28 September 2009

Sept 18 Sept - 1 Oct, Mt Morgan - Hervey Bay

Friday 18 Sept we left Lake Maraboon around 9:10 - the road varied along the way, and there were lots of road trains. We arrived at Mt Morgan just after lunch and then went into town to the information centre, checked out the lookout, dam (saw some free campers at the dam and had a talk to then). The suburbs are spread out all over the town from when there were 16000 people here, now there are only close to 4000. Walked the one remaining suspension bridge – there used to be 6 in the town. Just before we walked over it we saw 3 teenagers with their horse walk over it!!!

The town has a town tour so we booked a tour for tomorrow and rang the blink man re the Internet connection. Very warm tonight, we will need to take the doona off soon.

This is a dark park, very dry all around, they need rain badly.

On Saturday we went on the TMC tour of Mt Morgan. Well worth it. The tour goes around the town, highlighting the suburbs that used to be eg Tipperary, Glen Gordon, named after the different nationalities that converged on the town when the mine was in full swing. There were 27 pubs in the town at the peak, 4 soft drink companies over the years, plus numerous lodges eg druids, masons, orange, royal blacks. Each year the town runs a Running the Cutter festival to celebrate the Running of the cutter that happened during the mines heyday. As the miners left the mine after a shift, a runner would be sent to the pubs with a billy, fill it up and it would be given to the miner, who then sat outside the pub drinking it before going home. The mine produced gold, silver and copper over the years. The tour also goes to the mine and we were shown the first drawings plus pictures of the first workings and then the open cut. Then down to the caverns and the dinosaur prints in the ceiling, bats also live in the caverns so it was a bit smelly. An excellent tour.

Sunday we rested it the morning (as you do on Sunday's) then went into town to the bakery and had a pie for lunch, then off to the historical museum. Well it was a surprise. The exhibits were excellent and they had stories to go with most of the items so it brought it to life. 2 hours later we left and we drove around and took some photos of the buildings in the town. Checked out the road out of town then back to the van.

Monday I used the dump point before we left, although it is a bit off putting having it there in the middle of the clothes line. The road out was steep and bumpy. A kombi van was burnt out along the road near Marmoor and we were in a traffic jam for 40 mins before we could pass.

I am still waving to all the trucks; they probably think ‘who is this weird woman waving at me’. Some wave back. Finally filled up at Miriam vale then onto Agnes Water Discovery Park which is just out of Agnes Water. Set up within 1/2 an hour, we are getting good at this. Nice park, nearly full, shady trees everywhere, we cannot use toilet to empty van toilet at they cannot take chemicals in their system. Very eco friendly park.

Agnes Water is the bigger of the two, 1770 really just a small fishing village. The 1770 camping ground is full of tents, lucky we didn’t go there. The other park at 1770 also looked full and is on a big sloping hill so glad we didn’t go there either.

Wednesday we took the doona off and left just the cover on as we were hot the night before.

During the next week we drove to 1770 most days and walked along the beach to the camping ground then back. A couple of days there were some wind surfers who were skating on the water with a parachute in the air. The wind was really strong and they were pelting along. Ian went fishing on some rocks – no luck. Met two girls from Holland who are on holidays, they were hoping to see the sunset over 1770 but we told them the camping ground was probably full so they went off to have a look.

We were a bit cold the night after we took the doona off so we put the green blanket on, see how that goes.

Next day, well that didnt work last night we were absolutely freezing, I got up and put the little blue blanket on, then our jackets on top, then a warm nightie (Ian didn’t have a nightie so he put on a tee shirt). This morning we put the doona back on so it will probably be hot tonight.

There are lots of kookaburras singing their songs in the mornings.





The sun set over the water at 1770 which was very nice although the dust reduced the red glow.


Sunday we moved onto Hervey Bay and that evening we had yummy lamb shanks for dinner cooked in the shuttle chef.

Monday we met with Trish and Terry and they took us to a shopping centre to buy some more books (I have read 14 books since the beginning of the trip so we needed at top up).

Tuesday we were off for a whale watching boat ride with the Tasman Venture. Saw lots of whales, one male standing on his head with tail out of the water and he was singing, he came up every 10 mins then back down again on his head.


There were lots of babies showing off, hitting the water with their tails and jumping up and falling down. One got really close and was laying on his back and his mum came over and took him away. I cant show the other pictures as they are just the splashes after the tail slapping etc.

On Wednesday Ian hired a bike and went for a ride to Urganda pier and back, 19kms. Then we visited Trish and Terry again and went to lunch. Late afternoon Ian went for another ride on his bike. they are picking the bike up in the morning so he is getting his money's worth.




Thursday we drove to Maryborough for the day. What a lovely park they have in town, huge Banyan/Indian national tree, some branches held up by struts. They have market day every Thursday and close off their main street, Sunday in the park is the last Sunday in the month with bands playing and trains running. Lots of lovely old buildings, pubs. Beautiful old Queenslanders everywhere.


16 September 2009

Sept 8-16, St George - Lake Maraboon

After leaving St George we travelled to Surat where we visited the Cobb & Co museum. The last Cobb & Co coach left here before everything then went by train. They used 6000 horses a day in Australia while Cobb & Co was working.

Onto Roma and found our CP and set up. Geoff and Nancye arrived about 3 and we had coffee outside our tent with them and chatted for a couple of hours. This is a nice park, the man said they have been full all week.

On Wednesday we went to the Big Rig with Nancye and Geoff. Ian and I did a tour of the oil patch, showing how oil and gas were found in Roma and continue to be drilled for. Very interesting. In the evening we had a BBQ and sat outside for awhile with Geoff and Nancye then went to their van and had port. Gee this is a hard life.

Thursday we went to the sale yards but missed the sales as there were only 700 head of cattle today. So we watched the weighing and sorting. Lots of gates and pushing and prodding of cattle.

After the yards we went to the Roma Bush gardens and walked around the small pond with Geoff and Nancye.

Ian can’t find his wallet and has searched the van and tug. He hurt is back last night stepping down from the van and found a massage therapist in town so he went to try her out. There is a small winery near the park so we went for a tasting in the afternoon. Only bought two bottles this time. Port with Nancye and Geoff in their van again. Yum

On Friday while we were hitching up, Ian found his wallet behind the TV when he was putting the TV away. Thank god we hadn’t reported it anywhere. So off we went to Carnarvon. The road was tar most of the way and we saw lots of emus. Surprisingly there was only 12kms of gravel, as the last we heard there was around 29kms. In some spots it was pretty corrugated and bad but the van handled it well. Before we hit the gravel we stuck some newspaper in the gauze door to stop the dust. Saw lots of wallabies on the side of the road on the way in.
Very dusty everywhere. At 7pm we went to a ranger slide show in the clearing just near us. Very interesting, he showed us how the gorge was formed and talked about the fauna and flora.


Saturday was walking day so we made a casserole in the shuttle chef before setting off for the information centre back up the road. Then from there we walked 3.5kms, over 8 creek crossings and thru very beautiful forests. We saw a wallaby standing on the path and had to shoo him to get him to move. We walked to a branch off the main track which took us 650mts to mossy gardens. This is where the sandstone leaks making lovely moss gardens. A beautiful waterfall nearby and little runoffs from the pool. The area was lovely and cool and the water freezing. We were tired when we got there and spent some time cooling down. There were lots of steep steps both up and down to get there and our legs were telling us so.

On the way back we met a number of people who had walked many if not all of the other walks i.e. 9.7kms one way plus, and were on their way back. By the time we got back to the car we had walked over 8kms and my bunion and Ian’s shins were letting us know we had walked that far. That evening we sat outside and had dinner with a bottle of red wine.

Sunday is rest day so that is what we did.


Monday we walked to the Rock Pool, then drove to the Mickey Creek carpark and walked to Mickey Creek gorge and Warrumbah gorge. Then back and went to baloon cave where there are rock paintings. Very nice. All up we did about 4,5 kms. Back about 11:15 and had lunch then partly packed up some of the van for departure tomorrow.


We left Carnarvon Gorge around 9am, along with many other vans. Once we reached the tar Ian stopped by the side of the road and put more air in Tom’s tyres. It was much warmer today. Stopped at Springsure for lunch and a look around. Lots of emus along the way, more photos. We saw a caravan that had rolled into a ditch on the road between Carnarvon and Rolleston. The vehicle wasn’t there and there were two men cleaning up.

We decided to stay at Lake Maraboon instead of into Emerald as the two van parks in Emerald didn’t have good write ups anywhere.. We set up and then went into Emerald to wash Tom, do some shopping and have dinner at a pub. We had lambs fry and bacon at the Emerald hotel, yum yum.




Wednesday is clean up day, washing of clothes, van both inside and out. Surprisingly there isn’t much dust inside so the van is well ventilated. The parrots here are amazing and hop all around the grass, drinking from the taps, chasing each other into trees.

Thursday we went into Emerald and Ian had the Jockey wheel fixed, then we went to the Botanic gardens and checked out the sculptured marbles, federation pillars and trees. Very dry gardens even though Emerald was flooded a few months ago. We also had a look at the mosaic footpath at the information centre, they have put a lot of work into their tourist items in this town.

04 September 2009

Sept 1-7, Canberra to Lightning Ridge

At last we're leaving. We stopped for lunch at Cowra and then visited Mrs Blackstock at Parkes. She is mum’s old friend and they have been writing to each other for 69 years, but haven’t seen each other for nearly 60 years. What a lovely lady, and 90 years old. It is Parkes' show day so we decided to go thru to Peak Hill for our first stop.


Along the way I started to wave to all the truckies on the way and 1 out of 5 would wave back. I reckon this is a good way to help the truckies to like caravaners.

We left Peak Hill around 9:30am and passed 90 caravans from Peak Hill to Gilgandra going south,about 130kms. Plus dozens of trucks. Ian started calling the ones going north on the cb to let them know when to pass. They all thanked us. I continued to wave to those going south and was having some success.


After setting up in Gilgandra we went into town. This is a small town with not many shops. Some had burnt down recently and there were renovations going on for a big IGA. We visited the Cooee info centre. Site of one of the marches for recruits in WW1. It was very windy overnight.


We had a blackout Tuesday night for about 2 hours; Ian wondered why the lights were out when he went to the loo. It was very windy leaving Gilgandra and got worse as we drove on, then the rain started so we had both. We could only drive about 80kph it was so bad. The roads were also bumpy and uncomfortable. . A few things got shuffled around in the van.










Coming into Gulargambone we were intrigued to see large galah's made from corrugated iron high on poles along the side of the road and in the park in town. The toilets also had large galah's painted on them and the caravan park's sign had them as well,. we saw hundreds of real birds, along with cockatoos, all around the town and on the roads into and out of.


We arrived in Lightning Ridge mid afternoon and after setting up we went to the info centre and checked out the town.


Today, the day we thought was Thursday but is actually Friday (this is what retirement does to you), we went on a red and yellow car door tour in LR. These tours you do from your own car and they have car doors marking where to turn etc. great, and all they cost is $1 from the info centre for the directions.


We travelled around some of the mine sites and there are caravans, tin sheds, old trucks and anything else you can think of that people live in while on the opal fields.



















Then we went on the Chamber of the Black Hand tour. A mine that has been converted into a series of caves and the owner has sculptures into the walls. He started about 8 years ago and he has Egyptian, animals, cartoon characters, musicians and many more, It is fabulous.






















They also sell opals from their mine and other mines in LR either as opals or in jewellery. Beautiful. They gave us demonstrations on how the miners used to dig out these mines, coming down the shafts by holes in the wall, wow, it was hard work. The guide told us it gets to about 25 degrees in the summer in the mines, when it is 45 -50 outside. He said the town empties out in summer and most of the people leave town to cooler climates.

In the afternoon we went to the Bottle House. A house made of bottles. It was started by a man many years ago and he slept in the loft above the one room. God it must have been hot in the summer. The present owner has built additional rooms on and added more collections – Avon bottles (now worth $70+), petrified wood, all sorts of gems, opals and of course bottles.


Later that afternoon we had a huge storm – lightning, thunder and pouring rain. In the middle of the storm Ian saw a man come running out of his caravan with a towel around his waist, run to his van and grab some material or towels and run back to his van. While running back he lost his towel and Ian saw his bare bum. We assume there was a leak in the man’s van, but don’t even want to go to reasons why he didn’t have any pants on. It rained for about 2 hours and the park was awash, with little rivers running everywhere and the cabins surrounded by water.

Saturday we went to the walk in mine and went down the mine. Watched a video on mining and had a demonstration on different opals etc., bought Ian a watch and some books on opals. In the evening we went to a Dig In camp oven dinner just out of town Beef stroganoff, lamb stew with bush herbs, potatoes, cauli and broccoli, and choc cake. Cooked by two aboriginal men who also entertained us with yarns and didgeridoo.

Sunday we spent an hour at the mineral baths and the afternoon washing. Beautiful day, clear blue sky, warm enough to be comfortable but not hot.