we drove to Stanthorpe and back for the wedding. A 3 hour drive that takes you away from the eastern coastal strip and over the great dividing range into a completely different landscape and climate. Inland and a little south, almost to the NSW border, Stanthorpe is a small rural centre based on grape, apple and stone-fruit growing and tourism. There's a fledgeling wine industry out there, but the climate isn't really up to producing high quality intoxicants. Stathorpe is located in a distict geological region called the granite belt, quite distict for it's shallow, rocky soil and striking granite outcrops. We'll be heading back in autumn, we hope, to spend some more time in the region.

The landscapes really grab me out here, with their broad, treeless fields and mountains on every horizon. Makes me long for a panoramic camera to capture the vastness of it all. Due to recent rain it was even a little bit green out west, though the vivid green of the irrigated fields was still in stark contrasts with the surrounding landscape. Also striking were the orchards with their stone-fruit trees bursting into flower, delicate blossoms clustered on pruned brown limbs.

The journey continues beyond the ( cut! )