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!
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.
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!
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?
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?
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