Quilpie and Colac Station

This is the homestead on Colac Station. At this particular garden as well as the hard work involved in maintaining a garden on Bore water there was the added challenge of the rabbits and kangaroos coming in to dine on the green food that was there for the taking in a very dry area.
Bore water is pumped up into holding tanks to cool as it comes out of the ground hot enough to burn but not hot enough to make a cup of tea with. If watered onto the garden directly it would kill all the plants and trees hence the cooling in tanks. The bore water was particularly strong in the Quilpie area, smelled very badly of strong minerals,and was not very nice to drink.



There was a Salvia growing in this corner near the tennis court and it was huge, the expert gardiners on the trip were amazed at how large it was, It must have thrived on the extra minerals in the water.These roses are all "Iceberg".


Whilst the owners of this property assured us that the blooms had peaked a couple of weeks earlier we were all very impressed of the beauty of this garden it was once again in such contrast to the surrounding area.





The lawns ate these gardens were all very lush and walking on them was really strange due to the depth of the growth. Much deeper than were most of hailed from where there was a much higher rainfall to grow lawns to
perfection. This aspect was rather amazing.



Rush hour in down town Quilpie. The main street had a garden down the centre of the road with
sculptures ( one dimensional) of cattle. There was also a full row of red Spinach down the centre of these gardensthat looked really good with the flowers either side. There should be another photo coming up later showing this to advantage.



This is the windmill and some of the outbuildings of another property called Rathbourne it's gardens will
be further down the track.