The last hurrah!

This will be the last post for this trip - we’ve travelled over 10,000 kms in a couple of months so have been busy! In all that time, everyone we’ve met has been friendly and kind- and there was only one grumpy man at a service station in Charters Towers - he thought Darryl had pushed in when he certainly didn’t! We’ve come away with some wonderful memories and we’ve seen such great places - from the magnificent gorges at Lawn Hill to the thermal pools at Lorella Springs, to the fishing village of Karumba and the beautiful Atherton Tablelands. We became citified in Townsville and blown away by the beautiful Parennela Park. We were spoilt in Ipswich and then rediscovered the amazing outback. 

We left Brewarrina after a quiet night by our campfire, and headed to Bourke where we did see some  water in the Darling River. They’ve replaced the boards at the old wharf and are constructing a cement pathway. It’s still unbelievable that paddle steamers plied these rivers!

We left the bitumen and travelled alongside the river to Louth, where we spoilt ourselves with a light lunch at the pub. The river had some water but a long way to go! 

                           
Seeing it was mid afternoon, we decided to settle at Trilby Station - where we stayed previously on the Darling River Run. It’s a great spot and we once again enjoyed the ambience of the river, around a big open fire (they supply the wood). The river is so milky there I’d not be keen to wash in it!

                                  
Today we had our picnic morning tea in beautiful sunshine at Tilpa, fuelled up and chatted to a lovely English lass working in the pub. 

From there we took the back track to Ivanhoe and for the whole 350 odd kms we travelled today, we did not pass or see one car all day! Not very often that happens so it was very remote travelling! It was a very pretty trip with changing scenery - plus goats, kangaroos a few sheep and cattle. It was lovely to see the greenery - but they’re probably looking for another rain event. 

                                   

We’re now set up at Ivanhoe and once again enjoying beautiful sunshine - though we’ve been warned it will be chilly in the morning. We’ll head to Hay then home and we believe dear Trev will have our fire going and the house warm - thanks Trev. Dennis and Tops arrived home Sunday so are probably all cleaned, sorted and packed away - we’ve got that ahead of us. We’re about to pop over to the Ivanhoe pub to enjoy our last supper. It looks like a typical quaint pub! 

                                             
So until we’re on the road again, I sign off and hope you’ve enjoyed reading about our travels. ❌❌❌❌ Marg & Darryl. 

On our own

After a lovely welcoming stay at Ipswich and with Dennis’s van all fixed, we turned southwards. How we love travelling through Cunningham’s Gap as the majesty of the mountains always amazes us. 

It was so terribly dry and except for the irrigated areas near Warwick, not a blade of grass was to be seen.  Poor Stanthorpe has big signs up about strict water restrictions so the drought sure is still prevalent. 

                                 
We crossed into NSW just and headed to Tenterfield where we’d hoped to visit the Tenterfield Saddler museum - however, it wasn’t open so we just peaked in the windows and even saw Peter Allen’s shoes! 

We had lunch there and continued to Glen Innes where we then headed west towards Inverell. As we like small out of the way places, we chose to go to this quaint place called Tingah. Of course, I selected the back way to travel and after a couple of mm of rain, the gravel road was quite messy and the very clean cars and vans were clean no longer!! 

Tingah is like stepping back in time - it’s an old tin mining town - the last mine closed in 1983 and I think time has stood still since then!! As we approached the town, we could see evidence of a bushfire and saw a couple of houses destroyed. In all, 13 houses were lost in this February bushfire - that we knew nothing about. 

The campground was just what we like - casual, able to have a campfire and leave our cars hooked up. The only downfall was a few light showers that kept us scuttling under the annexes. 

Inverell seems to be such a lovely old town and we must go back to explore it further. I had a brainwave that we head to Moree then Walgett as we’d hoped to see water in the Barwon and Darling Rivers. 

At morning  tea in Moree a hasty decision was made to part ways as Dennis’s Aunty passed away Friday and they are anxious to get home - whereas we were happy to be rambling along with no strict deadline to be home! 

So now we are by ourselves in Brewarrina and Dennis and Tops are a long way down the Newel Highway at Peake Hill.

We saw dry conditions all the way to here - we had thought that April rains may have reached further east - but they didn’t. 

At Walgett, we saw the Barwon river with some water in it - plus we saw the remains of the IGA store burnt last week. What a shame to see this as it was their only supermarket.

Here at Brewarrina we saw the Barwon river behind the weir - but below that there’s nothing so we now wonder what we’ll see at Bourke, Louth, Tilpa and Wilcannia. 

                                

So it’s a bit strange to be sitting by our fire by ourselves - only a couple of days ago we had lots of company and some different things to burn!! Ricky was cleaning out his shed and had this stool to burn!

                                

We’ll head down to Bourke then Wilcannia then probably head for home from there whereas Dennis and Tops will probably get home tomorrow. So until what will probably be the last blog for this trip, we sign off ❌❌❌ ❌ from Darryl & Marg and our far away fellow travellers Dennis & Tops 

Ipswich

We left Roma after a lovely stay at Ups & Downs and set off for our next destination which was out of Condamine. It was interesting to find out that the Condamine river is part of the Murray Darling Basin - such a long way away! We camped at this spot by a lagoon which was a bit windy - however, after a pleasant evening around our campfire, rains descended in the night and we woke to a different site!!

                                        
We must have chosen the muddiest lowest spot as our annex was under water and we couldn’t do anything without being covered in mud!! The drizzly rain persisted so we packed up quickly and decided to forego another bush camp to come straight to Ipswich. It’s a  beautiful camp site here!!

                                         
It’s surprising how many gas fields we saw from Condamine to Dalby - they were everywhere and very big complexes too.

Ipswich has really turned the weather on for us now and we’ve been enjoying sunny days of about 25degrees with cool damp nights excellent for sleeping. We enjoyed a day at the Caravan and Camping show in Brisbane and thank heavens we’re not in the market for a new van as it’s all overwhelming and confusing. So many beautiful vans and campers to choose from and all are lovely. 

Dennis & Tops’s van received a thorough clean and with all the red dust off, it looks like new again. It is presently in at Lifestyle having some warranty jobs done. We’ve filled in the time here enjoying Rick and Flo’s generous company and even helped celebrate Indi’s 3rd birthday!

Dennis snuck off by himself to investigate a tractor place we’ve driven past several times, whilst Tops caught up with washing and Darryl and I undertook some retail therapy.

We enjoyed lunch out together at the Lions soccer club which was a lovely place to enjoy a quality meal at very reasonable prices.

From there Dennis Tops Darryl and I rushed to the Ipswich movie theatre and arrived just in time for the movie Rocket Man to begin. The movie was only showing in the lounge area, which is a little more expensive, drinks and eats can be ordered and we had beautiful comfy armchairs and footstools! We were the only four in the theatre and we sat and sat and eventually had to go and find someone because nothing was happening! So eventually the movie was started (with some apologies) and we all thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience and loved the movie. 

Today we all visited the beautiful botanic gardens at Mt Coot-tha. The day was perfect for strolling around these lovely grounds and now we all want rocks, waterfalls, undulating grounds and exotic plants in our own gardens. Flo wants the extensive vegetable garden! Look at this huge cactus - and the beautiful Japanese gardens with bonsai trees.

                               

From there we went to Rob and Pru’s for lots of laughs and lovely food. It’s always fun when the Greenwood boys get together - especially when a golden gnome is passed on! Rob’s apple pie even rivalled Dennis’s! 

Tomorrow morning the van can be picked up so we’ll set off  southwards on Friday. After this lovely sunny weather, we’re not sure we’ll enjoy the cold! So we are coming to the end of this years trip. We have to stop and think about all the places we’ve been - and recall the great things we’ve seen. This country of ours is amazing. 

Until the next blog, we sign off and hope everyone is well.  ❌❌❌❌

Roma

We had a good look around Roma and have a feel for this country town. Our early morning tour of the cattle yards was very interesting - but still a pity we didn’t get to see the sales in action. They are actually making the yards larger and incorporating a new bull sales ring as well as new canteen and function centre. 

These are the largest sale yards in Australia, selling between 300,000 to 400,000 head of cattle annually. 

We visited St Paul’s Anglican Church which is well known for its beautiful stained glass windows and lovely architecture. There are over 50 of these beautiful windows - 3 of which were shipped from England.

                         
What is sad however, is that the church has no resident priest and they are struggling to keep it going. Dennis tried to play the huge pipe organ - but not successfully at all. 

We saw Roma’s biggest bottle tree and admired the avenue of bottle trees along the streets which honour the local soldiers who lost their lives during WW 1. Each tree now has its own plaque. 

                                             

The town has the most unique drapers store - the facade is very different but inside its amazing!! The owner can find anything you’re looking for - we purchased warm rugs for our beds but it would be a sewers delight!

Tomorrow we leave here and start heading east towards Ipswich. We’ve well and truly left the warmth behind and the nights have been quite frosty! Thank heavens for warm sheets, new blankets and heaters!! Today has been sunny but not warm unless you get out of the wind. We hope everyone down south is keeping warm too.

For now, we sign off until the next instalment. Love from Marg Darryl Dennis & Tops. 

The great inland way

We farewelled Townsville and took the back road over the Hervey Range to meet up with the Gregory Highway which is part of the Great Inland Way from Sydney to Cooktown. 

We had a final good view of the Townsville area - albeit a little cloudy!

                                    
We arrived in Charters Towers and found this great little park which I’ll always remember as the place that served hot chips with their happy hour! It made for a very happy hour as the chips were delicious and we met some good people.

We looked around Charters Towers and admired the beautiful buildings - but best of all was Target, housed in a lovely old building with an arcade frontage. 

We enjoyed learning some military history at Tower Hill and saw the WW 2 bunkers and interpretive displays. 

The Burdekin river flows alongside the main road for a while and we saw the weir which was quite pretty flowing over the rocks. This river is second to our Murray River in agricultural importance. 

                                     
The weather has gradually become cooler as we travel south and we’ve now put away our summer gear and even purchased a blanket to pop in our beds as we’ve had some frosty mornings!! We stopped at this little place Capella and walked into town to see the impressive war memorial.

We really think that the Great Inland Way could be called the great wavy way as in places the road was very rough and undulating - much worse for a couple travelling on a motor bike!!  It also is used by many large vehicles and in one instance, we were held up for a while as the trucks took up the whole road. We think they’re all mining equipment as this area is a rich mining area. 

At Roma, we’re set up in this quaint place called Ups & Downs - it’s very casual, quiet and has all the facilities we need. It’s got lots of old equipment, cars, trucks etc around to add to the quirkiness. Sadly, the place is for sale following a marriage breakdown so probably won’t be here much longer. 

We really wanted to see the Roma cattle sales but they were on yesterday and none till next week - we are however going on a tour of the facility at 8.30 in the morning. 

We can’t have our own camp fire so if we want to keep warm, we have to go over to the communal fire pit for happy hour! Some of the happy hours are not exactly that - some are rather boring. However, unless we pop into bed under our new blankets, we will have to be sociable. 

Until the next blog, we sign off and will have some Roma snippets next  time. Love from the travellers. ❌❌❌❌

Townsville

We have had a longer than anticipated stay in Townsville with our air conditioning taking longer to repair than we’d hoped - but some kind young chap gave up his Saturday morning to fit the new part and we are now able to pack up and move on tomorrow. Seems like the fuel tank had rubbed a hole in the a/c pipe - another legacy of off road driving I guess.

Anyway, we filled in the days ok and there could be much worse places to be held up. Whilst at Parennela Park, we saw that the movie ‘Celeste’ was filmed there, so we decided to see that movie - Darryl rated it minus 3 - the story wasn’t his sort of movie - but seeing beautiful Parennela Park was worth it for me. 

The waterfront along the Strand was fairly quiet but we enjoyed our walk along the seafront plus the drink at the restaurant. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen the sun and it hasn’t been swimming or snorkeling weather that I’d fancied doing on Magnetic Island. 

                           
We visited 3 botanic gardens yesterday and always marvel at the beautiful tropical plants - wishing they’d grow at home! 

Last night we were in bed by 7.30 as it was very wet (they had 21mm here!) it was quite cool and our annex’s weren’t very inviting. Darryl watched the footy (good old Kangaroos!) and I read so we didn’t sleep for 12hrs! 

Today we stocked up on supplies then drove to see the Ross River dam - a little underwhelming except for the little wallabies dotted everywhere amongst the rocks.

                                     

We undertook a very windy road up to the lookout at Mt Stuart and had a beautiful view of Townsville and area. 

                                 

It’s hard to comprehend the devesatstion the recent floods caused when the 1 in a 100 rain event occurred earlier this year. One road we were going to travel on tomorrow is still closed - we assume a bridge over the Alice River hasn’t been repaired.

We hope to look around Charters Towers as before we just sailed through and we believe it’s a very pretty place. We have a week to get to Ipswich - hope you’ll have the sun shining there Rob and Rick as we’re sick of clouds! Mustn’t complain though as it’s not as cold as it is down south! Hope you’re all managing to keep warm. 

Love from Marg, Darryl, Dennis & Tops. 😊😊😊😊