Nundle, Warialda, Surat, Thallon and Mitchell

  Winter had arrived in Lemon Tree Passage so it was time for us to head warmer climes for a few weeks. Ian and I had actually done a bit of planning for this trip, which is not like us, so we headed for Nundle Caravan Park. We don't use caravan parks much but wanted power to run our little heater as we have learned from previous trips that it gets a great deal colder when first heading north before reaching the warmth of Queensland. 

 This was the first time we had towed the van with our new car, we had also never towed with an automatic so why we chose the really hilly, bendy route through Stroud, where the signs were up for their annual Brick and Rolling Pin Throwing Championships, and around Gloucester Tops instead of going straight through Singleton I don't really know. We reached Nundle eventually and set up in The Fossickers Caravan Park $37 with power, water and spotless amenities. There were a few other vans and we gathered around a communal fire at wine/beer o'clock and shared the usual stories about where people had been and where they were heading. Although it was extremely cold, the park was very friendly and pleasant. Outside the camp kitchen a guitar was hanging near the big fire pit for the use of any guests who fancied a strum, fortunately nobody did during our stay. 

After a very cold night, we continued on our way. Our careful planning was tossed aside when we realised our next planned stop (Barraba) was not far enough and the one after that (Mungindi) was too far. Before our departure, a friend had told us about one of his favourite spots, Cranky Rock in Warialda, on looking at the map it was about the right distance so we headed there instead. Stopped for a coffee in Manilla at the Warm Conversations Manilla Folder Cafe which was great and in a charming little town.

 Passing through Bingara we noticed the beautiful Art Deco Peter's Cafe was open again after years of closure. The whole of this lovely little town looked like it was having a new lease of life after really struggling in the last drought. We pressed on to Warialda and Cranky Rock Nature Reserve $15 (cash only) with power, toilets and one shower. The vans were a little squashed together, in warmer weather I would probably choose to stay in the unpowered area because it was more spacious. The reserve was very pretty, lots of trees, chickens running around, a communal camp fire and a walk to the Cranky Rocks. They were amazing! Huge boulders balanced impossibly on top of one another, 

absolutely astonishing!

Warialda itself was a medium sized country town with an IGA supermarket, decent pharmacy, art gallery and the Big R2D2 so we had a bit of a look around after our two nights at Cranky Rock as we headed off to our next destination. Ditched our careful planning again as we were aiming to stop at Mungindi, a little town which straddles the New South Wales/Queensland border. We stopped there by the river last year and loved it but campers at Warialda told us there had been heavy rain and the river camps were very boggy. So, we turned to our trusty Camps 11 atlas and decided to spend a single night in Thallon, where we knew there was plenty of cheap camping. It was beginning to dawn on us that the weather was not warming up very quickly as we travelled ever northward. We were hot in Mungindi last year but there was a distinct nip in the air as we drove through this time although the sun came out by the time we reached Thallon. 

 The council have made a real effort to bring money into the tiny town. They have provided a huge area for caravans at only $10 a night (pay at the pub) with power and toilets. Beautiful painted silos overlooked the camping area and the town was dotted with attractive sculptures as well as being the home of The Big Wombat. A very successful wombat protection programme has been underway over the past few years in these parts and the number of wombats in the wild has increased considerably.

 The neighbouring van ran an incredibly loud generator all night so nobody in the vicinity got much sleep, they drove off early to much scowling and dark mutterings from our fellow campers. There is not much to do in Thallon so after a coffee in town we set off again. Only about a kilometre out of town we got a flat tyre on the van. Ian had fitted pressure sensors to the tyres which I had poo pooed as unnecessary but they did their job and alerted us straight away, just as well because I was driving and felt nothing. It was the first time we had ever had a flat on a caravan but it couldn't have happened in a better place. The road had wide flat areas on either side so we were able to pull well away from the other road users and everyone who passed stopped to offer help. Ian was up to the job though and changed the tyre with little fuss only needing the help of one fellow caravanner who had an air pump and we were back on our way in no time. Our route was taking us to Surat (actually on the original plan) but we diverted via St.George to buy a new tyre. That task accomplished, we reached Surat in the late afternoon. 

 Surat sits on the Ballone River and was an important staging post for the Cobb and Co stagecoach There is a fascinating Cobb and Co museum in the visitor information centre which also, thankfully, had free wifi as this part of the country is a Telstra black hole. I discovered later that was only because I have a cheap phone package, if you pay full Monty Telstra it is OK. The town is built quite high above the river because it floods regularly. There is a floating jetty because the water level can change so dramatically and the depth markers go to 10 metres, it is hard to imagine that level of flooding but it happens. Our chosen camp spot was Fisherman's Park donation camp, quite pleasant and a nice, easy walk into town but crowded. There were plenty of toilets at the camp and a great free shower behind the pub in town.

 We have been wanting to visit Carnarvon Gorge for some time and it was next on our list but we knew booking was essential so took advantage of the town wifi to make a reservation. There were no vacancies until the following Tuesday which left us with three days to kill, we had seen enough of Surat so checked the map and decided to try Mitchell. 

What a brilliant choice! There were a couple of different camps and we looked at the weir camp first but it was crowded so we chose Fisherman's Rest, a beautiful riverside donation camp, very quiet, probably because there was a dirt road in which puts some people off. Lots of bindis but there were plenty of prickle free areas if you checked properly, we didn't so Harvey ended up covered in them and we moved to a bindi free pitch the next morning.

 Mitchell is a splendid town with a hot springs spa, cafes, some decent shops, a fair sized public school and nice little touches like mosaics in the pavements, we will definitely come back again.. The birdlife at our camp was fantastic too and I saw my first Plum Headed Finch, the photo is not very clear but, take my word for it, that is a Plum Headed Finch. 

 After spending Christmas with Zoȅ, Shaun and the boys, we began to wend our way slowly home. We never travel along the coast at holiday times but stick to country towns which we far prefer. This time we had decided to head for Henty, which is a charming little town where we had stayed on several occasions. The road to Henty took us through Culcairn, another nice place we were quite familiar with but this time Ian spotted a new sign for a caravan park. We decided to take a quick look and found it to be a delightful, new, council owned park on the riverbanks. The amenities were brand new and there was a well equipped camp kitchen, all for $30 a night. There was a little bit of truck noise, but not enough to worry us, and the occasional train - we were excited to see the incredibly long steeler train, fully laden, on its way to Melbourne. The old pub was in a beautiful building with a gorgeous garden and dinner was very reasonable and huge. 

Wantabadgery was our next planned destination but Wikicamps told us it was very busy so we carried on to Bethungra Dam just outside Cootamundra. It was fab, I don't know how we haven't found it before! It was free camping around a huge dam with a big area of BBQs and plenty of picnic tables and clean drop toilets. Bit tricky to find a level site but we managed, although it did get much busier as the weekend approached. Lots of families fishing and kayaking. Halfway along the road on the way in was the Bethungra Rail Spiral, just staggering to imagine how the railway line was cut through the rock.

 The next day was wet but the forecast all around was for far worse weather so we stayed put and went into Cootamundra to get some supplies in Woolies. A family camped near us had turned up with a sizeable catamaran but clearly did not want to launch it in the wet. It carried on raining for another day but dawned bright and sunny on the Saturday so we saw them take to the water before we left. 

We were travelling in manageable chunks because we did not want to spend the whole time driving, so hit the Olympic Highway again and stopped for a coffee in Young the cherry capital. Christmas is the height of the cherry season and we were amused to see signs everywhere  warning us to beware of cherry related vehicles on the move. Even in a reasonably big town like Young everything still closed at 1pm on a Saturday so I failed to get into a camping shop for a couple of things I was hoping to pick up there.

 For the third time on the trip, we set off with a destination in mind but spotted an alternative along the way. This time we fancied Lyndhurst as a stop but spied a sign for an RV stopover as we drove through Koorawatha so pulled over to take a look. It was a splendid, peaceful showground, $15 with power, new toilets and hot showers, pay at the pub. It was a bit windy but very relaxing, a group of eight vans were camped together near the amenities for their annual New Year's Eve get together and then just us. Dinner at the pub was excellent and inexpensive and the landlady told us about the New Year celebrations planned for the next evening. Turned out the big group staying near us were detectorists so they all wandered off in different directions beeping the next morning while we followed a sign to Koorawatha Falls. 

Very bumpy 4WD road in then quite a walk with plenty of scrambling over rocks but well worth it. The falls were beautiful. Quite a number of groups were clambering in with eskies full of beer to spend New Year's Eve there so I imagine it probably got a bit messy later. NYE at the pub was wonderful. Beach volleyball, slippy slide, dinosaur racing and a BBQ to raise money for the showground. We would definitely visit Koorawatha again.

 On New Year's Day we set of for Lake Wallace in Wallerwang. There was a terrible accident there a couple of days previously with two killed and 15 injured but people were still driving like idiots on the approach to the turn off and we were glad to get off that particular stretch of road. Lake Wallace had room for hundreds of vans and tents, free camping with basic amenities. It was far too busy for our taste but the lake was beautiful and it would probably be more pleasant out of season. 

  Early on in our winter trip, at Wandoan, we had shared a camp fire and several glasses of wine with a couple who had rented out their farm in Victoria to travel around Australia for 5 years. They were heading off the following day for Roma to visit the cattle sales, the largest in the country processing half a million cows each year. So when we noticed we would be passing very close to Roma as we wended our way slowly back towards New South Wales, we decided to have a look. 

We needed to start putting a few more kms between stops so drove 3.5 hours to Yuleba and set up camp at Judds Lagoon, planning to drive into Roma in the morning. The campsites in Roma itself had not looked very appealing but we did need to find a place where we could happily leave the caravan unattended all day, Yuleba was a free camp and seemed to fit the bill with enough campers around to make the place feel safe but not so many as to make it feel crowded (we don't like anywhere too peopley these days). 

It was the fifth day of the final Ashes test so we hoped to be able to listen to the coverage and were dismayed to find no coverage at Judds Lagoon even though a huge Testra tower was positioned just outside the entrance and Wikicamps had said there was good mobile coverage there. We discovered later on the trip that there had been a massive Testra outage so we would not have been able to see the cricket wherever we were. It was a top spot however, camping among the trees on the banks of the lagoon with plenty of spaces for camp fires and even bags of wood for sale with an honesty box. Apart from the single drop toilet being very smelly indeed, it was a good choice. 

On the journey to Yuleba we had travelled along one of many country roads which are essentially just a strip ot tarmac the width of one vehicle laid along the centre of a much wider dirt road. When another vehicle approaches from the opposite direction, the protocol is to both move aside and put one set of wheels on the dirt while the vehicles pass each other. Ian bought a CB radio for this trip and we have enjoyed being able to talk to the massive trucks as they pulled up close behind us to let them know we would move out of the way as soon as safe to do so. There has always been a sticker on the rear of our caravan saying what channel we were on so, for the seven years we have had the van prior to owning our CB, I can only imagine that truck drivers have been radioing us and yelling at us to get the f**k out of the way while we have been happily oblivious.

 We got up early and drove 60kms to the Roma Saleyards. The road in was only one lane each way and used constantly by road trains which made it a little unpleasant but worth it to reach the cattle sales. The set up was amazing, unbelievably huge with hundreds of pens full of cattle as far as the eye could see. They had made a real effort to make the operation accessible to tourists. There was an excellent visitor information centre and cafe with walkways above the cattle pens so visitors could watch the auctions and see all the cattle without getting in the way. Nobody seemed to mind Harvey being there but we kept him away from the livestock and took it in turns to go and watch. The auctioneer was accompanied by couple of helpers, including one with a huge paintbrush and bucket of yellow paint. They would move along a platform on one side of the first pen while potential buyers moved along a platform on the opposite side, each cow would be pointed out, auctioned, when sold a splodge of yellow paint was daubed on its back then the whole party moved on to the next one. It was all very quick and soon the newly purchased cattle were being loaded into trucks and going off to their new homes. 

The town of Roma was fun too. It was a big town with bottle trees lining the streets. We had heard about a shop which was apparently a must see, the Ace Drapery Store No.2. There were several Ace stores but number 2 was the best. There were boxes piled up both inside and outside the windows (a bit like Hartex in South Harrow but on steroids). They sold everything and I mean everything. The customers squeezed down the aisles between mountains of assorted stuff and of course the owner knew where everything was but the most astonishing was the fabric aisle with thousands and thousands of bolts of every kind of fabric you could imagine, fantastic. We finished off our day with a quick visit to Roma's largest bottle tree then back to camp.

 After all the excitement of Roma we needed to make some progress south so decided to head for the Nindigully Pub which seems to be a bit of a pilgrimage for caravanners. A dirt road took us into Surat covered in red dust, there is a sign as you come into the town asking trucks to stop and let some of the dust drop off before entering the town. Surat was nice, on the original Cobb and Co route with a very informative visitor centre and Cobb and Co museum. When we stopped for coffee someone pointed out that we had a cable trailing and we had destroyed the plug on the end of it so we diverted to St.George where we were able to buy a replacement. St.George was a bit ordinary but served its purpose and we were soon on our way again.

The Nindigully Pub was built in 1864 and is preserved as originally built. The camping was in the huge dirt car park surrounding the pub and was packed, a donation got us toilets and showers and a spot to park. We had dinner in the pub garden which was pleasant but not really to our taste (very peopley) and the place had really got the hang of cashing in on its name. There were t-shirts, hats, stubby holders, fridge magnets, you name it, they had printed Nindigully Pub on it and were selling it by the shedload. 

Fantastic showers at Nindigully before we drove 30 minutes to Mundingi which straddles the Queensland/NSW border. We free camped on the banks of the Barwon River which was in Queensland and the town was in New South Wales. It was a wonderful place to stay with toilets and BBQs and amazing gnarley trees full of kites, it was like being back in Rickmansworth where the kites would constantly circle above. Still no budgies but we saw some beautiful kingfishers and herons and Ian finally caught a fish, only a little yellow belly but a catch all the same. The town was lovely too and had a great sculpture trail which led visitors all through the neighbourhood. We would stay in Mundingi again for sure.

 After excellent egg and bacon rolls in Flocks Cafe in Mundingi we headed south to Attunga which was truly horrible so continued for a last stop in one of our regular overnighters the First Fleet camping area in Wallabadah. We were away for a month altogether and found some fabulous places to stay. Queensland had really pulled out all the stops with the new free camping areas and I hope we will be back to try some different ones next year. 

  Last night was not only our final one at the splendid Silver wattle Caravan Park in Mount Morgan but, being a Saturday, was also the night of the charity dinner laid on by the owners. The food was excellent and the $20 per head plus the money raised in the raffle was donated to the Royal Flying Doctors. 

 The weather had been wonderful for the entire trip so far but we were predicted a bit of rain for the next couple of days so we packed most of our bits away after dinner ready to leave in the morning. It is worth noting that extra care should be taken on the roads around Mount Morgan and Rockhampton, there were three nasty accidents just in the five days we were staying in the area, we even saw one of them. I can't guess at the reason because the roads were better than in many places we have visited. 

Our next destination was 1770, so named because the town was built on the site of Captain Cook's second landing in Australia in May 1770. Apparently the name should be written in full, Seventeen Seventy, but the locals use the numbers and so will I.  

We had called ahead and booked The Summit, a dog friendly caravan site, because 1770 is a very popular tourist destination. On the way we stopped for a coffee at Caliope Historic Village. The coffee was terrible but the setting delightful with pretty gardens full of birds snacking on the feeders strung in the trees. It was extremely pleasant watching Double Barred Finches (the photo at the top of this page) Brown Honeyeaters and peaceful Doves munching away so we pretended to enjoy the coffee so as not to spoil the serenity. There was also a very popular area for free camping and we made a mental note to return in the future.

 When we arrived at The Summit ($30 unpowered, brand new amenities, off lead dog area) we discovered it was attached to a dog training school and offered doggie day care. The sites were all on a slope overlooking a small dam, very pleasant. Apparently there was a view over Agnes Water Beach from the very top of the hill but we forgot to go and look when the rain stopped. We drove in to Agnes Water passing a large number of buildings under construction including a new shopping centre which had only opened the day before. Agnes Water is right next to 1770 and supposedly beautiful but hotels and resorts had been built all the way along the shore line making sure the view could not be enjoyed by anyone but their customers, very disappointing. When we eventually scrambled on to the beach it was lovely but not somewhere I would visit again. However, we found a splendid fish and chip shop and, as we were leaving, the town centre was starting to fill up with campers and cars which clearly planned to stay for the night. That will teach the town planners for allowing the whole waterfront to be built up, usually the illegal overnighters find discreet spots to set up but there were none left so they set up right by the hotels and resorts, ha ha. 

 Just down the road 1770 was a different story entirely. The marina housed a cafe, a couple of shops and a tackle supplies, all a bit old, quirky and pleasingly tatty. Excellent gardens with a pathway and little playgrounds and sitting areas stretched the full length of the coastline for everyone to enjoy with an extremely windy lookout area at the end of the point. Agnes Water and 1770 were like chalk and cheese and I know which I preferred. 

Back inland and slightly south for 2 hours brought us to Mount Perry where we headed for the showground because it had good reviews. It turned out to be a fair way out of town with only three caravans camped there so we took a look at the caravan park right in the centre of town. It was pretty good and only $22 unpowered so that was where we set up. As usual, the unpowered sites were the prettiest and quietest and we are often the only van in the unpowered area. Caravanners seem determined to rig up their vans with all kinds of solar and battery set ups and then choose not to use them, preferring to camp cheek by jowl with dozens of others on the powered sites where they are all so close they can hear each other snoring. 

Mount Perry was an old gold mining town and we discovered there was quite a bit to see. We had breakfast at the cafe/general store then visited the art gallery. The art was a bit ordinary but at the back was a fascinating information display about Florence Broadhurst, a local who became a celebrated fabric and wallpaper designer and was murdered in Sydney. After that we took in the museum and the smelter. The smelter area was massive and the walk up to it was pleasant with plaques clearly marking where shops, school etc were when the gold and copper mining were in their heyday and the population was far greater than today. 

The best attraction for me was the Boolboonda Tunnel, the longest unsupported tunnel in the Southern Hemisphere. It was home to loads of microbats and a bit creepy but thrilling all at the same time. The whole town was bristling with historic bits and bobs and apparently receives quite a number of weekend and holiday visitors who stay at The Federal Hotel which was the, beautifully restored, old picture house or one of the several boutique hotels in the town. 

 After a few days at Mount Perry we drove to Wuruma Dam, a free camping area north of Eidsvold. The dam was huge and there were quite a number of people camped there, it was a very long road in though so you would not want to forget anything. We had stocked up in Eidsvold on the way, biggish town, a bit strange. They was a butcher proudly displaying a sign saying where his meat was murdered and I said hello to a friendly chap who was promptly arrested and taken away in a police car. The dam had a grocery man who turned up every second day with basics and campers could phone him with any requests. It was wonderfully peaceful and we had an excellent view over the dam where there were quite a few birds to watch but still no budgies. This was the only time we regretted not bringing our kayaks on the trip, most people were there with boats or kayaks fishing for Redclaw, a type of yabbie. The walk along the dam wall was interesting but the place was a bit too remote to stay for very long, we had already missed the fifth Ashes Test as the only place to get any kind of signal was over by the toilets, a ten minute walk away so after four days we moved on again. 

We were heading for Theodore but passed through the tiny town of Cracow. Again the place to camp was the Heritage Centre for a $10 donation with power, hot showers and spotless toilets. The Heritage Centre was good too, paid for by a big mining company who had an operation nearby, all the interactive displays worked and covered the history of the town. one information board amused me, it was explaining that the town was first settled by a man whose Polish wife was from Krakow. It then went on to say that nobody knows where the town (Cracow, pronounced Crack Oh) got its name, I think I could take a wild guess! 

 The town was dotted with little windmills all made by one artist who got the parts for them from old pedestal fans, a group of Guinea Fowl wandered around free and it was a very pleasant place to stop. We thought we should spend some money in the pub as we could not imagine how it survived in the little town, we soon found out at about 7pm when the place filled up with workers from the mine and was soon jumping like a Friday night in our old local, The Load of Hay! 

  After a very pleasant couple of nights at the Heritage Centre in Wandoan, we set off north again on our journey to reach the tropics. The weather was already warm this far up but we were determined to reach our target, so after a quick coffee and a visit to the world's cheapest op shop, we were on our way. The plan was to stop at Biloela next, a town which had been regularly in the news as the townsfolk had campaigned to keep their neighbours, a refugee Sri Lankan family, in Australia. We thought this little place deserved to have some of our traveller dollars but the drive along the road in revealed Biloela to be massive and a bit like Slough so we decided to give it a miss and continued to nearby Goovigen in the Banana Shire region which had been recommended by a man called Neil we had chatted to in Condamine a few days ago. 

We passed two huge Wedge Tailed Eagles snacking on a dead kangaroo in a field as we pulled into Goovigen Recreation Grounds and there was Neil set up near the entrance. He was right, this was a great spot to stop. $10 a night donation for power and water or $5 without, hot showers, toilets, a playground and a big oval to walk the dog around. There were spaces for around 12 vans to comfortably camp there and it was full by evening. The town was tiny but had clearly once been a buzzing little place with a railway station , shops and a pub. All of those were closed down now, perhaps the cheap camping initiative will help to change that.

  We found out we had stumbled upon and accidentally been following The Great Inland Way, which runs from Melbourne to Brisbane and features all these wonderful places to stop cheaply. Most of the travellers we met had taken this route out of Victoria to escape the winter down there, many did so every year and bumped into others they had met on previous years in exactly the same spot. That would not suit us, we like to try and see new places each time we get the caravan out. 

On the first morning I woke to an amazing dawn chorus so set my alarm to be up in time to see it the next day. We were determined to see budgies this trip so I was hopeful but all I saw were Butcher Birds and Choughs. Pleasant Lake was supposed to be a local attraction so we drove there to find it was no more than a puddle and not very pleasant so we continued to Victoria Lake which was very pretty. There were no campers there but people complain that it gets quite messy in the busy season because some campers do not know how to behave in an area with no toilets, I think we will give that one a miss. 

The campers all gathered around a big fire in the evening and I discovered two things: 1) Not many caravanners share my political views, there were some rather offensive comments thrown around regarding the upcoming  referendum for a Voice to Parliament for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. 2) I could not live permanently on the road like many of these campers. Some have a plan but others just seem to drift from place to place, I cannot see how one could maintain friendships or hobbies in that situation.

 It was time to move on to Rockhampton which lies on the Tropic of Capricorn. We knew there would not be any free or cheapo camps and were warned it would be difficult to find camping vacancies in Rockhampton, it was so we chose to stay about a 40 minute drive south in Mount Morgan at the Silver Wattle Caravan Park. What a beautiful spot, because we don't need power we bagged the best site in the whole place, right at the top of the park with views over the Mount Morgan range. Everything was spotless, there were even buckets in the showers to collect the first flow of water before it reached the desired temperature to then pour on the flowerbeds as there had been no rain for months. The town itself was a 5 minute drive away and a reasonable size with supermarket, coffee shop etc. 

We drove in to Rockhampton the next day and did all the touristy things like posing in front of the Tropic of Capricorn sign at the visitor centre where we chose our ferry for a trip over to Great Keppel Island the next day. We also went for a short walk in the Botanic Gardens, no dogs allowed so we couldn't leave Harvey in the car for too long. 

The gardens were beautiful and had recently been overtaken by a huge colony of bats. The trees were absolutely full of them and apparently they were becoming a bit of a nuisance but we loved them. Rockhampton is a big town and very ordinary in parts but has some wonderful old buildings lining the riverside, after a wander along there we set off home to Mount Morgan. 

Back at the caravan park there was a Happy Hour around the fire where the owners handed out spring rolls and damper, they even provide a complete meal on a Saturday night for $20 which all goes to the Flying Doctors. The park is very high up so beautifully cool at night and warm during the day, very green even though it was so dry and we could see fires burning in the hills surrounding us.

 Up early the next day to drive to Yeppoon for the ferry over to Great Keppel, one of the Barrier Reef Islands. All the ferries take dogs and we went with Freedom Fast cats $55 each and $5 for Harvey. The crossing was only 30 minutes and Harvey was not too sure about it but the island was glorious, turquoise sea and white beaches. 

There were a couple of nice cafes and a bar but I was a bit disappointed when I ventured inland to find derelict buildings and tumbledown fences. Apparently these resort islands were huge in the 1980s but have since fallen out of popularity, however we had a nice time and Harvey was happier on the return journey. 

Took a quick detour to Emu Park after disembarking the ferry, gorgeous town, very child friendly with a huge park on the waterfront which had been developed with a fund to help people work again after COVID. It featured a wonderful singing ship sculpture which was installed 200 years after Captain Cook found and named the Keppel Coast.