Queensland- perfect one day, torrential the next!

I have only just realized that my last blog was over a week ago. Where has that time gone!! We have definitely hit the tropics and the muggy weather. High 20s and 98% humidity. I now remember why I never wanted to live in the tropics again (for those that don’t know, I lived in Queensland for 4 years when I was 24 to 28, the last 18 months in Cairns).

Let me pick it up from my last blog…

We left Hughenden on Sunday 17^th May. This road travels east towards Townsville and has a railway line right next to it. We were very lucky to have a train come towards us and there wasn’t a lot of vegetation between him and us on the road. We both waved and he tooted- Yay!!

We are definitely heading for the tropics.. 

On Monday we arrived in Townsville. We stayed in a lovely caravan park here so we could recharge the batteries with power and fill up the water tanks. The mornings were overcast but the days were sunny. I was able to get all the washing up to date and we were able to get things at stores like Jaycar and Spotlight. The weather was lovely and the nights very comfortable for sleeping.

While we were here we really wanted to get the car and van washed. The first car wash we saw we just knew we wouldn’t get the van underneath the wash bay. After asking, we were told of another one closer to the CBD and we went there as we were leaving town. We only just got the van under the ‘max limit’ sign, but we got both cleaned without any hassle.

On this trip, we aren’t doing huge driving days. We mainly do around 200 km a day which is so comfortable for both of us. We stop for morning coffee and make it into our destination about 11ish. The van is not hassle so set up (not like the camper trailer) so we are all done about 15 minutes after stopping.

We left Townsville on Wednesday 20^th and headed north. We are now travelling on the Bruce Highway and the traffic is quite steady, but we don’t seem to be holding many people up as the car is handling the towing brilliantly. Tonight we stayed at a free road side stop. We noticed a small well driven track through some tree which led into a huge grassed area, next to the railway line. We set up here and it was just lovely. The rail line is used for passenger trains and they are really good looking ones- a similar shape to a bullet train. But we only had 2 go past and I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo!!

The next day (Thursday) we headed towards Cairns. We selected the Big 4 Crystal Cascades Caravan Park which is a bit out of town and is situated right in the rain forest. We had originally thought we would stay for 4 nights but when we arrived, we decided to stay for 5. After a few nights we decided to stay for another night, so we ended up staying for 6. The place was just so nice and relaxing, even though we had some rainy days with really high humidity. We always had a breeze to cool the van and us off and we had such a nice site too! This place was such a find- we would recommend it to everyone!

Crystal Cascades Caravan Park- beautiful! 

One day we did drive along the coast road to Port Douglas and Mossman Gorge. Brilliant road- so picturesque. And I remembered the spot where I fell off the motor bike- yuck! Port Douglas hasn’t changed much from when I was up here last, just a few 100 more houses on the main road into the town itself. The main street is basically the same, and we found a really nice pub to have lunch: barra, salad and chips for $12.50- bargain!

The coast road  to Port Douglas

Mossman Gorge was lovely and so much cooler due to the rain forest. It was mid to late afternoon by now so it wasn’t that crowded. We even got photos of the suspension bridge with no one on it!

When no one was around, we ran long this- very bouncy!

Cairns has really changed since I lived here 24 odd years ago. There was nothing that really reminded me of living here before. I remember a small city surrounded by Queenslander homes and a few ‘local’ shopping centres. The CBD was the main hub, but it had a very country town vibe to it. The Thomas Cook foreign money office where I worked is now a Billabong store!! The Esplanade and beach area (not that you would swim there) used to have mangroves all along it and now there is a brilliant infinity pool, grassed area for sun baking and picnicking, and a lovely board walk. The housing goes on forever and there are heaps of shopping centres. I really didn’t recognize a lot!

The old Thomas Cook office!

The Esplanade- so user friendly for everyone! (above and below)

Today, after 6 relaxing days, we have headed up to Mareeba on the Atherton Tablelands. Again we have selected a park out of the town, on a working property run by a fella called Dave. He is just lovely and when we arrived, he spent the first hour showing us all the flora and bush tucker on his property. Such a warm and friendly man. Unlike our current neighbors who abused us for where we set up our van. As we are just an open paddock, you can set up any where. We don’t particularly like to be really close to others, but we do need to consider trees and the sun for our solar panels, especially as this is an un-powered site. The neighbors have conveniently ‘plonked’ themselves right in the middle of the paddock so any place you pick is going to be too close. They said we hadn’t left them enough room to get past! Honestly, if they had a semi they might have had a hard time, but a car and/or caravan would have no trouble. People really don’t know the width of their vehicles!

But none the less, we won’t be staying here for the 2 nights we thought we would. Tomorrow morning can’t arrive soon enough!!

Tomorrow we head up to near Cooktown for a few days, then we’re on the road to the top. No rush though. We still have 3 months before the Birdsville races- our one and only appointment on this trip! Next blog soon.

We are now in the Tropics- pina colada anyone?

Wednesday 13th May- done in a blank e-mail on my tablet whilst travelling from Warrego River camp site (North of Charleville) to Barcoo River rest stop (just South of Blackall)

Well today is Wednesday and after a bitterly cold morning, the day is now just fantastic- a lovely 21c at 10.30! This morning was so cold that when the alarm went off, Anthony put the generator on outside (poor buggar!) so he could put the heater on to warm the van up (we have been bush camping for the last 2 days so don't have power- only what we make ourselves). This was so that when I emerged from the covers, it was beautiful and warm. 

We are now in sunny Queensland and boy they're are hard lot. One of the pleasures of driving with a van is fellow travelers wave. Normally just a finger (not that sort of finger- really!) or a nod, but these Queenslanders' don't do anything! I think it's below them- or maybe they're too afraid to take their hands off the wheel.

Anthony doesn't stop to take photos, hence a lot are awful!!

Now,for those of you who don't know, Anthony and I purchased a new car in January in preparation for this trip. The Prado, which Anthony loved, was struggling a bit with the weight of the van, especially when it was full. I would hold my breath as we pulled up our drive at home- OMG sometimes we must have been so close to slipping backwards , or so it seemed!

Well we bought a Mazda BT-50 and we are sooo impressed with it. It can tow 3.5 ton and a fully loaded van would weigh around 3 ton, and that's including 3 x 95L full water tanks. Today we have a fairly strong tail wind and are cruising on 95kmh and using 15 l/100km. The engine isn't struggling and Anthony says you wouldn't even know we were towing a van. But the one thing we have noticed is all the other BT-50s on the road- there are heaps of them, towing vans from all over the place! I reckon they will soon out number the good old Toyota Land Cruiser, especially in the 'towing-a-van-category' as Land Cruiser are so expensive and the Mazda's are very reasonably priced with huge towing capacity!

Saturday 16th May

Today we arrived in Hughenden and are staying in a RV site situated right next to the show grounds. To stay here you must be 100% self sufficient- no water draining onto the ground (it must go into a 'grey tank' which Anthony installed on our van just before we left), and have your own water and power as there is none supplied out here. It costs $6.00/night and at the moment we are the only ones here. It will probably stay like that as not many people are set up to carry their own grey water so aren't allowed to stay here. We were told that a man will come around this afternoon and check on us so they are pretty strict!

My last blog ended with us staying in Cunnamulla eating curry pies! After Cunnamulla we traveled North to Charleville where we filled up for 127.9- brilliant price for way out here! Had a quick look around Charleville and headed to our overnight stop- a place called '10 mile camp- Warrego River' which was a brilliant camping place on the Warrego River, which still does have water in it. 

This place was so lovely we decided to spend two nights here. On the following day (Tuesday) two different lots of people put dingy's into the river and went fishing for hours. One guy left driving over near us and said hi. He had been out there for 6 hours and had caught some yellow bellies (callop) and headed off saying he was hanging for a nice cold beer! I was worried he had come over 'cause he might have smelt Anthony's pizza, which we had just eaten for 'lunner'. There was none left to offer him, but I know the smell had lingered! We certainly eat like Kings while we are traveling!

Them big trucks out here- Anthony had a chat with one truckie on the CB. We just backed off the speed as he was overtaking us and he was very impressed!

On Thursday we headed for Longreach, the home of Qantas. We visited the Qantas museum and hanger that afternoon, and visited the Stockman's Hall of Fame the following morning. Both are very interesting and well worth visiting, especially since Qantas has now got a retired 747-200 there, that you can go inside of and look around. We didn't as it cost $34.00 more to go on the plane and Anthony reckons he's seen enough 747's from his o/s trips with Motorola, so we just did the museum and hanger! You can see the huge red tail of the plane from about 5kms out of Longreach, which is really bizarre. 

Anthony on the flight simulator. He had quite a group watching him, all very impressed. On leaving the simulator, he told them he was a pilot!!

What an impressive sight!

Julie flying the RFDS plane in the Stockmans Hall of Fame

Stockmans Hall of Fame - very impressive!

The wind has now changed and we have a huge head wind- thanks to a huge slow moving high in the Great Australia Bight. Our fuel economy has gone from about 16L/100km to about 23L/100km. The car still coped brilliantly but we were chewing through the fuel.

After Longreach we headed up to Winton, the home of where 'Waltzing Matilda' was first performed by Banjo Patterson and where Qantas was officially formed as a company (it all happened in a local pub, but they started to company in Longreach because the rail line only went as far as Longreach. Otherwise, Winton might have been the 'home' of Qantas!). 

In Winton we stayed in a van park situated behind a pub. It only costs $10.00 a night and you can use the loos and showers of the pub (not that we did but you can!). You can also access the pub's internet for free, so we updated every electronic device we owned (and there is a few of them!) and paid all of our bills online. Yay- all that for 10 bucks!

Rubbish bins in Winton- the home of dinosaurs 

Sitting here in Hughenden you know we have hit the tropics. The air is warmer, even though we still have a strong wind blowing (still a head wind for us too!). There is no water in any of the creeks or rivers we cross as they have been in drought here for ages. Gone are the flannelette sheets and pj's, and out are my dresses and thongs. Roll on summer...... now where's my pina colada please?

The skies are blue and we are happy little vegemites.....

Hello all,

Well I was going to do a blog yesterday afternoon after we arrived in Bourke, but after cranking through 5 loads of washing in my little caravan washing machine, I just wanted to sit down and relax. As it was, I headed over to the amenities block before the 5 o'clock rush for a longer than usual shower (as the water wasn't ours!). Ample time to shave legs and wash hair- I even blow dried it afterwards. I felt like a new woman!!

Since my first blog, which was done in Broken Hill, we have continued to travel North into days and days of beautiful weather. On leaving Broken Hill, we headed to Wilcannia. Nice enough town, but it does have a reputation for it's locals. So we decided to stay on private property just North of the town at a place called 'Warrawong on the Darling'. This is a lovely place right on the Darling River with great grassed sites and new amenities (not that we use them as we have our own bathroom). The hosts supply cheese and biccys at 5pm around the fire pit and everyone comes together and share stories. It was here that we found out the dirt road between Wilcannia and Bourke was in good condition, which was the road we were hoping to travel.

'Warrawong on the Darling'

The dirt road was great. We were able to sit on about 80 km/hr quite comfortably and there was basically no traffic as the oldies are happier going the longer way round on the bitumen. We decided to stay the night at a National Park camp site called Coach and Horse camp, which is part of the Paroo National Park. This camp ground is beautifully set out with large camp sites, electric BBQ's and 2 air-loos. We picked a beautiful site facing the river which had just been vacated by another couple. We liked to spot so much we stayed a second night.

Coach & Horse camp- Paroo National Park: on the Darling River

The days at the moment are just lovely. Between 20-25C, but very cold nights- about 8C. The early evening comes in cold really quickly around 4.30pm and you need to head inside unless you have a fire going. We are sleeping with flannelette sheets, blanket and quilt, but are running around in shorts and tee shirts during the day. Washing is getting dried in hours and I am already getting a tan, but still look like an abominable snowman at night!!

On Thursday we left Paroo National Park and headed to Tilpa. The only thing in Tilpa is a pub, but it is a brilliant one- full of jokes and sayings written on the walls. We arrived at 10.30am thinking we could have a coffee. But the machine was broken so, of course, we had a beer. Well, it was midday somewhere- probably New Zealand!!

Beer o'clock at 10.30am!!

The next town was a place called Louth. Nice enough small town but the caravan park looked very average. We had decided to stay at a homestead after Paroo NP, but we were actually travelling on the East side of the Darling and the homesteads we'd read about were on the Western side. There was a property just near Louth called Trilby Station, which advertises that it has been on The Great Outdoors and Australian Postcards. We decided to head there and we are so glad we did. The property is just beautiful and the owners are just brilliant. When you check in you are given a booklet with mud maps of the property and a history of the place. It was fascinating reading. We selected our river view site (one of about 15 sites) and set up quickly. Sitting in the sun reading the booklet and taking in the river views was just magic. We actually decided to stay here 2 nights and went for a lovely long walk around the property on Friday. There were a few other people camped around the place but you never hear or see them as the river camp sites are very well placed so they all seem secluded and separate. This is just a lovely place to while away the days doing nothing.....

Louth pub- I'm loving the attractions!!

Trilby Station- water just makes things so much better!

On leaving Trilby Station we headed to Bourke. Now, I liked Bourke. It has some lovely little shops, a great IGA and a busy main street, but after buying our lotto tickets at the newsagency, grabbing some money out of the ATM and doing a quick shop at the IGA, we headed just out of town to the 'Kidman's Camp Country Resort'. Now this place is like a resort- beautiful grassed sites, lovely trees all around the resort and fantastic amenities. And we met about 4 people who were all driving Mazda BT-50's. All are very impressed with the vehicle as are we. It is an absolute pleasure to drive- says Anthony as I still have not had a drive as yet. Well, we are only travelling less than 200 km/day so it really isn't worth it!!!

The obstacle course of road kill

Right now we are in a place called Cunnamulla. The road today (in between Bourke and here) was just littered with dead roos, goats and wild pigs. We even saw a feral cat run across the road. There is so much dead stuff on the side of the roads that the eagles, crows and other birds are everywhere just living off the road kill. At one stage we were ducking and weaving around the road kill like they were skittles we were trying not to knock over. Luckily there wasn't a lot of on coming traffic other wise we would have had to drive over them- yuck!!

Anty pie

Today for "lunner" (our main meal- somewhere in between lunch & dinner!) we had curry pies. The other day Anthony cooked up a lamb curry full of veggies and lamb four quarter chops. We had a lot left over and after watching Better Homes and Gardens last night, Anthony thought he would make pies with the left overs!!! Well, they were the best bl**dy left over pies I have ever tasted- and they looked fantastic!!!

This is Poo Bear- he advertises the dump point in Cunnamulla!!

Sorry, didn't get to sent this last night- We have stopped for a coffee now (10am Monday morning) so am finishing off the blog and sending it out.

Keep smiling through cold, chattering teeth. We have blue skies and are happy little vegemites!!

Love, Jules and Anthony xxx

We’re on the road again….

Hello everyone and welcome to the new blog of our ‘winter escape’ holiday. This year we are heading to Cape York- you know, that big pointy bit of Queensland, right up in the top right-hand corner of Australia. It will be a slow meandering trip with no exact plans. Oh, except for attending the Birdsville Races on the first weekend in September on the way home. I already have my race outfit packed away and the RM boots polished!!

I am currently sitting beside the caravan on a beautiful grassed area in between the grand stands and the race track of the Broken Hill Racecourse. The sun is shining and it is a gorgeous day- about 20C I would say! This place is just lovely. You can stay here for $15/night unpowered and wake to the trotting of horses as they do their morning workouts on the racecourse. It is so much nicer than the 2 caravan parks in town (neither of which get rave reviews online!) and we can access clean water, and you can have a powered site too, if you want. Magic!

Just near the finish post. Roll on Melbourne Cup!

We left home promptly at 10am on Friday 1^st May and headed North. Our first night was spent at Terowie, a lovely little town with only a post office still operational these days! Our rest stop was on a grassed area next to the old Terowie railway station which is currently being renovated back to its original glory. This is a free spot with no amenities, but a great overnight spot just the same.

We only stayed here one night and headed north the following morning. As we were leaving, I needed to take some photos of some information boards at the railway station that had my shadow on them yesterday as the sun was in the wrong spot. While I was taking my photos a fellow camper came over to say hi and recommended that we leave town on the northern road as you go past something really interesting near the cemetery, and to keep my camera at the ready. Well, I was well and truly intrigued now!

So off we headed and just up the road were a whole paddock of things made from old cast iron ‘junk’. There were emus (my favorites!!), Martians, robots and even Ned Kelly. They were brilliant- so well done!

I can see these relocating to the Adelaide Hills..... 

Onward we headed to Broken Hill. The day was just brilliant- sunny and not too busy on the roads. But one thing we did notice was nearly every time we came to a bridge, and it’s always one where the road narrows down slightly and there are posts and guards on the side of the bridge, we would always meet someone coming the other way. We could go for ages not seeing anyone then there would be 3 bridges in a quick succession and we would meet a vehicle, or semi, at every single one of them!! It was hilarious!

You can see where we are and where we have been from our tracker.

 http://www.exploroz.com/EOTrackMe/Default.aspx#tabs=0&d=e3ec3a32-3569-39a5-969b-84d4f99ac998

The password is: muggydo2

Until next blog, stay warm down there and we’ll put our sunnies back on! 

Love Jules and Morcs xx