Today I am in Moranbah (mo’-ranba). What a shock it was to arrive here.
A few days ago, I was in a dead town called Mt. Coolon. It was once a gold town, but that mine had dried up. Someone said that Moranbah was in Australia’s coal country. I imagined something like America’s Appalachian coal country– depressed. But to the contrary. Moranbah was alive- like booming alive!
Moranbah is not on any main highway. The road to here from the highway even has no name (it’s called Moranbah Access Rd.) It was once an old cow town. But now it has 5+ hotels, plus a host of American fast food joints, including McDonald’s, KFC, Subway, and Domino’s Pizza). A small town with people constantly flowing through it. According to Wikipedia, it has over 5000 residents and 1500 itinerant workers pass through it at any one time. Its secret? Coal!
Whereas the coal mines in Appalachia have all but faded, coal is booming business here. Australia is supposedly the second largest exporter of coal in the world. There are jobs to be found in the coal mining industry. Who cares about climate change! (A number of people I met along the way vocally don’t believe in climate change, but that’s another story.)
There are a number of huge coal mines around the area. Corporate huge! Moranbah services them all. When I was riding in from the north, I could see and hear action everywhere. It was busy!
There was no opening at the caravan park, since it was full of coal workers (miners, maybe?) So I’m staying at a hotel, which was somewhat pricey. There was a little mall where I did some food shopping. And found myself a small bottle of Sriracha to carry with me! I ended up getting Chinese takeout the way it should be– one-order meals, like a combo, say.
In June, I was at Uluru as Australians went to the polls to vote in their prime minister to a second term. People watched the results in the camp kitchen at the Ayres Rock Resort. The Australian biking friends I met there decried Australia bringing back the same conservative government. As the Lowry Insitute Report said, “Australians ultimately voted in a government that had gone to the election with minimal emissions reduction targets, a commitment to new fossil fuel projects, no new emissions reduction policy and a track record of steadily rising emissions.”
Sadly, that sounds like the U.S.
One can almost tell how the population at Moranbah voted.