Aug 29-31 Narrabri, Coonabarabran, Mendooran

From Moree, we drove on to Narrabri and checked into the Showgrounds. Lots of space, away from main roads and powered site for only $14. Enjoyed a wander around the main street of Narrabri and thought it a nice town.

The Narrabri Showgrounds

The Australia Telescope Compact Array is located 23 km to the west of Narrabri. The following day we went for a visit. I found it quite interesting. Not so sure about Judith. I think she's looking forward to seeing the Dish at Parkes though in just a couple of days time.

Judith enjoys whispering to me about 20m away in front of another parabolic dish

Two of the six 22 metre dishes that move along a railway line to track radio wave emissions from deep space

A scale model to help one understand how the Compact Array set-up works

The telescope array is in the middle of almost nowhere. There was one place on the map nearby called Yarrie Lake so this became our destination for lunch. There was a camping ground but unfortunately dogs are not allowed. We thought it was a lovely spot for our lunch and a bit of a play.

The very pleasant Yarrie Lake, about 30kms west of Narrabri

Our lunch spot on the shores of Yarrie Lake

I found a rope in good condition and went for a swing. Not quite hot enough to let go over the water though...

We got confused (the GPS as well!) on the way back from Yarrie Lake and got stuck on about 20km of dirt tacks. Nothing too scary, but it did cause the shelf in the van to fall off the wall. (My fault for not putting it up properly in the first place.)

The next major town was Coonabarabran. The most notable difference for us was the blossom trees lining the streets. We haven't seen such trees for a long time; certainly not on our trip so far. After a shared coffee and apple turnover, we decided that we didn't want to stay in town and drove on further.

We stayed the night at a free camp site in a little town called Mendooran. We thought the town and the camp site was great, so we stayed for another day. No power, but with our new battery and solar we are fine.

The campsite by the river at Mendooran

Our morning view from the van

Our first night, in the shade of the beautiful trees

Second day, we moved into the sun - for warmth and solar charging

Mendooran is known as the mural town

Another mural on the side of an old shed

Aug 27-28 - Across the border to NSW

We know we are heading south because it's raining. Actually it was pouring! We drove through Condamine, which was flooded 6 months ago. The current rain was the first decent rain that they've had since. Good for them; bad timing for us.

The Big Cow Bell at Condamine - very wet!

The rain just got heavier as we made it to Goondoowindi. Too wet to get out of the car so we kept going into NSW and stayed at a van park at Boggabilla. Nothing special, in fact pretty run down. Woke up to a heavy mist in the morning, but cleared enough that we could go back have a look around Goondoowindi.

Brrr, waking up in Boggabilla NSW

The centre of Goondawindi

A good-looking hotel in the main street of Goondi

Nice art-deco buildings in Goondi

The only thing that Goondiwindi is famous for

Then we headed further south towards Moree. Stopped in Moree for a look around and then went on to find a camp spot about 20km out of town - Gum Flat Public Reserve. Not only was the site good, the weather cleared and we were the only campers there. The only downside was the rubbish left behing by previous campers. We lit a fire and collected a load rubbish for incineration. We could have stayed longer, but we did check out rather late the following day.

Our camp site at Gum Flat Reserve

Nice grassed area on the banks of a river

Interesting reflections on the river at dusk

Despite being the only campers, we were woken up by something rubbing against the back of the van

Aug 24-26 Inland to Chinchiila

We left our roadside stop early and went first to Miriam Vale for a coffee and then on to Gin Gin where we stopped for breakfast in our van. We stopped for lunch at Biggenden - a quintessential small country town. We enjoyed our stroll around the town.

Fancy sculpture in a park at Biggenden

We drove on to Murgon, another small country town and decided to stay in the council-run caravan park. Nothing special. The caretaker had an annoying dog called Coco who continually intimidated Princess.

The following day we were keen to check out Kingaroy, the home of Former Qld premier Joh Bjelke-Peterson. We were disappointed - not a statue to be found. No pumpkin scones anywhere either. They did name a dam after them though but that was about the extent of it. We spent some time at the Information Centre come Museum and learnt a bit about peanut growing. Had no idea where peanuts came from before that.

On the way to Kingaroy, we stopped at a small town called Wondai. We enjoyed the art gallery there as well as an art project around town called Blue Poles. Commissioned works of art were mounted on blue wooden posts. Clever! This was also the first place in all of Australia where we have been warned by a shire officer for having our dog off the leash. Princess, the criminal! He was quite nice about it though.

The old shire office at Kingaroy

And the more modern shire council building

We were on our way to Chinchilla when we found a camp spot about 5km out of town. After a nice quiet night, we decided to stay the next day and another night. No facilities so we roughed it - and enjoyed it. Back to lighting fires and digging toilet holes. The second night was punctuated with a visit from the local hoons who decided to use the nearby area for practicing their rally driving. They didn't last too long though.

A majestic old pub at Jandowe on the way to Chinchilla



We found a pretty and peaceful camp site just before Chinchilla

Our bush camp site

Aug 23 Town of 1770

I didn't know there was a place in Australia called "Town of 1770" until a german friend (Peter) told me about it a couple of years ago. So we had to go and visit and see it for ourselves. This is the site where Captain Cook landed on the Queensland coast in the year of (you guessed it) 1770. It's a lovely point of land and would have been even better if the wind was blowing a little less than it was on the day we were there. We spent the night in a gravel pit on the side of the road a few kms out of town. Bit noisy with passing traffic but we slept OK.

The windy point of 1770

The rough side of the 1770 point

Another rough side

The other side of the point where it is a bit calmer - where Cook went ashore

Aug 21-22 Rockhampton

We flew into Rockhampton a few years ago and stayed in a house for a week at a coastal town called Zilzie Bay. We really enjoyed that holiday and were looking forward to seeing the coast near Rockhampton again. We also had arranged for our mail to be forwarded to Rockhampton Post Office for collection. We arrived in the area on Sunday so obviously the Post Office wasn't open. We drove to Yeppoon, a large town on the coast and then continued around the coast to Emu Park and Zilzie Bay. What we remembered of a sleepy little village at Emu Park is now a happening place. Sunday markets were on and there were people everywhere. The beaches were still great. We stopped for lunch and a swim at Emu Park.

The beach view near Yeppoon

I saw dolphins playing in the water

Me and Prin just sitting and soaking up the view

The wind pipes at Emu Park

Views to more beaches at Emu Park

Princess poses for a special photo with me for Ruby

After lunch we drove on to Zilzie Bay and found the house where we had stayed on our previous visit. We could also see the island that Pamela and I swam to and I nearly drowned. Great memories.

The holiday house in Zilzie Bay where we stayed a couple of years ago

Views to the island out from Zilzie

The caravan park at Emu Park was very busy so we decided to drive back towards Rockhampton. We stayed at Gracemere caravan park about 5km out of Rockhampton. The following day we went to collect our mail, which wasn't there. Bugger. We then planned a round trip that we could do in a day so that we would end up back in Rockhampton again the following day. We stayed the night at Dululu, a quiet one-pub town, which had a neat free-camp area. We applauded the "No Generators" signs around the camp site. Unfortuinately for Judith our pleasant stay here was somewhat tarnished by the strange man who came out of the ladies toilet. It was after dark and a bit creepy as he wasn't a camper. We visited Mount Morgan on the way back the next day - another town famous for its gold mining history.

Fortunately, our mail had arrived on the Tuesday. After collecting it we continued our way south down the coast.

Gracemere caravan park

The local ducks get into Princess's food and water bowls

Lilly flowers in the nearby creek

Got a surprise when we opened the power box

Free camp at Dululu

Aug 19-20 Carmila Beach (Mackay)

Back to the coast again, we drove in to Mackay. Maybe Mackay had more to offer than we allowed it the chance to show us. But somehow we managed to drive right into the building works for a new shopping centre. That together with traffic lights, speed humps and skinny round-abouts in the main streets discouraged us from stopping and exploring. We continued south and found a camping ground that was right on the foreshore of a beach - Carmila Beach. In the words of a famous song, "I was thinking to myself, this could heaven or this could be hell." Heaven, because it was so close to the beach with lovely sunrise views over the water. Hell, because it was such soft and dirty sand that you had to drive through to get to the camping spots.

We didn't get bogged, but we did see one poor old bugger the following day become hopelessly trapped in the dry quick sand close by. Hopefully, the RACQ that he had waited on for a few hours were able to rescue him after we left.

The first night was good, apart from the annoying background rumble of generators until 9pm. We decided that we stay a second night. We had pleasant neighbours - Leon and Pam from Port Lincoln - but they decided to move on the next morning. That was a pity, because later the following day we came back to our site after a walk to find that a group of toothless boguns were setting up a small city of tents in the neighbouring spot to us. Hmmm, Saturday night; bunch of yobbos already drinking beer at 2pm... a quick decision was made and within half an hour we were out of there and looking for another place to spend the night.

Lovely spot on the foreshore of Carmila beach

Carmila beach at sunrise

First sunlight on the beach

Looking at our van from the beach

Sunrise over the low tide

After a late decision to move out of Carmila Beach, we needed to find a place for the night fairly quickly. We drove for longer than we wanted to but found a campsite at the back of a pub in Marlborough. Very basic facilities, but very cheap. We bought a serve of chips and gravy from the pub (take-away) to go with our tea of leftovers from the previous night. Marlborough is a very quiet little town. It may not be there for much longer...