Taken on Friday, this photo is looking in the Yeppoon direction. The new bridge is just to the left.

A closeup of the broken-up concrete and steel.

Looking in the other direction.

This was taken a bit more recently, and now they have cleared away all the concrete and steel rubbish.

The view above is looking down onto the bridge.

Getting up a bit closer, you can quite clearly see the road space they have provided for the next new bridge.

Yesterday they were digging out this section next to the old bridge. The new bridge is to the left of the old bridge.

A water truck taking off when the light goes green.

[tags]roadworks, adelaide park, woodbury, road, bridge, lines, paint[/tags]

Well anyway, I’ve already just told you the two main things that they’ve been doing: tarring the section of road near the big new bridge down the road and installing two traffic lights. I think that they installed them because the bridge isn’t quite wide enough for two cars to pass. The traffic lights will alternate the traffic so only one direction can cross the bridge at any time.

There is a bit of division in the family between those who think that they are going to be building another bridge and those who think that the current bridge is not going to get any company at all. There is some evidence in favour of the 2 bridge theory, in the form of a workmen who says they are going to build another bridge. However I’ll guess we’ll soon see for ourselves. Onto the photos.

This is the first traffic light just up from the bridge. I didn’t get a decent photo of this traffic light with the tarred road so I’m using these pics taken just before the road was tarred.

Looking down towards the bridge from the Yeppoon direction. Again, this photo was taken just before the road was tarred.

This is the second traffic light on the Yeppoon side.

This shows the bridge after it had been tarred. I expect it will soon be open to traffic.

This shows the extent of the floodwaters that came into our paddock, as well as our neighbours paddock.

The corner of the road where the floodwater was running over. You can see how the water had uprooted some of the grass and rolled it back. The view in the photo above is just to the left of this.

The damage caused by the floodwater to the edge of the road. It has now been repaired with some concrete. Don’t forget that this road will soon be replaced by the new one, so it isn’t the most tidy repair .

The floodwaters down at the big new bridge. The deepest point in there would be over my head, and flowing very strongly.

Looking on the other side of the creek, over the old bridge, you can see just how much water there was flowing through there.

This is amazing. Have a look at the grass on the other side. See how high the water has been? That’s right, the little bridge was actually submerged under the creek! It probably only lasted an hour or less like that however, because as soon as the rain stops the creek starts going down.

The roadworkers are in the photo because something from the new bridge had been pushed off by the floodwaters and hit the old bridge. They were then checking it for structural damage. None was found, though.

This is the worst-hit area around our place. Located about 3km away from us, this flooding probably extended for 500 metres or more. The deepest place on that road would be around 2 metres. While I was there locals kept driving up and taking photos of the flooding.

[tags]adelaide park, woodbury, bungundarra, rain, bridge, creek, water, flooding, flood[/tags]

For the last few days of the week they then concentrated on the section near our place, which involved filling in part of the creek near the Bungundarra intersection and also dumping over 30 truckloads of rocks and dirt to bring the new road up to the level of the smaller bridge near out place. Photos are below.

The new section of road just up from the big bridge. If you look at previous roadworks posts, you’ll be able to see what this section of road used to look like. On the right you can see a turnoff for cars going to Mt Rae Road.

Looking down onto the big bridge. Now all they have to do is put gravel down on the other side and they are almost finished.

Located just to the right of the smaller bridge near our place, you can see how they’ve filled in a section of the creek. This is to make sure the water goes the alternate route, which is straight under the bridge and road and back into the creek.

The water coming out from the other side of the road. The white posts you see are marking the Telstra fibre optic cable, which runs under the road too. Beats me why we can’t get broadband with a cable (and fibre-optic at that) running right near us.

Finally, this photo taken yesterday (Friday) shows how they’ve filled in up to the level of the bridge. I expect to see this section laid with crusherdust and then tar in the next few weeks.

In other places around Queensland some roads have been cut, including the highway between Rockhampton and Emerald. You’ve most likely seen that on the news.

Thankfully though, all this Saturday has been rain-free (although with a very overcast sky), and the weather is showing signs of clearing up.

These drains just near our place have been inundated with water, and because there is only a end on the other side, all the water just backs out again and flows under the road.

Meanwhile the creek down at the bridges (old and new) is fairly raging along, and I couldn’t wade across at one place because the water was higher than my knees. The photo above shows the creek exiting after going through both bridges.

The place at the bridges where I tried to cross. The channel is in between the main clump of grass and the top side.

While down at the bridge on the day I took the photos (Friday) I happened to see the Livingstone Shire Mayor, Bill Ludwig, taking photos with some people.

This shows a small creek (just near the two bridges) flowing on it’s way into Plain Creek, the biggest one around for a few kilometres.

[tags]roadworks, adelaide park, woodbury, rain, bridge, creek, water[/tags]

Hardly any work has been done on the roadworks since before we went down the Gold Coast for our Christmas holidays, with the exception of some work on the new big bridge, which you will see a photo of. They have also broken up a section of the temporary road that was built, presumably to stop people hooning on it.

Below are some photos.

You can see how full of water this section near our place is. Because the water can’t go anywhere it is overflowing towards the top of the pic.

Just a macro of the overflowing water. The grass has been overpowered and subdued

This is what our dam looked like yesterday. Today (sunday) it has gone down noticabley because of the overflow that we dug a few years ago.

This is basically the only roadworks activity since Christmas, so far. They have gotten rid of the steep access path that was used to go down under the concrete, and piled up a lot of dirt in preparation for the road.

Two boys on quads were having a great time spinning their wheels and causing erosion on the tracks. In the picture above you can just see the two quads in the upper left corner.

[tags]roadworks, adelaide park, woodbury, rain, bridge, creek, water[/tags]

The person who bought it has since made some major changes, including renovating the house, installing a pool, clearing a big section of land near his house and allowing his kids to make the area at the back of the house (which used to be a maze of creeks and lantana) into a maze of quad bike tracks.

Anyway, I now know that he also owns an earthmoving business and is storing all the machines on the block of land that he cleared. They all have the same phone number on them. Below are some photos.

Some of the machines that he is storing. There must be at least 20 of them, including about 5 trucks.

This is the main thing that the roadworkers have been working on: the future bridge just near our place (not to be confused with the big bridge located about 1km in front of this picture). They spent ages putting on the concrete sides (seen on the far left), and then the spent even more time covering it with dirt.

A view from the top of the structure.

[tags]roadworks, adelaide park, woodbury, road[/tags]

Yesterday they blocked off that temporary road that had been built and re-opened the old one, which is now in use. Below are the photos.

The old road on the afternoon of the tarring. The tar covering the gravel on the left was soft enough to get tar all over my shoe You can just see the temporary road on the far right.

Just in case you don’t believe that the temporary road had been closed off, I’m the one sitting with my bike parked beside me in the middle of it!

[tags]roadworks, adelaide park, woodbury, road[/tags]

I haven’t done an update for a few weeks so this one is overdue and I have to cover a bit. The main things that have been going on are the placement of culverts on the two concrete pads – one near our place and one down at the bridge. Apart from that, the roadworkers have mainly been adding layers upon layers of dirt to the future roads. But anyway, onto the photos.

These culverts, all 64 of them, were delivered about 1 week ago to the area about 10 metres to the right of this photo. Yesterday and today they have been putting them in, and this afternoon they finished. As you can see here, they put one row down, then leave a gap and repeat. Over the gaps they put concrete coverings.

These culverts down at the main bridge are about twice the height and width of the smaller culverts. I think they still have to put the other side in. This will bring the total number of culverts at this location to 36. Although I saw the crane that brought them here, we were driving past so I wasn’t able to take a photo. I can tell you however, that the crane was absolutely monstrous because it had 3 (might be 6 if they are double wheels) heavy duty wheels on each side!

On a lot of stretches of future road, both to the right and left (although not in front) of our place, they have progressed to the stage of laying crusher dust and gravel down. Gravel goes down first, and crusher dust goes on top. In this photo gravel is on the left.

The only other thing of interest that happened about the time I wrote the last update was that they have demolished the tiny old pump house building. I’m not sure why although dad thinks it is because they need to move the power pole.

This is what the pump house looked like. The roof had already been removed in this photo.

[tags]roadworks, adelaide park, woodbury, road, culverts[/tags]