Beautiful Bowen

We’ve discovered many beautiful spots in Bowen under Marks guidance and the town has much more to offer than we originally thought. We strolled up the town jetty which is more than 150 years old and still in use for recreational fishing as well as a base for the tug boats used to tow in coal ships at the export place at nearby Abbott Point. 

During WW2 there was a Catalina Base here and at the site is a lovely display.

The 2008 movie ‘Australia’, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, was partially filmed here in Bowen and for a few months, a mini Darwin was created at the waterfront. The Grand View Hotel was renamed the Territory Hotel for the movie and still stands today. 

There are some lovely beaches and today some of us braved the water and did a bit of snorkelling at Horseshoe Bay. We had an excellent view of this bay from a lookout.

We are in a small friendly caravan park and at the beachfront area we enjoyed a drink whilst watching a beautiful sunset. Views like this make us realise we are in the tropics - this is known as the North Whitsundays area.

We’ve made use of our time here to catch up on jobs and we’ll head off from here tomorrow with full cupboards, beautiful toes, neat hair and very clean cars and clothes. The weather continues to be perfect although the locals think it too cold! We are heading north to the Paluma Range National Park for the next few days, hoping to see some gorges and waterfalls. We’ve been away for 3 weeks and it actually feels like longer so we must be feeling very relaxed. We hope all readers are well and not feeling too cold. Lots of love from Brays Brays and Greenwoods. ❌❌❌❌

Onto Collinsville

We really loved our stay at Lake Elphinstone as it was so peaceful and in a beautiful setting.  Mark & Kerri have introduced us to some new games and we’re finding that we’re all pretty competitive as you can see by the concentration on our faces! 

We travelled from this lake to see the  relatively new mining town of Glendon where they have this huge mine bucket. It was a very neat town but didn’t seem to be many people around.

At Collinsville we set up in another free camp at the Showgrounds where we were even able to hook up to water with other very good facilities provided. Collinsville is another mining town and the coal trains were running pretty regularly during the 24hrs. Across the road from our camp, we treated ourselves to a dinner out at the Workman’s Club where it was nice and cool. 

This town is called the Pit Pony town and this statue is an excellent model. There is another display telling the story of a sad occasion in 1954 when carbon dioxide killed 7 men and 2 pit ponies.

There is an iconic bush pub called the Bowen River Hotel about 35kms from Collinsville where we spent a very happy afternoon and enjoyed chatting to the owner who was a real character. 

Today we travelled about 80kms to Bowen and along the way Mark was excited to take us to see  Slug Rock. This turned out to be quite a different exercise as we couldn’t find a turnaround site so there was some reversing and turning around and then there was no way to actually access the rock! However, we made the most of our stop and had morning tea. 

Greenwoods and Darryl and I have been to Bowen before but today realised we only saw one part of the town so it was a real eye opener to see areas we’ve never seen! Mark has some activities planned for us as well as the usual washing, shopping and  cleaning. This will feature in the next blog. We’re all thinking of the southern states where the temperatures are falling whilst we are enjoying lovely warm weather. ❌❌❌❌❌❌

Central Highlands

We’ve enjoyed two beautiful camp sites in the central highlands area - one free,  the other a donation. At the Bedford Weir we were once again able to set up in our formation and we were happy to have lots of birds around - including peacocks and Guinea fowls. 

This camp is run by the shire and was excellent with a new amenity block, bins and fire pits. The weir surprised us with its size. It was very pretty with the water running over the wall.

We were sitting around our campfire one evening, when we heard the grunt of a Nissan V8. We waved to them and next minute  they stopped, backed up and called into our camp and out hopped 2 young girls and a young man. We spent the next half hour engaging in a very interesting conversation with them as they all worked in the nearby mines - the girls as truck drivers and the chap as an excavator driver. It’s these random sorts of encounters that makes our travels so interesting. 
We left Bedford Weir and are now at Lake Elphinstone - another great camp with plenty of space and new facilities. This time we don’t have birds, but cows wandering through. 

 This is Queensland's largest natural lake and is very pretty set with mountain backdrops.  It was established as a recreation spot for the miners but we’re unsure of who maintains it now. 

Last night was one of those glorious nights and with the full moon coming up over the water, we couldn’t wish for a better setting. Unfortunately our phone cameras couldn’t quite capture the beauty of it all. 

Where ever we are, there’s always something for the men to fix, and if there’s nothing to fix, there’s always solar, fuel economy or new phone apps to discuss. 

From here, we’ll head to Collinsville and then onto Bowen where we’ll catch up with the usual domestic chores. We’re enjoying beautiful weather at present; daytime temperatures in the high 20’s  and comfortable nights for sleeping. We hope all our readers are well and we send lots of love. ❌❌❌❌ from the lucky wanderers. 

Mount Morgan

We left Yeppoon after a lovely brisk beach walk - lots of driftwood and shells but happily no plastics or rubbish.

There was much discussion about the road to here at Mt Morgan,  as one road is called Razor Back which brings to mind a steep and windy road. However, we managed the climb quite easily and the road was good. Mount Morgan is an old gold mining town and it’s probably the only town without new buildings - just lots of traditional Queenslanders in conditions very varied.   The shops are very unusual too with the chemist also selling secondhand goods and the newsagent is a coffee, tats lotto and gift shop. The gold mine is in the process of being reopened and with a new water pipeline, wind and solar projects planned, the town has quite a bright future. We spent quite some time at the Railway museum where we learned about the history of the railways as the gold mine grew.

A rack railway was built to haul carriages up razor back - what an amazing invention and what a shame the line was pulled up as it would make a great scenic tourist attraction - just like the only other one in Australia at Queenstown, Tasmania. 

Mark is quite a train enthusiast so enjoyed pretending to drive the old engine - and I met fellow passenger, Marg!!

We toured the town, checking out the tourist spots and lookouts. 

We are happily camped here in a quaint park which is very friendly and suits our needs. We were able to use the pizza oven in the camp kitchen whilst sitting around the campfire and chatting to a New Zealand couple. 

We celebrated Mothers Day in a very simple and laid back manner with a picnic on the nearby lake. What more could we want - great company, great location and happy time spent watching boats being launched, resident geese, friendly magpies and a new pigeon for Darryl to photograph. 

We hope all mums had a day as happy as ours! Our day is going to be completed with another game of scrabble (we hope Darryl doesn’t win again! ) plus a Paola cooked by chef Mark. 

We move on tomorrow to a camp called Bedford Weir which is somewhere near Blackwater. We look forward to exploring another new area. We do realise just how fortunate we are to be able to do what we are and we all enjoy every minute. From us lucky travellers, we send love and  best wishes ❌❌❌❌❌❌

Exploring Yeppoon surrounds.

We’ve had two lovely days touring around and what a lovely area it is. I imagined the town to be much smaller and more like 1770 but it’s quite a bustling metropolis with lots of shops and happily for the men, a big Bunnings. A couple of clothesline jobs have made Tops & Kerri very happy. The weather has improved and seems like the rain has moved on and sunny days are here. The rain Tuesday night had us seeking shelter in our van and we had a very funny night even though we were rather squashed in our 15foot van.

A huge coincidence was to find Luke and CB Nyko who were set up next to us, so we shared a couple of evenings with them and reminisced some old Murrabit football stories with Luke. They are on a 12 month trip around Australia. 

Yesterday we toured around to Emu Park, past the marina where we love seeing how the other half live. 

There is a wonderful WW1 memorial at Emu Park and we spent some time reading the stories and strolling along the boardwalk to the Singing Ship which is dedicated to Captain Cook. 

Mark took us on the scenic route to Mount Archer where there is a a fantastic walk with views over Rockhampton and district.

Today we did a few housekeeping tasks then set off to look at Byfield National Park. Previously we had hoped to camp at Stony Creek campground but there were no vacancies. However, after travelling on the terrible rough road we are glad we didn’t have to expose our vans to such rough treatment! We did however find other campgrounds with easier access that we’ve out in the ‘next time’ folder. We had a river crossing and ended up at the Byfield store where we spoilt ourselves with a lovely lunch. The store is set amongst palms and was a very popular spot.

It’s our last evening here as tomorrow we leave,  heading towards Mount Morgan - an old gold mining town. Trust all readers are well, love from the happy travellers. ❌❌