We experienced a good day when departing Canberra. We
commenced our days driving at about 9.10 am, travelling further than we had anticipated,
clocking up a bit over 450 kilometres, a big day for us, spending the night at
a free camping location in Gilgandra where we restocked our fridge. Admittedly
we were in bed by 7.30 pm. Then we were mobile the next morning at about 6.50
am arriving at our planned destination of Pilliga Hot Artesian Bore Bath by
9.30 am where we set camp and were immersing our bodies into the Artesian
waters by 9.45 am for our first calming dip for the day.
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| Some of the scenery on our drive |
Within a few hours we were feeling quite relaxed with our
bodies appreciating the soul calming properties provided by the hot artesian
waters with its mineral infusion qualities and the added bonus of many
conversations with other likeminded people sharing the pool, staying for three nights.
After a departure morning dip, we resumed our northern travels heading towards
one of this year planned destinations, still a couple of thousand kilometres
north of our present location.
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| A large mob of pelicans all taking it in turn to use the take off runway |
We chose to travel north along a route a few hundred
kilometres inland from the eastern coast of Australia travelling along one of
those less travelled routes at a more leisurely pace not having to constantly
monitor for other traffic around us where we got to enjoy viewing the country
side along our way. About 120 kilometres north we stopped for the night at a
free camp (with hot showers) on the outskirts of the small town of Collarenebri
where we stretched our legs walking around the town with the main street
consisting mostly of closed shop front business. We spotted what looked like some
old times wharf remnants on The Barwon River running alongside of the town.
As the afternoon progressed the camping area felt like it
was being swamped with people arriving, erecting something like around a dozen
plus tents whom all appeared to know one another. A truck with a couple of
horses and a horse drawn gypsy type wagon with “The Old Time Gospel,” written
across the wagon’s sides, also pulled up. It wasn’t long before someone was
playing a banjo accompanied by lots of chatter. We were standing outside
chatting with our neighbours when an elderly man approached us from the new
arrivals and started explaining they were on their annual pilgrimage promoting
the gospel and were about to join the horses and cart walking around the town.
Steve quickly spoke over the male’s voice distracting him from whatever sermon
we were about to incur with a few off-beat questions along the line, their set
up looked like something out of the movie, “Paint Your Wagon,” and was anyone
going to be singing the Lee Marvin song, “I was born under a wondering star?” The
conversation instantly changed to a few different movies and our visitor
wondered off with a smile on his face without completing whatever he was
planning to preach.
Within a few minutes we were on our way where we drove down
the main street not seeing a soul and wondering if the gypsies were going to
find someone to preach their gospel to.
As we were travelling along a non-main route, we did incur
about 100 kilometres of dirt road.
The roads were a graded clay surface, a surface we would not
be travelling along if there had been any indication of rain, as we weren’t
prepared to risk the heartache of getting stranded on a boggy road. We still
travelled at a slow rate of speed, at times up to around 50 kph and still
managed to leave a large dust cloud trail behind us.
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| Just wouldn't be the same, driving in outback Australia without a Kangaroo jumping out in front of you. |
I thought the passenger was taking the photo’s?
Ah the next photo explains the reversed picture.
We were travelling along some new routes for us with a
planned stop at Mungindi only to find their camp ground closed for repairs, so
we continued up the road a bit, stopping for the night at Thallon. Another day
spent clocking up around 121 kilometres. Thallon camping area had a great
setting with the painted silo art displaying sheep of the district in the back
ground and we experienced a mob of live sheep wandering around our caravan
enhancing a great setting.
Leaving Thallon, we managed to cut back on our travelling
distance stopping at the Nindigully Pub located about 30 kilometres up the
road. Nindigully is a pub in the bush with a large free camping area located on
the banks of the Moonie River. Though we still had to be on the alert for road
hazards on our drive to Nindigully.
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| Our camp on left of picture |
Interestingly on our first night at Nindigully there were
two other Bushtracker caravans of a similar vintage to ours. None knew one
another but we all managed to get together at the pub for happy hour with a
constant flow of conversation, continuing into the evening still at the pub
where we all ordered pizza for tea. One of those four-hour plus happy hours.
For us Nindigully was a great setting with up to 30
different traveller rigs arriving each day, most departing the following
morning. We spent three nights relaxing at Nindigully moving on to St George
where we restocked our provisions, staying for two nights at the small township
of Surat, a location we were hoping might be quiet for the initial start of
Easter long weekend. Surat had a lovely walking path alongside a river which we
enjoyed all to ourselves in a lovely bush setting. We spent time in the town’s
museum enjoying our time spent in the towns free camp.
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| First you skirt the wool |
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| Then you press the wool |
It was Easter Friday leaving Surat. The roads were much
quieter with noticeably fewer heavy transport vehicles about and a light
traffic flow of holiday people moving around. Stopping at the Injune
information centre for a break while browsing through some of the available
information on local attractions, a couple of nearby national parks caught our
attention, Lonesome and Nuga Nuga National Parks. Both were nearby our northern
travelling route, located on the eastern side of Carnarvon Highway in the
vicinity of the very popular Carnarvon National Park (on the western side of
the Carnarvon Highway.) Lonesome lookout provided rewarding views of the below,
Arcadia Valley. The campground was deserted looking very lonesome and we
decided to continue north through Arcadia Valley to Lake Nuga Nuga which
involved around 50 kilometres of dirt roads / tracks.
The tow tug and caravan were covered in a layer of fine dust
by the time we arrived at Lake Nuga Nuga which was quickly disregarded with a
most magnificent setting taking all of our attention.
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| Where did the Echidna go? |
In the morning we watched the Easter full moon setting on
the western side of the lake with the sun rising from the eastern side.
With the morning still young we took a two hour walk around,
viewing our nearby area of the lake. The bird chatter around us was quite loud
and there were the constant mobs of kangaroo’s scattering around us. It was a
delightful setting and we thought it prudent to stay a second night.
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| Trees were supporting plenty of bird nests |
Late morning the clouds started to build up. The temperature
was hovering about 30 C. Steve was under the caravan repairing a broken hand
brake cable that we had found dragging on arrival at the camp ground. He saw
Mary’s legs running about where she was shutting all the car doors. Unbeknown
to Steve it had started to rain. After several showers of rain over a short
period of time, we decided to err on the side of caution and depart, not
wishing to get stranded at Lake Nuga Nuga on this occasion anyhow. By 12.30 pm
we were all packed, caravan repairs were complete and we were on our way
watching the rain in the distance.
Luckily, we didn’t strike any substantial rain till we were
motoring along the main bitumized highway. When we stopped for the night, we
saw our dusty rig had changed to a muddy looking rig. Ironically down a side
road from our camp location was a truck washdown area which we utilized the
following morning.
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| A clean rig does look nice. |
Springsure was our stop for that night with a beautiful back
drop setting. Both the main mountain peaks were lit up by spot lights into the
night, extending a special setting into the hours of darkness.
A couple of days later we took some time out for a look
around Charters Towers. We had a work out walking up Tower Hill for views of
the local setting.
Another great roadside stopover a bit north of Charters
Tower was at a location called Fletcher Creek. We arrived mid afternoon on
Easter Monday, after the exodus of a large volume of Easter campers.
We had a requirement to travel a quantity of kilometres, to
progress to our next targeted location to fulfil time lines. This entry, number
4 could easily have been a one liner, showing we left Canberra, travelling
around 3,000 kilometres to our next destination just over a two-week period. It
could have been a dull boring drive. We chose to constantly research our
proposed route, on a near daily ritual and be, not afraid to zig zag a bit,
exploring some other locations not far from our direct route. We did enjoy
plenty of special scenery, helping to break up the monotony of driving chores. During
this period, we chose to concentrate on driving over the Easter long weekend,
avoiding the crush of people that do impact those special locations one would
normally camp at.
There were the hundreds of Queensland power poles all
leaning towards the east. It was rather peculiar and even the country side was
a lush green, very different to the parched country side we had been viewing
over the last few years.
We arrived at our planned destination of Atherton
Tablelands, inland from the coastal town of Cairns, North Queensland. An area
we were hoping to explore for a period of time.
