Leaving Canberra, we started driving at 9.30 am with a
hypothetical destination of Geurie Sports Grounds
about 400 kilometres north which was located about 30 kilometres south east of
Dubbo.
The weather forecast prediction
was for significant rain fall along our intended route. Initially it was
pleasant driving conditions aided by overcast skies and pleasurable scenery. We
even got to see humpty dumpty in his fallen position.
Early afternoon the skies
darkened with some threatening looking cloud formations similar to many of those
tornado movies we have been exposed to over recent years. The 1st
below picture shows a narrow black cloud formation appearing to reach down
towards the land. It is directly over the left corner of our vehicle mirror.
The cloud formations certainly looked intimidating and we endeavoured to put as
much distance as quickly as we could away from that area.
About 10 minutes after taking the
above photo’s the trees around us began to move about rather fiercely followed
by heavy rain. The noise from the rain and water covered road was very loud, where
we immediately were on the alert for a safe roadside stopping location.
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| our view between window wipers operating flat out |
We stopped in a parking area
about 50 metres away from the edge of the road, sprinted into the caravan where
we obtained some calming medication, home-made pasties, (left over from tea)
followed by an afternoon siesta. About 1 ½ hours later the rain stopped and
with the time at about 5 pm our thoughts were for consideration of our camp
location for the night.
The passing traffic noise was
loud, (exacerbated by wet roads) and we decided to continue driving for about
an hour to the quieter camp located at the sports grounds at Geurie where we
had a lovely peaceful night.
That same day Prince Harry and
his bride Meghan were visiting Dubbo for the day and in that last hour of
driving we saw many police vehicles heading away from Dubbo, providing some
different scenery viewing.
A morning check on the BOM site
for our planned route north showed the weather forecast had changed from the
previous days prediction for one day of rain over the next week to daily rain
over the next seven days. With the map book out we explored other route options,
which in our mod-con world now included weather predictions for the week along each
route. As it transpired our best “weather,” option was the route we had
previously travelled to Pilliga Hot Artesian Baths which we thought we had
already utilized extensively enough for the year. The hot artesian waters won
out again, but it wasn’t all smooth driving. We still got wet and needed to
stop to let some rain pass.
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| Not a happy Mary |
When we arrived at Pilliga Hot
Artesian Baths there were no vehicles parked on the larger clay parking surface
with the small raised gravel area congested with other campers. We found a spot
on the outer edge of the gravel area with our closest neighbours arriving a few
hours prior whom had gotten bogged when they travelled just off the edge of the
gravel only to end up sinking into the soft wet clay soil, taking 2 hours to
get out of the bog. Apparently most of the camp ground occupants came out with
their deck chairs to watch them digging out of the bog providing plenty of
encouragement. Evidently the previous night about 36 mm of rain had flooded the
camp ground.
The following morning most
campers moved out and we relocated to a more pleasant safer location in the
camp ground. It was still very nice soaking in the artesian water. The ambient
air temperature had risen by nearly 10 degrees during the day since our last
visit making the hot artesian pool feel a bit on the muggy side.
Most week-end evenings into the
early hours of the following mornings the pool would be occupied by the
“locals,” which sadly came with an anti-social element, thus late afternoons Friday,
Saturday and Sunday we kept away from the pool area till the following morning.
One of the hot evenings the pool was quiet, and we decided to experience a
night dip for ourselves. Our night time dip turned out as our most pleasurable
dip due to the cooler night air conditions whilst in the hot artesian waters.
Luck was on our side that evening as a mob of the locals showed up shortly
after we got out of the water and it wasn’t long before they started squabbling
amongst themselves.
Around 3 pm on the Saturday the
skies became very dark accompanied by plenty of lightning strikes. It was very
noisy where we were surrounded by the sound of thunder for about 15 minutes
before the clouds dumped a lot of rain on top of us. The subsequent flooding
vilified our decision to change from our initial planned route to camp on a non-clay
surface with the predicted rainfall. Our fingers were crossed hoping the wet
might deter some of the Saturday night hoon element which was one of our
initial reasons for not planning to travel via the Pilliga route due to
closeness of a week end. A bonus provided by the rainfall, we were presented
with some great additional water views.
We still thoroughly enjoyed our
time in the Pilliga Hot Artesian Baths appreciating the therapeutic qualities
it provided for our bodies. There were the constant good conversations with
many other happy pool occupants and yes predominately around week end time you
needed to utilize various strategies with the people out for a good time lacking
consideration for others. It seemed around October the volume of visitors dramatically
dropped, possibly due to the increasing day time temperatures in this region of
Australia with most days around 30 C during our stay.
With predicted day time
temperatures rising into the mid to high 30’s it was time to move on, though we
still spent 5 nights at Pilliga. We headed north aiming for another new
location for us, Boomi a small town west of Goondiwindi, taking a couple of
days to cover the required 400 kilometres. Boomi had a small gravel surfaced
caravan park with a swimming pool and artesian bath alongside. Unfortunately,
its opening hours had been shortened due to now winter time, 1 – 6 pm, it was
10 am with nothing else to entice us to stay so we didn’t.
We headed north travelling along some
quiet back roads eventually stopping for the day at Meandarra. There were two
camp ground options, one $10 with power for three nights or the caravan park
for $10 a night with power. Another small town doing their best to attract
tourists. We chose the lesser crowded caravan park thinking one night would do
us. We had a lovely chin wag with a couple staying in the caravan park whom
provided the route for a nice walk around the outer perimeter of the town. What
a lovely walk it was where we got to view the towns rubbish dump, cemetery,
sports grounds, and a beautiful cement walking path along the towns river edge
with several bench tables and through the town centre. It was a great way to
explore the town and we almost wished it wasn’t quite as hot, 34 C where we
could have stayed longer, exploring the area further.
Continuing north east along back
roads at a slow pace we eventually stopped for the night at Wooroolin, the
location of a wetlands with plenty of bird life to view. We enjoyed time spent
in a bird hide watching the birds moving about in the wetlands. The campground
was on a busy road accompanied by lots of noise, something we rarely experience
travelling along back roads. We decided to move up the road to a quieter
location.
Just as we were pulling out of
our camp site our phone rang. It was the caravan repairer enquiring if we would
still like to have our repair date brought forward. That was a “YES PLEASE.” It
was Friday midday with a request to drop our caravan at the repairers the
following Monday at 7 am. Before proceeding any further, we got our laptops out
and researched available options for accommodation via the internet while the
caravan was having repairs over the following two weeks. With our faces glued
to the computer screens over the next couple of hours, several phone call
enquiries, we finally secured a rental house at Coolum Beach in the Sunshine
Coast about 100 kilometres north of Brisbane and around 15 kilometres from the
caravan repairer.
We continued driving north
towards the sunshine coast stopping at a couple of small towns searching shops
till we found one with some cheap storage bags for our clothing, linen and gear
requiring removal from the caravan. Murgon our camp location for the Friday and
Saturday nights where we prepared ourselves for moving out of our home,
(caravan) for a couple of weeks.
Sunday, we travelled about 170
kilometres to our rental home where we transferred some gear out of the caravan
freeing up areas we anticipated they may need access for repairs. Monday we
were mobile to the caravan repairer at 6 am leaving our caravan with them for the
next two weeks to complete repairs.
