Western towns

At Longreach we stayed beside the Thomson River at a free camping area. The river was very brown but that didn’t stop people from fishing. We didn’t see anyone catch anything though. When we arrived at the camp we were amazed at the number of vans parked there, about 30 when we arrived at midday and another dozen or more pulling in before evening. There are a lot of caravans, camper trailers and campers on the road in this area and it's only the start of their tourist season. We can see why the tourist season is in winter as the day’s temperature are from early to mid 20’s and nights slip down to about 12 degrees. This is very comfortable and certainly a lot more pleasant that what our friends and relatives are telling us they are experiencing back in NZ.

We enjoyed our trip inland visiting the small rural towns. Most of the towns are quite small, 600 to 1500 people, but they all promote their local attractions very well. Barcaldine had signs outside many of its buildings telling of their historical background. Longreach has the Qantas museum (as Qantas began in this area) and the Stockman’s hall of fame. Winton is near where they have found fossilised dinosaurs and Hughenden promotes a nearby gorge and dinosaurs. All the towns were settled around the 1870's.

Over the past few days we have travelled many straight roads. The trip from Winton to Hughenden, along the Kennedy Development Road, had perhaps the longest straight roads we have come across, so far. Straights lasted for more than 20km (after 20km we lost concentration and forgot we were taking note of the odometer). The road had many signs saying "floodway" and it seemed that every dip on the road was a potential creek bed in the wet. The area is extremely flat and covered in grass the colour of ripe wheat and very few trees. It looked like we were travelling on a calm golden sea. The road was quite narrow and had no median marker but fortunately we didn’t meet many road trains and those we did meet we pulled over and stopped while they passed.
Road trains can be a bit intimidating and are becoming familiar; trucks towing three trailers seem to be the norm. With the roads being so straight we have had plenty of warning of their approach and have had lots of time to pull over.

When we were in Winton we went to an outdoor movie theatre. The theatre was built in 1938 on the site of an earlier (1918) theatre that was burnt down. We sat in deck chairs and watched old time advertisements and movie clips. Seems like buildings burning down was very common in the early days, as many of the towns we have visited have lost buildings to big fires.

While at Hughenden we did a day trip to Porcupine Gorge. The Porcupine creek is a small creek but it has carved a 120 metre deep gorge. We viewed this from above at a lookout and also walked down to the creek by way of a path and many natural rock steps. Sitting in a vehicle travelling around has done nothing for our fitness so the walk back up had us puffing. I think we will have to put regular evening walks into our schedule.

From Hughenden we went to a free camp 40km north of Charters Towers, as we had been told this was a good place to stay. The camping area was beside Fletcher creek, a good sized and almost clear flowing creek. We found a nice spot 10 metres from the creek and stayed for 3 nights.
We enjoyed watching the kites (like big hawks) fly up and down the creek and saw one pluck a small fish from the creek. It was hassled by a raven and dropped the fish, which fortunately for the fish landed back in the creek so both the kite and the raven missed out on a meal. When we arrived we were told to watch out for snakes in the dry grass, a little unnerving as we had yet to come across these. We did see one swimming down the creek and it came ashore about 100 metres downstream from where we were camped, far enough away for it not to be a problem to us. After watching other people’s camp fires the first night we decided we had to gather some firewood so we could have a fire of our own. To feel more secure we put on our walking boots and ventured into the nearby paddocks. We walked some way down a road until we could see some dead wood that we could get to without passing through much dry grass. Laden with enough firewood for at least two night’s fires we walked back to our camp, stopping now and then to give our arms a rest. With the aid of a saw from another camper we were able to cut the larger pieces into fire size bits. Our camp fire was a success, it kept us warm even though it wasn’t cold and we made scones (or is that damper) over the embers.

Gone West

(Photo - camping Fraser Island - you can't get away from doing the dishes)
From Hervey Bay we travelled up to Gladstone taking a detour to visit the rum factory at Bundaberg. We went on a tour and were taken past the molasses wells, into the processing area where the process of extracting the alcohol from the molasses was explained then onto the bond store. Here the spirit sits for 24 months, in huge American white oak vats, and develops it’s colour and characteristic flavour. We viewed the bottling plant before getting to the best part of the tour, the bar. The price of a tour includes 2 free drinks. Jill, not being a spirits drinker, wasn’t expecting to like any of what she sampled but was pleasantly surprised to find the liqueur OK. After trying it again for the second free drink and Al also finding it very palatable there was no option but to buy a bottle, as it’s only available at the factory. We continued on to Gladstone and had a very enjoyable evening with friends who also gave us a quick tour of the city. From two high vantage points we had views of the lights of the city.

We decided to go to Townsville the long way after another camper told us about her trip through inland Queensland. Just south of Rockhampton we started heading west and are now travelling the Capricorn highway. It's definitely warmer now we are further north and going inland. The days are around 25C, which is very nice. First we went as far as Blackwater, which is in a coal mining area. Along the way we passed several coal trains, most of them were loaded with coal but were stationary so we were able to measure them on the odometer and they clocked in at 1.5 kilometres long! They had two locomotives at the front and another two in the middle. Near Blackwater, at Bedford Weir, was a free camp 30km down a side road so we hoped it was worth the effort of driving there. When we got there we found a nice grassy area surrounded by large trees and half a dozen other vans. The water behind the weir is not much more than a muddy puddle but it is a great camp area - toilets and hot showers. There was a campfire going and a sign saying happy hour was at 4:30pm. At 4:30 we took our camp chairs and mugs over to the fire and were treated to billy tea and damper.

Our next stop was at the town of Sapphire and here we stayed at another free camp. This one was on a dusty reserve, only toilets (no showers) there but as it was free we had no complaints. In this area there used to be several commercial gemstone mines but now days it’s mainly small scale mining and several areas have been set aside for fossicking. We took a tour through an old underground mine and saw where the gemstone bearing gravel sits in the layers of rock. This gravel is extracted from the ground and goes through a washing and sieving process to extract the gems. We chose the easy option of buying a bucket of gravel and set about using the water and sieves that were provided to extract our gems. Naturally we were hoping for a big find but had to settle for a few small pieces of sapphire and zircon. (Photo - Jill looking for gems amongst the washed rocks)

Our journey west continued to Barcaldine. We arrived at Barcaldine just on sunset so were on high alert for kangaroos. The road was littered with dead kangaroos but fortunately we didn’t have any close encounters and only spotted about half a dozen live ones near the roadside. Barcaldine is a small rural town, supposedly a cattle farming centre but from the highway the paddocks appeared brown and empty of livestock. After leaving Barcaldine heading for Longreach in a one kilometre stretch of highway we had about 50 kangaroo cross in front of us, some in groups of about 10, some two or three at a time and the occasional single kangaroo. None of them stopped to look, they just hopped out of the bushes or grass, across the highway and were gone. Again from the carcasses along the road many hadn’t been successful in the past.

Fraser Island

We had a stopover in Brisbane for one night to allow us to pick up a parcel (of left behind belongings) that Steve had sent to us care of a friend's place. At that time we didn't have much information about caravan parks in north Brisbane and chose one not too far from where our friends live. It was a small park and most of the sites were taken up by permanent residents in quite old caravans, which gave the park a run down look. We were only there overnight, the showers were hot and had good pressure and we got the washing washed and dry so it didn't matter that the park perhaps wasn't the best of neighbourhoods. We now have a directory of "Queensland caravan parks and touring accommodation" which will be helpful. Each state in Australia is quite independent and getting detailed information on a state before you get there isn't easy. We do have books that cover all of Australia which suffice for most of our needs and can use the internet too.

After Brisbane we travelled to Hervey Bay, the main reason for going there was to go to Fraser Island. We did a day tour to the island several years ago and were keen to go back. The island is the world's largest sand island and is completely forested, although timber was taken until the 1920's. The island is about 110km long and 10km wide. Because all the driving is on sand 4WD is the only way to travel. We left the caravan in Hervey Bay, packed the truck up with our camping gear and took it to the island by barge. The barge trip was about 30 minutes, although there are shorter and longer trips departing from and going to other landing sites.

The roads are pure sand ranging from hard firm to very soft and dry, but almost always traversed by tree roots, and are rough and undulating. Some sections were quite challenging, but the truck lurched her way through with hardly any effort. The occupants were well shaken by the end of 50km of these roads though.

The first day we went across the island and out to the eastern beach. Along the way we stopped off at "central station" which was a forestry centre during logging days. There were lots of information boards there and a stream so clear the sandy bottom looks like it's the surface. From here it was a fairly rough slow road to Lake McKenzie a perched lake with extremely fine white sand and crystal clear water. It is quite strange seeing a lake with dazzling white sand surrounded by bush. The next lake we passed was a barrage lake where a mobile sand dune has blocked a watercourse. The sand dune continues to advance and it will eventually fill the lake. When we got out to the eastern beach we were surprised how little dry beach there was to drive on, even though it was only an hour past low tide. We had planned to travel several kilometres along the beach before finding a camp spot but with the tide coming in and not much free space we only went 3km north. We found a nice clearing just off the beach, tucked in behind some Banksia and other trees that gave us shelter from the light breeze. We had our tent pitched and camp set up by 3pm so had time for a wander down the beach and Al tried fishing before sunset. The sun sets at 5:30pm, which seems early and there is no twilight.

Overnight we were visited by dingos. We didn't hear or see them but found their tracks on the beach and on the track leading up to our campsite. Having now spent several hours by the sea we had discovered that at hight tide the water went right up to the dunes and a low tide there was generally 40 or 50 metres or dry sand to drive along. Much less than what we remembered from our trip several years ago. Armed with this knowledge and the fact that the tide was falling we headed north 18km up the beach to a lovely crystal clear creek, Eli Creek. The travel along the beach was hard and smooth with an occasional rocky outcrop that had to be negotiated either by driving around and over the rocks or by track off the beach. After visiting the creek we headed south driving for 34km before taking a track inland to Lake Boomanjin, another perched lake. Here there was a camping area inside a high netting fence (dingo proof). We didn't see any dingoes here but did see one when we were travelling down the beach. After setting up our tent we went for a walk along the lake shore and we able to get within 5 metres of a grey heron that was intent on feeding. As it moved along at the edge of the water we moved along the shore following it and it took no notice of us. It was great to be able to get so close and to watch it.

That night we had rain showers but it was dry when we woke. We packed the truck and left the tent up to dry while we went for a walk through the bush. After about 20 minutes of walking through generally scrubby trees it started to rain. We decided to abort our walk and returned to camp under the shelter of our umbrellas. Fortunately the rain stopped when we got back to camp so we were able to pack up our wet tent without getting wet ourselves. We had a ferry booking for 2:30pm so made our way back along an inland track stopping off for a picnic lunch near another lake. Fortunately the showers stayed away for the day.

Some Photos

Sugarloaf Point lighthouse, near Booti Booti.

Critters at the camp at Diamond Head
one is cuter than the other

Camp fire - note the kangaroo getting in on the action

In the Country

We extended our stop at Nambucca Heads to take the opportunity to head away from the coast and go on a day trip into the hills. We drove inland for about 45km and climbed about 800 metres onto a plateau. The road we travelled on was part of a drive called “Waterfall Way”. We didn’t think much of the two waterfalls we passed on the way as any scenic attraction they had was spoiled by the road passing by within metres. There was a pretty waterfall near the town of Dorrigo that we went and looked at before heading off into a National Park to have our picnic lunch. The picnic ground was in a clearing where there were several picnic tables and places to light fires. It was a very grey overcast day and being up 800 metres and in the bush it was only about 13 degrees so we didn't linger long. We stopped off at the Park visitors centre and walked out on a sky walk. This was a short walkway from the centre that went out over an escarpment so very quickly you were above the treetops. There was a view down the valley but it was obscured by a lot of smoke. We never did discover where the smoke came from as it had disappeared by the time we drove back down the valley.

Our next stop was for 2 nights in Bundjalung National Park at the Woody Head camp. We did plan to stay for 4 nights but when we got to the camp we discovered the coming weekend was Queensland Labour Weekend so they were fully booked and as a result we could only stay for Thursday & Friday. The camp was right by the sea in a bay beside a headland. The bay was very sheltered but it was a bit too rough around the corner and out on the rocks for fishing. For both days the weather was overcast with passing showers so we didn't wander very far from shelter. We were able to light camp fires there so lit a camp fire each evening to sit by while we had our meal. (they even supplied the firewood for free)

We intended to visit Byron Heads, the eastern most point of Australia and were going to camp in that area but we had to change our plans. Due to Qld Labour Weekend and Byron Bay having a big ocean swim on over the weekend, to which they were expecting 5000 people, the coastal camps were full. We headed inland and ended up at a rural town called Murwillumba where we camped at their show grounds for 4 nights. We had water, power, toilets and hot showers (not flash but OK) There was a group of Brisbane caravan club people there too, so there were a lot more people there than we expected. Our view from the caravan was over a paddock with cattle (each animal had at least one egret with it) then over a field of sugar cane to a banana plantation then to bushy covered hills in the distance.

We spent a day visiting a couple of National Parks. As you may have realised by now Australia has lots of National Parks scattered throughout. The first park we went to was quite close to where we are staying and when we were nearing the parking area we discovered that lots of others had decided it was a nice day and this was a nice place to go for a walk. There must have been about 100 cars there so we decided to give it a miss and carry on to the next park, another 35km down the road. There was a good gravel road through this park and the road climbed up to 1050 metres where we had lunch in a nice picnic area. We went for a walk down a short track that had information boards; there were quite large Antarctic beech trees, ground and tree ferns and trees like Nikau palm trees. We stopped off at 2 lookout points that gave views over the Tweed Valley below. The Tweed valley is in an old volcanic area with many volcanic escarpments and peaks forming a ring around the valley. (Photo - Tweed Valley & Mount Warning)

One morning we went to a cattle sale. The previous night we could hear the sound of cattle lowing and sometimes bellowing so guessed they were at yards nearby in preparation for a sale. We joined the 60 or so locals in the stands and watched while several pens we put up for auction. There were about a dozen who might have been bidding although most times we couldn't spot who had made the bid, as signals were very subtle.