Dalby and the Bunya Mountains

View from Look Out

John and I had a lovely weekend with Glenn, Ali and the children. They took us for a Sunday morning drive over to Caloundra and the beach areas, ending up at the local Strawberry Fields, where we enjoyed coffees and later strawberry ice creams. We spent most of the time with them  just talking and enjoying our stay.

Strawberry Fields

 It’s always hard to say goodbye, however I’m hoping they all come for a visit next year and show the children around Sydney. 
 
Dalby lies in the Western Darling Downs region of Queensland.  The Warrego Highway runs through the town, we had our first sighting of the road trains that service the outback.  We will see much bigger ones as we go further into the outback areas.

John and I left on Monday morning for Dalby, about 200 klms away. We had planned to meet up with Bernie and Jean, our long-time friends who are travelling in their caravan from their home in Wagga NSW.  We all stayed in the Dalby Tourist Park for two nights. The park is $32 per night.

water dragon behind caravan park

Bernie drove us to the Bunya Mountains, a scenic drive about 50 klms from Dalby. The Bunya pine is a different looking tree from other pines and they thrive in the mountains. We had coffee and scones in a mountain log cabin in the little township and drove through a rain forest for several klms. We saw many little wallabies.

coffee time

 

 

 

July 16^th.

Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.

Southport Broadwater

Gold Coast

The park at Warwick, Oasis Big 4 was $31 a night, the most expensive yet. It was only for one night and we needed a dump point before we got to Shirley and Stewart’s. We don't put any chemicals in the cassette when we use the domestic dumps. Some  parks don't provide dump points.

We noticed the tyre was leaking again and asked Stewart where the local tyre place was to get it fixed.
Heading for the Gold Coast, the stupid GPS took us way out of where we wanted to go, including th Mt. Tamborine road. It must have the worst steep decents and narrow in parts. We had to pull over for a bus then passed four more. Mt Tamborine is a popular tourist spot .

We were at the Gold Coast by lunchtime and John went to get the tyre fixed. They said it was an embedded screw and was quickly fixed. Lovely to see Shirl looking well after her illness last year. She looks a little frail but coping well. Michelle and the children came over in the afternoon, we didn't see Owen as he is away working for a mining company in Myles.

We enjoyed our stay and caught up on all the news.  We had lunch with Kylie on Thursday in Australia Fair. Robyn came for afternoon tea.  She is down to see a specialist  from Moranbah.

 

Shirl, Pam and Robyn

Sunshine Coast.

 

            

John and Cheryl

We left the Gold Coast after breakfast on Friday and called in to see Cheryl, John’s cousin in Burpengary, north of  Brisbane for lunch. We had a nice catch up. We drove through to Glenn and Ali’s via the back roads, past Australia Zoo. They are about 15 mins from the zoo. I love that  the shire have named the main road, Steve Irwin Way. The twins’ school are entering a competition doing a dance and story theme on Steve  and his work for the animal environment. I  went  to the rehearsal last night. One of the Australia Zoo staff came to wish the 86 children good luck in the competition to be held  in two week’s time.

Australia Zoo theme

Elijah is playing rugby league this year, I’m glad that his team won and we were there to see it. All the children are growing tall, it’s been a year since we saw them.  We still have the rest of the weekend with them before we continue our trip.

Elijah

 

Glenlyon Dam

 

Glenlyon Dam

It was -1c at Bingara when we woke. At least we are heading north now then in a couple of days we will be at the coast. John pulled into a garage at Warialda and someone told him his front driver’s tyre looked flat. Now, we drive and put fuel in the truck. If anything else happens, we know nothing about the mechanics etc.  No idea of how much air pressure to put in the tyres.  A man filling his Harley came over and before we knew it he was on his knees, reading how much pressure there should be by looking at the writing on the tyre, ha. Before we knew it all was ok.  Apparently this guy had worked on the Harbour Bridge, getting broken down vehicles off the bridge to keep the traffic flowing. We will have to keep an eye on the tyre, so far so good.

Glenlyon Dam was another couple of hours away, 10 klms off the highway. I noticed it on the map, before that we were going to spend the night in Texas, just over the NSW border. A much better choice to be in a great spot at the water, surrounded by kangaroos and a bonus was not many other campers.  The kangaroos are very tame, we didn’t feed them, but you can tell others do by the way they hang around. 

The wood BBQ was a nice change, although we had had a sausage sizzle on an electric bbq at Bingara and eaten most of the meat. I found a couple of chops and hash browns so they went down well along with my scotch and coke! It was the most we had paid for a powered site. $28.

It was warmer during the night by the water, also not as cold in the morning. There was a fog that burnt off when the sun came up.

We packed up and left before 9am, John drove on a country road to Stanthorpe, about 80 klms away where we had morning tea. We  had smashed the passenger side mirror into a signpost last trip and got fixed, is now broken again but the mirror is still intact. This time we knocked a piece off the back of it at a pole beside a low level country floodway.

We arrived in Warwick about 12.30, found a supermarket and I bought some groceries. We booked into the Oasis caravan park for the night.

Tomorrow we will be at the Gold Coast to spend couple of nights with Shirl and Stewart.

9th July

Cold morning in Bingara

The first evening star. It is there!

Tiny joey.

 

 

 

Bingara NSW

near Barraba NSW

Sunday 8th July.

John and I left Tea Gardens on Friday and drove through Raymond Terrace to Maitland and the New England highway stopping at Aberdeen for morning tea in the park. John only drove until Murrurundi and we booked into the Pages River caravan park for the night. Its a council run park, only one other small van there for the night . It was very quiet and we had a good night's rest. John couldn't stay awake for the footy and was asleep early.
I miscalculated and said that Saturday morning's temp was about 5c but I think it was only about 1c. It was very chilly!
We were on the road early after breakfast, had a morning tea stop at Barraba and were in Bingara by lunchtime. Passing through Tamworth, I think every horse and float in Australia was at the giant  Livestock centre. Lots of big rigs and many horses.
We have had two nights at Bingara caravan park, it is well maintained and friendly.  John walked into town to get a paper and bread, it was a long walk and some kind soul drove him some of the way back.  The Gwydir River is close by. The days are lovely, the nights very cold. It was 1c this morning. We have decided to stay at Glenlyon Dam tomorrow night. It's in Texas, Queensland, just over the border.

                                                               Gwydir River

One week until trip

John and I are planning to leave home on 2nd July and head towards the Sunshine Coast first, with a stop in at the Gold Coast. We will pick the motor home up on 1st July and set off for Hawks Nest/ Tea Gardens for three nights on 2nd. John has done up an itinerary with us heading off to South Australia, but we are going to do the trip in reverse, heading towards warm weather first.
Sydney is in a rainy period this week, we hope it's nicer next week for the start of our winter trip. 
We are off to a Probus outing on Thursday, a train to Newcastle and lunch at Stockton, reached by a ferry.

Moved and settled.

June 12th

We have settled in our new place, We moved on the 16th May. John and I love our new home. The boxes are all unpacked and we are getting organised, slowly. We only have one neighbour and the bush is at our doorstep. John has been on a few bush walks already. Kay stayed one night and joined John on a bushwalk. John managed to bring back a couple of leeches and he seems to be collecting them as several more have found their way into his shoes. Bec also had a night here, Kath and the children have visited a couple of times.
There isn't any space to keep the motorhome in the yard, but we will leave it on the street the night before a trip so we can pack and then the night after a trip, before it is returned to Suncamper for storage.
The plan is to leave home around the first week of July and return in the middle to end of August. We hope to travel via Broken Hill to the Flinders Ranges then up the Red Centre to Darwin. We will return through Queensland and home.

April 2013
 Mudgee was a welcome break from packing. We are still two weeks out from moving. The six nights in Mudgee went quickly, the weather wa almost perfect. Only one thunderstorm, while at home it rained almost every day.We stayed camped in the Riverside CP, one day we drove to Gulgong for a few hours. We were close enough to town in Mudgee to walk up to the shops and cafes.
I got some beetroot relish, made by the Mudgee Food Company,it was very tasty. We went back two or three days to the same cafe, The Quick Brown Fox. It had the best apple cake.

Once home again, we got back into the packing. We also had another house viewing, we had only been to one open house and found another house in the meantime that we missed out on, thank goodness.  All good, the viewing only confirmed our interest in our new home.