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Back on the road again, we travelled through some beautiful country and the scenery from Ipswich to Warwick along the Cunningham Highway was spectacular. We saw a patchwork of brilliant green and dark volcanic soil, and the beautiful mountain back drop and the sun shining made everything sparkle. I think we saw it at its best. Likewise the country around Moree was looking lovely after recent rains. We found a great camping spot out of Narrabri at Yarrie Lake. Can you believe two days ago the lake was dry? It is a very well serviced spot with each spot having a shelter, fire pit, BBQ, water and rubbish bin. We could have stayed there more than one night!

  

 We walked right around the lake which is only 3 kms and very circular - some reckon it's where a meteor landed! 

The paddocks around Narrabri and the lake were very wet so the farmers will be hoping for some sunny days now to dry things up. We even had some creek crossings - not quite like the Gibb River but still flowing. 

      

We left the Newell Highway busy with caravans galore and very rude trucks and headed to Narramine and Condoblin and enjoyed a much more peaceful route - though there were still a few trucks. We are now at Lake Cargellico -  even around here things are pretty wet so no off road bush camping this time!  We hear that they've had 6 inches in the last couple of weeks - with a wet month forecast so very good news for the catchments. The caravan park here is lovely and it's a good way to spend our last night using camp facilities. The Lake is now 80% full and expected to fill in the next few days. It looks lovely.

      

  On the road here this lake was over full!      

Meanwhile, we made the most of our time in Ipswich and really got to know the area a little better with our walks and drives. Ipswich is a lovely city with beautiful parks and gardens and some beautiful old buildings. We really enjoyed our scenic rim tour which took us through some lovely country and little towns. We enjoyed a lunch break at Wyaralong  Dam - it was built in 2011 and has fantastic amenities and is a popular recreation area with mountain bike and walking tracks and world class rowing facilities. We loved the spill way which looked very artistic:

     

We also loved watching the para gliders at Mt Tambourine - it looked so peaceful and can certainly see the attraction. 

   

We enjoyed being with the Greenwood family and we were made most welcome all the time and certainly well looked after. (well maybe a little too well 😉😉) it was also good to catch up with Andrew and see another part of Brisbane. 

Now we are at the end of our 13 week trip of 15,000km. It's been a wonderful trip and we have so many memories we'll never forget. We have been acclimatised to cold weather and long ago packed away our shorts and T shirts!! Luckily we glampers have gas heaters in our vans 😀😀.  We however, do look forward to being home and catching up with the family - little Mia won't even know who we are!! 

So from the happy travellers, farewell till our next trip. ❌❌❌⭕️⭕️⭕️

       

     

  

Ipswich

Well the rain we've been been expecting for days finally arrived!! Our being 'safe' meant we were parked on bitumen at Dalby - we called it the Coles car park!! It wasn't very scenic and had absolutely zero ambiance but if it did rain, we would have been dry!!

      

We enjoyed a beautiful Chinese meal from across the road - the  best value Chinese meal we've ever had and very tasty 😋😋. We had an early night but probably endured the noisiest night we've had with music from the pub next door, patrons being loud, drunk park guests,  sirens and a girl screaming on top of her voice!!! After our peaceful Columboola nights it was a rude shock. 

We set off early as we could see clouds gathering - and as we approached Toowoomba it got darker and darker!

      

         

Then at Toowoomba we struck heavy fog going down that steep descent - we were surprised to see the elevation of Toowoomba is 650metres - and the descent takes you to about 200 metres so it's a big drop!

     

We arrived here at Rick and Flo's just as light rain started so we quickly parked on the lawn and spent the rest of the day high and dry on the verandah. How fortunate we were to not have to spend the day in a caravan park as it rained all day and well into the night - Ipswich recorded 52mm so it was a fair drop! Fortunately, it wasn't stormy at all here with no damaging winds or anything - it's hard to believe only some 50 kms away the story was different!

There was a mini Greenwood reunion here last night with Rob, Prue and Ashley, Brad, Alison and their three boys and of course Dennis & Tops, Rick and Flo. You can imagine the laughter!  We also met  Flo's   new Granddaughter Indi and her proud mum and dad David and Jodie along with Hazel and Jay. So it was a busy household and Rick and Flo of course fed us till we were nearly bursting then Prue brought out a beautiful pavlova to top us up! We'll certainly need to diet after these few days here.

Today Rick and Flo are at work so Tops and I have taken over the washing machine and to make use of the drying windy day and the boys are busy cleaning again! 

      

Tomorrow we plan to do a spot of sightseeing around the place then Wednesday we take the vans in for their service.  Then we'll head home probably - rather quickly as once we start to think about home, we don't want to dilly dally! 

We were all a little sad that we missed Mila's first communion yesterday - she looked so grown up and gorgeous - along with her sponsor Ruby and all the family.

So till our nex blog, love from the spoilt travellers ❌❌❌❌⭕️⭕️⭕️⭕️

Country Columboola

As we left the beautiful Carnavon valley we spied this resident Brahman bull -  Isn't he a beauty?

      

The valley looked spectacular especially with the sun shining on the sandstone escarpment.

      

 We had morning tea at a place called Injune then travelled south to Roma. That looks to be a thriving country town - and quite a large one too. We then turned east along the Warrego highway and ended up at this quaint place as the write ups said campfires permitted and that was our one prerequisite! The place is 30 odd kms from Miles and has the potential to be a fantastic place as its quiet and peaceful and yes, we have our campfire!

 

         

We are set among the native pines and behind us is a ravine and waterhole. We can use as much wood as we like and we've had the fire going nearly all day as its a bit cool.

           

Tops and I spent  nearly all day washing as there's only one machine which takes an hour to complete the cycle!! We are happy however that we've been able to get it all dry - we hear that we're going to run into wet weather tomorrow! Dennis has finally gotten around to making his apple pie - with some attentive onlookers. 

         

While he slaves away in the kitchen, Darryl's been busy making friends 😏

         

The owner here just loves to talk and we'd really like to see him put some of that energy into cleaning the place as its a bit run down and could do with some tidying up. This old log cabin has certainly seen better days! 

          

However, it's suited us this stay and it's far better than being regimented in a caravan park. We've topped up the wood supply too and have been able to go for walks through the bush. 

With the inclement forecast, we will be wise and head for a caravan park in Dalby (Dennis's birth place) so we don't get stuck out bush. And from there we'll head to Ipswich and Brisbane to be fattened up and spoilt by Rick and Flo, Rob and Pru. How lucky are we? 

It's getting dull and rain could be coming so I'll sign off until the next blog 😀😀 xxxxxxx

 

Amazing Carnarvon Gorge

We said farewell to Roger & Jenny and left Sapphire heading south east. You may notice there are no shorts but the long pants have finally come out of storage!! 

      

The land around Emerald (so named for the green grass - not the gems) is a very fertile agricultural area and it certainly lived up to its name with lovely healthy crops.

      

We then drove into the Carnavon National Park and that drive alone was spectacular with lovely farm scenery, heaps of young healthy looking Brahman weaners and the huge mountainous backdrop. The valley was one place you'd happily call home as it looked very productive. It was a little like driving towards the Grampians. We camped at a Bush Resort called Takarakka which is very popular, being the only campground near the gorge - until school holidays when they open up a campground near the information centre. Darryl rates it fairly low though as we couldnt have campfires, there's no water supplied or rubbish removal and there's a $5 fee for dumping cassette waste!! The amenity blocks are however, brand new and very nice and spacious, and the setting is very picturesque!! 

        

Someone asked me once if we'd been to Carnavon Gorge as its pretty amazing - well they were spot on!! It's a fantastic place and the walks in the gorge lovely. There are several walks but we selected to undertake a 12 km walk to the Ampitheatre  and Moss Garden and they were beautiful walks with spectacular scenery. We'd even go as far to say that the Ampitheatre outshines any gorge we've seen so far - and we've seen quite a few. 

We had to skip over a few rocks as we crossed the Carnavon Creek several times - with no one slipping in! 

       

The photos and words unfortunately cannot do justice to the vastness and beauty of the gorge: it makes you feel quite insignificant against such natural wonders. 

                  

You can see three enraptured tourists here in the Ampitheatre.

   

 

         

   

  

The Moss Garden has water constantly dripping from the sandstone walls, supporting a lush carpet of mosses and ferns. There is also a little waterfall and rock pool which is surrounded by tree ferns. 

        

    

It was certainly well worth the effort and was far better than we expected. You could actually spend days here undertaking all the walks and enjoying the ambiance of the gorge. We, however, are pushing on ..... to exactly where we aren't sure but to be able to have  a campfire is our main prerequisite for the next site. 

We send everyone our love and hope everyone is as fit and healthy as we are! Love from the happy travellers ❌❌❌⭕️⭕️⭕️

   

Queensland's Central Highland

We left the plains behind and headed east - through poor Longreach which is still dry - onto have lunch at Barcaldine. (We do however believe Longreach has since had a heap of rain which is great for them.) Here we also left much of the traffic as those coming from the south usually head west.  

We set up at this quaint place called Jericho on the banks of the River Jordan. Here is a sculpture of Joshua from the Bible story, blowing his trumpet - to made the walls of Jericho fall! 

         

And here are the walls falling down:

    

They also operate the smallest drive in theatre, showing movies once a month. We missed out unfortunately! 

     

We had a lovely night at the expensive Showgrounds ($10 per night!) sitting around our campfire. The landscape changed even again as we travelled to the central highlands and fossicking country. We stayed at Sappphire and it's a lovely park set in bushland with the best amenities we've seen for a while. 

           

It's hard to describe this area as its so different - we can't believe how higgledly piggedly and untidy the towns are - it seems people stake a site to mine and put up any sort of shed or structure or even a caravan. There doesn't seem to be many gardens or orderly streets - it gives the impression that it's not a very profitable venture this gem fossicking! The gems however are just beautiful and the array of colours amazing. Pity we didn't have a few spare hundreds of $$ to buy a momento!! 

      This is a typical mining property - probably better than most!

Our time here has unfortunately been spoilt by the weather as it's been cold, overcast and showery all day. It hasn't been ideal for fossicking either so our only bit of touring was to drive around the towns of Sapphire and Ruby Vale, enjoy a coffee and buy a homemade pie for lunch. Other than that we are sitting in our annexes reading and catching up on diaries etc. Dennis did catch up with some locals - we think he's become a twitcher too!! 

         

It's been nice to be able to catch up with Roger and Jenny Moore from Junee. They are travelling north with a group and we joined them for a BBQ in the pleasant warm undercover BBQ area. 

Tomorrow we have to stop in Emerald to grab a few supplies then we're heading to the Carnarvon Gorge. It's evidently beautiful there so hope this weather improves so we can enjoy the walks. 

We trust everyone enjoyed a happy long weekend and we send our love till the next blog xxxxx

Outback Winton

We left the rugged Selwyn Ranges around Cloncurry and came into wide open plains which weren't as picturesque but still interesting to see. We passed through a couple of tiny towns and one - McKinlay, boasted a Crocodile Dundee Hotel!! We really don't know the connection but it looked good!

We decided to stay in the Bladensburg National Park some 30 odd kms south of Winton - where of course we have limited or no phone service again!! 

It was quite a shock coming here and the realisation that we've left the tropics and are now in outback Australia again has really hit home!  Gone is the green lawn for camping, gone is the calm warm weather and instead we've had wind, dust, flies, kangaroos and a temperature only in the low 20's!! 

However, it's not all bad as we have toured around and come to marvel at this very different rugged landscape. 

         Our campsite    

We camped along side Surprise Creek which is a surprise as there's still water in patches and the bed is quite rocky and not sandy. The water is a milky colour like the Darling can be sometimes. 

         

This park was purchased in 1994 and until then operated as a sheep station. On our self drive tour today we saw the varied landscapes from clay pans to gibber plains to creeks, gorges and flat topped mesas. The vegetation is sparce with mainly spinifex grass but in its peak period the station carried 60,000 head which is surprising. The shearing shed and homestead still stand and the homestead has been restored to be an information centre. The outbuildings are all original and we could imagine the busy station life with staff quarters, store room, kitchen, meat house and outhouse! It would have been very tough here in early days. 

        

The shearing shed is in good condition as it was rebuilt in the 1960's after the original one burnt down. (evidently the managers son burnt it!) 

We saw some beautiful gorges - but the cliff edges are so unstable it made us nervous as we could see evidence of recent slips. 

      

We lunched out of the wind in a gully - right next to a kangaroo skeleton!! Lovely 😃.

      

It's been lovely to see kangaroos plentiful again and Darryl's still finding birds - a brolga today plus spinifex pigeons. 

       

    

We drove up a Mesa and looked out over the area which was quite spectacular:

     

We're not sure where our next stop will be - it's all part of the adventure! We hope everyone is well and those at home aren't freezing ❄️❄️! ❌❌❌⭕️⭕️⭕️

Mount Isa

Our time at this outback mining town was a lovely respite after many days of just overnight stops.  Tops and I had time for some beauty treatments and Tops had success at last in finding a podiatrist. She's been trying for an appointment since Alice Springs!! They are like hens teeth up this way!

We were surprised that such a large mining town could be so clean - nothing looks dusty and air quality was  good. The skyline is dominated by the huge smoke stacks and from the lookout you get a great view of the town.They've been mining here since early 1920's and the copper lead and zinc ore is transported to Townsville for shipping by rail. 

              

The mining company established lovely Lake Moondarra for a stable water supply for the town and its maintained beautifully for a recreation area. We enjoyed a lovely picnic lunch there on the foreshore.

         

We were very happy at our farm stay on West Leichhardt Station. We were initially surprised to be set up virtually on the front lawn!! In other station stays we've been tucked away far from the homestead. 

         

 

However, it was lovely - the station is huge with hundreds of thousands of acres and they run beautiful Brahman stock which are in excellent nick. We watched as they worked on some cattle in the yards - no dogs barking, no yelling, no mooing - just quiet movement and the cattle weren't stressed at all.

     

In its hey day it would have been a show piece station with an airstrip and planes, rodeo circuit and numerous outbuildings. However, the owner is getting on in years and family are not here yet to take over - if they ever do - so the place operates largely on travellers staying on and helping out plus a few employees. It seems to work and everyone is happy and it's like being part of a large family. It took us a while to work everyone out!

      

You could feed your scraps to the pigs: the kids would love them 🐖🐖.

     

Tops and I had access to the washing machines free of charge -- so we made good use of them, we were able to fill our water tanks and we were gifted some home grown, home butchered mince steak as we left. It was far more relaxing and peaceful than being in a caravan park that's for sure! 

The weather has been great - warm sunny days and good nights for sleeping. We're lucky all that bad weather isn't up this way. We'll really notice it when we strike cold weather as we've been warm for so long. We're now having morning tea and a look around Cloncurry - before heading Winton way.

      

      

 The drive from Mt Isa to here was beautiful as we drove through a range - I tried to take a photo but it doesn't do it justice! I imagined it would be flat. You do however come across lots of road trains like this one - 4 dog trailers!! 

      

Bourke and Wills were the first Europeans to come to this area and Bourke named the Cloncurry River after his cousin. It's mind boggling that such an ill fated expedition could have actually come this far - it's a long way from Melbourne!! The Flying Doctor service was established here also so it's quite a historic town. 

This weekend some of the family are converging on Riverview - and we won't be there! Hope you all have a great time and miss us just a little 😏. Love for now from us xxxxxx