19 - Onwards from Toowoomba QLD

Entry 19 – Onwards from Toowoomba Qld. – 25/9/18 – 10/10/18.

Leaving Toowoomba after experiencing its magnificent carnival of flowers, we slowly headed north without a set plan, at about the 45-kilometre mark we stopped at the town of Crows Nest where we ambled about, browsing a few shops for around an hour before continuing north. The farming country side was parched brown with only the occasional sighting of a few cows in sporadic paddocks. At about 100 kilometres it was enough travelling for the day, camping in the small sports grounds at Maidenwell.

Within half an hour of arriving at Maidenwell another caravan stopped setting camp nearby, (about 70 metres away) and Steve (just a bit excited) instantly recognised this rig from pre-retirement days. Part of our activities in the lead up towards our retirement was the planning of ‘what endeavours would we like to do.’ One of those activities we examined, travelling Australia with a caravan that provided comfortable independent living, for exploration of those special locations away from the fringe benefits (power, shops, etc) provided by urbanization. In those times the internet providing our main resource for research, with 1000’s of hours spent browsing through an infinite amount of information.

During this period, we had been inspired by the presentation of two blogs or as we prefer to call it, electronic journals of people’s travels. One titled NIK‘N’OFF, whom we have been thrilled to come across three times during our retirement travels, once in Queensland, Western Australia and in Adelaide. The other blog title called ‘Leigh and Mita’s travels.’ We now have met Leigh and Mita! And to add to the excitement, Leigh and Mita were another nice couple. Steve in his way just wanted to say thankyou for sharing their travel experiences providing inspiration for us.

That night from the time we closed our eyes to opening them, 12 hours had transpired. Our bodies had been feeling weary, in need of some rest from our last few hectic days of activities. It’s amazing the effect a good night’s sleep has on one’s body. We woke feeling quite spritely and after a fare well chat with Leigh and Mita we decided to spend the day in the nearby Bunya Mountains without the caravan in tow. Bunya Mountains is allegedly home to the largest bunya pine rainforests in the world.

There was a significant change in flora from the heights of the Bunya Mountains located about 30 kilometres up the road from Maidenwell to the flora seen at Coomba Falls located about 2 kilometres further down the road from Maidenwell. Both just as spectacular in a different way.

We didn’t have any defined plans for the next couple of months whilst waiting for our caravan repair appointment. Without any of those self-imposed pressures / itinerary we became quite relaxed enjoying the caravan / grey nomad lifestyle, dawdling around exploring those out of the way locations. We were still regularly, brain storming hypothetical ideas, what shall we do tomorrow or where could we go next week?

It was now spring with the weather to the south warming to more palatable conditions, helping to expand the focus for available destinations. One of those ideas was to catch up with our kids and granddaughter located about 1000 kilometres south of our current location. Utilizing modern communications, (phone) a chat with our kids, we were happily on our way to Canberra for a kids / family fix!

We were possibly a bit excited to be visiting our kids and didn’t consider any locations to visit nearby whilst travelling south. Before we knew it, we had travelled about 300 kilometres for the day spending the night at a free camp at Goondiwindi.

Passing through some of the small towns at times provide an enjoyable distraction enticing travellers to stop for a look, the below picture of Millmerran water tanks followed by a look around of the town.

Our initial focus for the stint of driving between Queensland and Canberra was to allow for some quality time to be spent at the Pilliga Hot Artesian Bath. In the morning it dawned on us we were in retirement mode, which means, ‘Slow Down.’ Researching options for the Goondiwindi area resulted with nothing jumping at us.

We did spend a couple of enjoyable hours walking around the Goondiwindi Botanic Gardens containing all native vegetation with an additional bonus of plenty of different types of birds about enjoying the native bushes.

We continued driving south planning to stop at the Narrabri Showgrounds and watch the AFL grand final with play due to start around our arrival time. Once at Narrabri we first stopped at the supermarket obtaining some football food and made our way to the showgrounds to find them closed to the public due to a horse event. It seemed we were destined to make our way to Pilliga Hot Artesian Bath and decided to continue driving listening to the football on the radio. We arrived at the end of the 3^rd quarter, jumped into the caravan, heated up some cocktail frankfurts and watched the last quarter of the match. What a great match to watch. Go Eagles!

The grounds were full of campers with lots of kids, kids riding motor bikes, one contraption with wheels and a motor fitted to an esky which the kids were constantly racing all around the camp ground. In retirement we had become naïve of the different time frames occurring around us, something to do with every day, a non-working day for us. We were informed it was school holidays and also a long weekend. Still fresh in our minds from having our caravan hit by a kid on an out of control motor bike earlier in the year we reversed our strategies from that time. Not parking at the furthest end away from the mob, this time parking at the end of the campground closest to the mobs. By the end of our second day it appeared our strategy may have been on track avoiding being terrorized by the motorised rebels. It was a noisy location with the air full of sounds, people talking, yelling, a mix of doof doof music, the sound of vehicles regularly entering & leaving the grounds and the constant sound of motor bikes motors screaming - mostly at the other end of the camp ground.

The pool was far more crowded than our previous visit nearly 3 months prior. As it transpired we found it to be unpleasant with fewer people in the water with kids being kids and more comfortable in the water with it crowded restricting the kid antics. Of course, those young troublesome children were never provided with any parental supervision.

Our bodies still appreciated the therapeutic qualities provided by the hot artesian water. Regardless of the people antics going on around us the artesian waters instilled a comfortable calming effect over our minds and bodies. It was still a truly amazing location.

Come Monday of the long weekend, some of the family groups had packed up and moved on. This made the bathing experience so much nicer. At one stage we noticed that there was only 1 person in the pool, back to the van and we quickly organised ourselves for a dip. That was so much more relaxing!

We were fortunate to experience some rain while we were at Pilliga. The locals were very excited due to the severe drought conditions at the time. Once we became aware of approaching rain we looked at the soil we were camped on and thought mmm, maybe we should move camp, not wanting to risk getting stuck with our rig sinking into water logged soil. We relocated to a vacated site on a small raised gravel area in the camp ground. So happy we moved - the rain came, and the water flowed through the camp ground flooding the area we had been parked on. A big motorhome nearby didn’t move initially but soon did, when the water started to pool around it. The rain didn’t affect our bathing where we appreciated the roof cover over the pool at the time not just for its provided shade but also keeping those cold drops of rain off our faces. The below pictures showing where we had previously ticked off the experience of being bogged from rain changing our dry camp surface conditions to a quagmire from a bit of rain in a nearby country location a couple of years prior and our move onto higher ground along with a photograph showing the sheltered pool.

An initial thought of 3 days at Pilliga progressed to 5 before needing to depart after 9 nights. Pilliga hot artesian bore bath was another one of those extra special locations, the longer you stayed the better it got, with the hot artesian waters bestowing a wonderful attire of soul karma. Averaging 3 – 4 immersions each day, experiencing a different mob with each dip, leading to the flow-on of many different varieties of conversation. Most days finishing with a beautiful bush sunset.

Mary searched our empty looking pantry and fridge for our last night’s meal at Pilliga. Resulting with a plough mans platter. One freshly cooked damper, half savoury, half sweet, cheese, celery, pickled onion, gherkin, spam and mango chutney. What a great meal to finish our stay at Pilliga hot artesian pool.

Leaving Pilliga, we travelled the shortest route (about 650 kms) to Canberra with two nights camped in roadside locations along the way.

It was time for our children and grandchild fix with the bonus of a look at the Canberra Floriade Festival in its final couple of days from a month of activities.