5th May 2012 – Charleville, Tambo, Blackall.

There is something about our older outback towns that simply grabs your heart and mind. Charleville does just that.  The shopping precinct is nothing special; that 3500 people have such basic retail opportunities is surprising.  More so that only a few of the buildings are worth a second look, and yet the town just has a zing and appeal.

Hotel Coronas - A fine pub, and Charleville's most impressive building

Just which way did you say I should go?

It doesn’t matter which route you choose to get there, you need to traverse many kilometres of scrub with little visual excitement.

Typical sunset @ Charleville - so common it becomes boring.

While this may be seen as good reasons to avoid the town, there is one giant reason not only to drop in if you’re in the area, but to take enormous detours to go there.  The Charleville Cosmos centre is an amazing facility that both explains (in really simple but informative steps) the structure of the universe and then offers the chance to look at it through the wonder of powerful telescopes.

We were totally gobsmacked by what we were able to see – that little star is really a cluster of small stars, and the moon does really have many craters. As a finale’ we were able to see something that must rate as a lifetime memorable moment: Saturn, in all its glory. The rings of Saturn were crystal clear as were the shadows cast by the rings upon the planet.

Cosmos Entry area (sorry, cameras not allowed inside)

After 3 nights, we pushed north to Blackall, and while stopped for lunch at Tambo we went for a walk. This little walk resulted in us adopting a new travelling companion (at a price). Ever since we have been travelling we have been accompanied by “Harry”, a teddy bear that came into Shirl’s life 8 years ago while at Harrods of London. When leaving Brisbane a week ago, I discovered that we had picked up a ‘hitch-hicker’:  Lady Millicent Cholmondeley, who goes by the name of Millie now shares our journey. Our new Tambo Teddy (Nash) simply jumped off the shelf and into Shirl’s arms – that’s her story!

Harry on the left, Nash (Harry's new friend), Milly on Harry's knee

Two nights at Blackall enlightened us to their famous son Jackie Howe the shearer.  Way back when sheep were shorn with hand shears, Jackie managed to relieve 321 sheep of their wool within 7 hours and 40 minutes (1 minute, 26 sec each). The week before he had shorn 1437 sheep in 44 hours & 30 minutes (standard working week) – this works out at just under 1 min 52 secs each. The daily record was not broken for 58 years, and then only with machinery shears. While in Blackall we also took the chance to visit Australia’s last steam driven Wool Scour – I bet that confuses you!  This ‘factory’ was used to wash the wool prior to sale. The depth and vigour of the manual labour needed to keep this monster of mechanical marvel running is mind-boggling. Even keeping the wood fired steam engine in fuel produced mind numbing thoughts – it consumed 15 ton of Gidgee wood per day, and that had to be cut with an axe (no chainsaws back then!). The wood was so hard that an axe needed to be resharpened every hour – to save time the axemen started work with 10 axes already prepared.

Jackie Howe's Grave.

Noting the volumes of dirty wool that were processed, plus the smell of the animal fat used as machinery lubricant, the smell must have been unbearable.

Many towns in Australia lay claims to be the home of the “Black Stump” – that place that defines here, and there, and beyond the black stump. Blackall has one of the better claims given that it has some form of official imprimatur. When Blackall was being formally established, an old tree stump was used as an official survey marker to define just what the boundaries of local towns, shires, and free land were. The original has long rotted away so the locals have replaced it with a petrified log from the local area.

Nash, sitting on the Black Stump

Road between Charleville & Tambo

Road between Tambo & Blackall

Arrived at Barcaldine 5^th May.



1 May 2012 – Broken Head, Brisbane, Miles.

Our stay at Broken Head was quite idyllic as the caravan park was set into a temperate rainforest and faced directly onto a magnificent 7km beach. Neither Shirl nor I are surfers, but even our non expert eyes could tell that it was a surfing ‘hot spot’. Each day the car park near the caravan park entrance was filled from dawn to dusk. We were somewhat bemused by the preponderance of bald and/or grey heads among the board riders. Age and experience had clearly drawn them to this spot – or maybe it was the other 50% who were wearing bikinis.

Just 7km up the road at Byron Bay, the bikinis outnumbered all others combined. I’m sure that the average age would struggle to go over 25.

On the headland overlooking Byron is one of the most impressive lighthouses that you can imagine. When standing at this point, you are on the most easterly place in Australia. While this may be impressive geographically, it doesn’t match the impressive view – drop dead gorgeous, or even better than that!

If you go further  East than this, you get wet.

The last few days were somewhat wet with heavy rain each night, followed by scattered showers each day.  This didn’t stop my daily beach walks, but it did reduce the number of board riders. Only the most intrepid braved the much bigger waves.

After a week of this life we moved north to Brisbane where we parked on the nature strip outside our son (and daughter in law) house.

What a busy time. Every day was filled with things to do. Firstly a night out at “Outback Australia” (Gold Coast), then the A League Premiership soccer (ok, football for the purists) Grand Final the next evening.  Shopping, grand kid’s footy matches and other stuff.  And, sitting over all this was the joy of working with Gael to build her a new workbench. It is truly a work of great art!

                      

A Grand Final Crowd.

Note the use of safety boots!

Sunday the 29^th and we were on the road again. Up the climb from just north of Brisbane to Yarraman then eventually to the town of Miles, we booked into “Possum Park” for a night. This place is set in 350 acres of natural bush which has 20 or so former World War 11 ammunition bunkers some having been converted to cabins. The nature aspects were highlighted whilst we were sitting around a campfire; a possum calmly wandered in, paused to look at the fire, and walked off.

Beyond Miles the countryside is relatively flat with just a series of ‘jump ups’ where the land undulates with low rises every few kilometres. Initially the vista is of wide open cropland with short sections of scrub. Beyond Muckadilla the mulga and Brigalow scrub becomes the standard with short grazing sections. Of interest was that the dreaded Prickly Pear was spotted this far out. As we pushed further west we expected to strike a more sparse country, but instead found the final 120 – 150 km to Charleville was all thick scrub.

The dreaded Prickly Pear

Beyond the small town of Mitchell we came across numerous ‘Triple Road-Trains’. Initially we tensed up a little when one of these monsters approached, but after the first dozen or so they were nothing more than another truck – albeit, a very long one.

Of greater difficulty were the kangaroos – road-kill roos. Clearly the nightly truck traffic has an impact (pun intended) among the roo population. We stopped counting well over 100 (plus a few pigs).  Many of these carcases are lying right in the middle of the road such that you must veer onto the opposite side of the road to get around them. Murphy’s Law says that this is the exact moment another truck will be approaching – bugger.

Now at Charleville.

16 April 2012 - Canberra, Sydney, Gloucester, Nambucca

Well, it has finally happened. We are on our way to another adventure.

This time we are heading north to Brisbane, then turning inland through outback Queensland and onward and upward to Darwin. Following some time exploring Kakadu and Katherine we will push westward to Broome, thence follow the West Australian coast down through places such as Port Hedland, Exmouth (Ningaloo Reef), Carnarvon, Monkey Mia, to Perth.

We’ve been at home for four months and thoroughly enjoyed – no, revelled in – the family contact.  It is amazing how much we miss the regular interaction with the family – it must be hell for folks who live in far off places and away from their family.

The last month seemed to be racing forward, whilst we simultaneously tried to control a whirlwind of activity preparing the van and Landcruiser for our trip. Sitting over the top of this, we engaged in an endless series of social parties and BBQ’s.

Finally, eventually, at long last, we hitched up the van on 30^th March and set off for Sydney. Three more days of social engagement found us totally exhausted, and as much as we care for all our relatives, we were somewhat pleased to head north to Gloucester (with a pleasant mid trip coffee stop shared with my brother and his family).

Gloucester is a small town of about 2500 people, and located at the base of the Barrington Tops high plateau. This high country consists of wild and rugged gorges and ranges, and as we were surprised to find, is apart from the Alps the highest plateau in Australia. We spent a full day exploring the tops, and can easily confirm just how rugged and awesomely magnificent they are.

View from the Tops

The town of Gloucester is quite typical of mountain towns/villages with a strong focus on local community – you don’t see many big city butcher shops advertising that they will kill and dress your own beasts!  I offered them our neighbours dog, but couldn’t arrive at a $$$ value.

Fascinated to see that they have their own version of a triathlon – with no large waterway suitable for the swimming leg, they have replaced it with a kayaking section down one of the rapid rock strewn local mountain streams. Likewise, they are a bit short of flat country for the run leg, so they have the competitors run up a mountain, then ride down it (via a few really big uphill diversions) – tough folk these mountain people.

Friday 6^th April and we were again on the road – this time to the beach side town of Nambucca Heads. Our caravan park is set on a headland above what seems an endless beach and beside a beautiful river estuary.

Not too far inland from Nambucca is the village of Taylors Arm – this is the site of the original ‘Pub with no beer’ referred to in the famous song by Slim Dusty. The song relates to a time in the 1950’s when floods had cut the access road, and thus it was interesting that when we attempted to head up there, the road was cut due to a landslide from recent floods – our four wheel drive ensured that we got through.

Lunch at the pub was really good – far better menu than we expected. In keeping with the ‘Pub with no beer’ theme, Shirl had a Lemon, Lime & Bitters, and I had a Tooheys.

Moonlight on the Beach - romance still flourishes!

Those who read our blog of October 2011 may recall that we had an issue with shower gels. We have again experienced such a dilemma where, at Woolworths we were faced with a cornucopia of exotic options and confusion. We finally decided to go for the Mango and Grapefruit after seriously considering Egyptian Violet and Elkmi. We were simply too scared to take the giant step into Egyptian Violet – Australian, English or French would’ve been okay, but we’re not quite ready for, well, something so wild and esoteric as Egyptian (lol).

 Off to Broken Head tomorrow – not really a village, but a camp area about halfway between Ballina and Byron Bay.

This post is quite late.....yes, I know, but I can’t do anything about an almost total lack of internet access at Nambucca and Broken Head. Sorry.

11 November 2011 – Bairnsdale, Mallacoota, Home.

Sorry for the late . . . . . . .  . make that ‘very late’, update of the blog.  We are now at home, and have been for three weeks.

We spent Melbourne Cup day at the Bairnsdale racecourse and, firstly, had a really enjoyable time and secondly, were amazed by the size of the crowd.  Also of interest was the fashions worn by the different age groups. I assume that every Melbourne Cup Day race meeting holds a series of “Fashion Parades” and that most are conducted more in merriment and fun than in any seriousness.  So it was at Bairnsdale.

The clothes chosen by the majority of younger men were clearly from the cheaper racks, and those of the young ladies were selected by the amount of flesh that could be exposed (I don’t have any objection to this!).  As the people within the main category ascended to dais, it was obvious that a lot more money had been spent, and a huge increase in style was apparent from both genders.

Race Day crowd at Bairnsdale

We were fascinated to see just how many race meetings were available for betting.  Every major city and almost every provincial town had races that were being displayed upon the huge trackside screen.

We lost $70 on the Cup – although not to worry, we’ll just sell one of the kids into bondage.

Prior to leaving Bairnsdale, we took the opportunity to drive up to Omeo and revisit some old memories. 33 years ago we took the kids to Omeo, and other Gippsland places,  for their first big camping trip. The campground has changed in many ways, but is still quite recognizable as the one we stayed at. Where once there was a fairly wide and shallow river running beside the park, it has now become so overgrown with weeds that access to the water is almost impossible. Another change is the introduction of power and water poles to each site such that it now resembles every other caravan park. Gone is the rustic rural campground where there were no powered sites and water was carried from the communal tap.

 Omeo Caravan Park

 The Mighty River (now but an overgrown shadow of its former glory)

Shirl finally got a close-up photo of an Echidna

From Bairnsdale we moved to Mallacoota where, after booking into our chosen park, we did a quick drive around to discover the ‘lay of the land’. What we found must rate as one of the largest caravan parks in Australia. This park extends around the foreshore of the entire Mallacoota village – it has numerous ‘personal jetties’ that are rented out to those who are occupying a park site.  Mallacoota Inlet is quite spectacular in appearance in that it has many small sand based islands, together with larger vegetated ones. As low tide arrives, many sand banks are exposed which explains why the place is a mecca for the Flathead and Whiting fisherfolk.

I went out on a charter boat one day and was quite astounded by the vast sea grass beds and the relative ease of getting a few flathead (amazing how easy thing become when you do them the correct way!).  If you have a boat, this is a truly outstanding water way.

This Park extends for .................. ever.

On our last day we drove up to Gypsy Point (about 20km) and went on an eco style boat trip. The ‘Capt” was quite astounding in that he could locate tiny birds and water dragons from far greater distances than we could see. We had trouble seeing the log he was pointing to, let alone the 2 inch long dragon camouflaged upon it. Perhaps the biggest ‘party trick’ was where he fed the sea eagles – spotted a pair up in a dead tree, motored over toward them, grabbed a dead fish from a bucket, grabbed a BIG syringe and began injecting the fish.  When asked by a passenger “what are you injecting into it?”, he replied “Heroin, it keeps them coming back!”.  The reality is that he was injecting air into the fish so that it would better float.

The birds began circling above the boat until he tossed the fish about 5 metres away. The birds were swooping before the fish hit the water, and their attack had pinpoint accuracy and was awesomely spectacular. Something to remember.

 They start here!

and they hit with massive speed, accuracy, and vigour

Thursday was moving day – hitched up in pouring rain, drove off in pouring rain, continued driving in pouring rain until we were we up the climb towards Bombala. We stopped for the night at Nimmitabel (at 1100 metres altitude) – not the warmest location in Australia.  The campground is a self managed council one where you drive in, set up, ring a osted number and a guy pops over to give you the special key code to access the secure water key.

Nimmitabel is a bit sad really. Here we have a very old Aussie town that has some real history, but modern life is killing it. Even the pub has closed, and the one remaining club closes at 6:00pm – no meals!  Apart from having a great (make that a real great) bakery, the town has very little business remaining.

The following morning, Friday 11^th, we arrived home after 8 months on the road.

The work of unloading and re-establishing life in a big house has now started.

Thanks to all those who have followed the blog – I’ll do one more post of the basic stats from our trip this year, then it’ll be bye from me, and bye from her, until next March/April when we head off again.

30 October 2011 – Geelong, Mornington, Port Albert, Bairnsdale.

One of the odd little things about being ‘on the road’ is that you are forced into purchasing a number of products that you normally wouldn’t.  For example, different brands of shower body wash. We all have our favourites: we buy them month after month, year after year, and unless some major event occurs that forces us to change, we will always buy the same brand.  Well, the bad news is that when you go caravanning every brand of, . . . . . well, everything, is not available in every town.

Thus I need to ask: have you had a look, a really serious look at the current range of shower body shampoos?  It’s like looking at a fruit shop product list – ‘watermelon & lime’, Shea Butter & Mango’ (what is Shea Butter?), ‘Quince & Celery’, or ‘Vanilla & Cinnamon with hints of Cumin’.

Shirl & I needed a new thingo of body shampoo, so during our next shopping spree, we paused at the 23 shelves of such things. Confused by the vast array of options, we drew upon our prolific wine tasting experience to assist our deliberations.

As I tested the first, I noted to Shirl that it had a decided after feel of mango on the neck, with a soft fruity berry remnant in the lower stomach area, combined with a hint of passionfruit under the jaw. Shirl replied that the one she was testing had a soft, almost gentle feel of spice upon her breasts, coupled with the merest hint of citrus behind her knees. I selected the next bottle and liberally applied it and discovered that it had the most delightful lingering feel of fresh watermelon to my face, and simultaneously offering an almost deep and ephemeral long lasting infusion of Shea butter to the groin area (I simply must do more research on this Shea Butter).

We were quite lucky in that we had just agreed on a lovely little bottle of Cumquat & Lychee, with an infusion of crushed pomegranate seed exfoliation gems, when we realised that a number of the staff at the Geelong branch of Coles were taking an inordinate degree of interest in us. We moved on to another aisle!

Geelong is like so many former industrial cities as they drive themselves forward from their grimy history into a great rebirth.  For Geelong, this means that the former wool sales, transport, and mills have elegantly transmogrified into art centres, museums, and education facilities.

No boring wharf bollards at Geelong.

We thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent at the Wool Museum which covered the entire production from the sheep husbandry, types, and development, through the shearing and culminated in the transformation from shorn wool to finished product.

The second museum that we visited was of more interest to me than to Shirl – the Ford Museum.

For the trivia buffs, Ford’s sponsorship of Geelong AFL team is the World record for a single sporting team – 1935 or 76 years. Some vehicles of interest that are on display include the very first utility (1934 Ford), the original Ford Territory mock-up on a Falcon chassis, and the only car that Craig Lowndes has ever owned: a Ford Cortina.

In its day, the World's fastest 4 door sedan.

In its day, one of the World's slowest sedans!

We left Ocean Grove and headed to Mornington via the Queenscliff to Sorrento ferry.

Exiting the ferry

I suppose one of the oddest things that we have noticed here are the beaches. There are absolutely no waves; none. Maybe this is a caused by the extremely shallow water in that you need to wade out for a very great distance before your bum gets wet.  This makes it really good for the little kids who splash and play with a high level of safety.  Meanwhile, many of the young adult couples wade out to groin level and just stand there and cuddle - - - yep, cuddle.  Is this some form of Melbournian mating ritual?  Perhaps some strange public accepted form of foreplay. Or simply a sharing of body warmth.

Should anyone be visiting the Melbourne area, we must recommend, no, make that most highly recommend that you take the time to spend at least a full day in the Mount Dandenong area. Our visit coincided with a quirk of weather that provided the most impressive backdrop to the mountain.  It had rained the night before, and the morning was very light misty rain. As we climbed the mountain, we drove into thick fog and mist which set off the rain forest clad terrain to perfect effect.  The town of Olinda almost consumed our kids entire inheritance as Shirl flitted from shop to shop looking at the most diverse range of craft and oddities. Lunch was also pretty special.

After lunch my wallet and I decided that we needed respite from the retail opportunities, and thus, found our way to the “The William Rickart Sanctuary”.  In 1934 William purchased a bush block in the rain forest, and set about creating ceramic statues and attaching them to trees, stumps, or left them free standing within the forest. The results are outstanding.

what a backdrop.

Fired up by this cultural experience, we pushed on to the National Rhododendron Gardens where we were entranced and gob-smacked by the extensive variety of rhododendrons, azaleas and, other plants from the same genus. Our timing was almost spot-on as the flowering was just past its prime – 2 weeks earlier would’ve been perfect. Maybe 10 to 20% of the blooms were starting to wither, but the broad effect was still stunning. Rather than walk, we chose to use the small bus to get around. This proved to be a wise decision as the gardens range in altitude of 150 metres and the paths measure just over 5 kilometres.

Rhodedendrons

No caption needed

Another must see on Mornington Peninsula is Point Nepean, or the eastern headland of Port Phillip Bay.  Until a few years ago the entire headland was restricted because of the presence of defence activities, plus the quarantine station. Both are now closed, and the National Parks have taken control.

Of trivial interest is that the first allied shot of WW1 was fired from the big gun on the point. Word was received that war had been declared just as a German registered ship was about to exit the bay, so it was signalled to go about and when it continued steaming towards open water, a shot was fired across its bows. It turned about. Even more amazing is that this very same gun fired the first allied shot of WW2, and in very similar circumstances. It was the only times that the gun was ever fired.

The quarantine station is an eye opener. We found it remarkable that even in such a place, they needed to maintain the separation of the classes – first class, second class, and steerage were provided different accommodation(s).  This is even more fascinating when you consider that there were 3 types of quarantine: those who were definitely infected, those who were under watch because the doctors weren’t sure, and those who were free from infection. Thus 9 groups had to be fed, clothed, and housed.

The disinfection unit - everything went through this.

Hospital Unit 3

On our way back to the van, we paused at the Maze Gardens – two traditional hedge mazes, a great circular rose maze, and a delightfully perfumed lavender maze. I bet you’re waiting for me to say it was amazing! The truly amazing thing is that Shirl, who gets lost going to the ensuite, took to this fun place with relish. She couldn’t find her way out of course, but she giggled like a school girl and really enjoyed herself. 

Hedge Maze

Shirl conquers the Lavender

Ian lays waste to the rose maze

We really liked Mornington and have now added it on our list of places to which we will return.

Beach huts at Dromana

Thursday (27^th) and we set off for Port Albert which is one of the oldest ports in Victoria. We chose this tiny little village to seek isolation from the hordes of “Long Weekend, Family Getaways” (Melbourne Cup on Tuesday = unofficial long weekend).  Upon arriving we found that this weekend is the annual ‘Snapperfest’ fishing tournament, so our isolation is not quite so.

Our nearest neighbour at Port Albert

Inland from Port Albert is the Tarra Valley and the Tarra Bulga National Park. Thirty three years ago we and our 4 boys camped at a caravan park located well up into the valley. We also visited the NP both in daylight and at night where we very quietly waited for the possums to come out and timidly be hand fed.  The greatest pity is that the boys remember very little of the trip – waste of damn time taking kids anywhere, bah humbug!

Tarra Bulga Nat Park

Entrance / Exit Tarra Bulga Nat Pk