Thursday, November 18, 2010

Coffs Harbour to Mildura















Well it did stop raining eventually,but it turned out to be an interesting day.Its amazing what you find when you are on the net,we never dreamed that when we left coffs it would be in a differant caravan.We only went to Jayco's to see about a service but we found our new van with all the things we wanted,so Im now sitting on my new club lounge looking at the Murray river meandering by.It was an exhausting day moving everything,even a glass of wine couldnt revive us.Its been a hectic week,our first day after changing was a real test on Jeffrey's driving skills ,one of my famous short cuts!!We had spent the night at Port Macquarie and we were heading to Tamworth,the counrty music capital of Australia,(at least not both types of music country and western!!)The road wound up and up over the mountains,can anyone tell me when you see the sign Danger falling rocks,what are you supposed to do!!The road into Tamworth is 6ks of steep descent,from 1550m straight down,I told you I really tested jeff's driving skills!We had a nice surprise of catching up with a friend and spending the night in a house,a very boozy night for some of us!The highlight was be taken by Jeffs friend Phil to an aborignal site to see the cave paintings,not known by many.Only a few goats and roos,such a spiritual place,I wonder what had taken place over the years.There are some lovely country towns in NSW,Gunnedah has the highest population of Koalas in the world and are often seen in the main street we werent so lucky unfortuantly.Parkes was also a surprise,if you remember themovie "The Dish" it was bases on Parkes Dish.It will be 50 years old next year and played a huge part in beaming the moon landing to the world,Houston was so impressed with the quality they switched transmission to Parkes.It also played an important part in bringing back Apollo 13,its surprising what you come across in the country!But that was it,nothing more, no more towns just nothing!
Explorer John Oxley wrote that the area of country on the way to Hay is so bad no man would want to ever go that way again!How right he was,no trees,flat nothing,though the swarm of Locust did make things a bit more interesting especially the one that hung on the cb aerial for ages before spinning of into oblivion!We are now in Mildura,a town with many old buildings and the magnificent Murray river flowing through it.We have never seen so many houseboats,ther are 11 differant companies here,and are nothing like Mandurah boats,imagine a floating luxury apartment!Our stay in Victoria is brief back to South Australia tomorrow,so I am making a bucket full of potato salad to use up some spuds,so I can take them across the border.It seems strange to think we will be back in W.A. in just over a week.My new bigger freezer is so stocked up we certainly will not starve on the Nullaboor,potato salad anyone?

Friday, November 5, 2010

Mackay,Yeppon,Burnett Heads,Caloundra,Coffs Harbour











The gaps between blogs seems to be getting longer,the days seem to speeding by faster and its November already.Well we left the rain behind,though some parts of Mackay were still underwater,its very low lying and has a large river system with creeks popping up everywhere.Over 200mm of rain fell in a few hours,thats a lot of water to drain away.We stayed at Bucasia the northern beach part of Mackay right by the water.No not flooded but overlooking the ocean,though the tide goes out so far there its hard to see it in the distance. You have to walk a fair way out,armies of solider crabs part into groups as you walk along the sand,they are bright blue and look a bit like eyeballs on legs!I try not to look I think they are bit creepy looking.Well the dry weather didnt last we left after a few days and stayed at St Lawrence a free camp spot very nice and dry when we arrived,then the rain started again.The next morning we played a new game count the puddles and then watched them form a lake,enough of that we headed for Yeppon .Big mistake,never again will we drive in bad weather like that it was awful,not relaxing at all and the free camp spot we had planned to go to was flooded out!Hurray the weather changed the ground started to dry out and the sun was shining Yeppon has a nice coastline loads of places to stop and eat the pie or cream donut you have bought in the local bakers!the monument to Capt Cook is called the singing ship when the wind blows the pipes play a tune,strange but interesting.We have left the cane fields behind Rockhampton is a huge beef producer ,I never knew Queensland produced so much sugar,beef,crops and mining.Another storm before we left Yeppon what spetacular lightning but poor Barney hated every moment.Queensland has had its wettest winter for 40 years,which is wonderful for the land but not so good for us travellers thought the countryside is so beautiful and green.We crossed back over the Tropic of Capricorn at Rockhampton and the donna had to go back on the bed,who would have thought that line could make such a differance ,no more humid nights!Stopped off at 1770 but so so busy with loads of backpackers so headed to Burnett Heads a tiny place on the coast 15 mins form Bundaberg.Great homemade ice cream at Bagara Beach we sat there in the sunshine yes I did mention the sun eating our icecream,we felt like we were on our hols!The land here is all veggie growers,lovely just pull in and stock up on fresh veggies and lovely strawberries yum I was happy.Childers has the most perfumed Post Office I have every been in the door tinkles as you open it then the perfume hits you,its cram packed of craft,jewellry,lavender soaps I couldnt possible say all that was in there ,but I did notice the post office counter.We have had enough of the Bruce highway the road surface is getting worse and too many trucks so we detoured through th Mary valley and so glad we did ,we would have missed some of the most beautiful countryside.The rolling hills are so green (all that rain)we stayed at Kenilworth showground a lovely little town nestled among the hills ,the weather was hot and sunny hurray we came across a hippie shop with clothing from Katmandu!!Another great drive through more mountains to the coast we could see Brisbane in the distance and the coast of Caloundra below us one of the biggest places we had been to.We stayed on the shores of Pumice Stone passage a narrow piece of water between the mainland and Bridie Island you can see just the bridge of huge container ships going past on the open ocean.I had to go to the U.K. for 2 weeks so left poor Jeffrey and Barney on ther own, the night I left they had one of the worst storms ever with 100k winds,I must admit I was glad I missed it!Well Im back now and fully recovered from my trip,we are heading back to Mandurah for christmas so down the coast of NSW.We crossed the border inland the Jacaranda trees are in full flower and against the green hills the blue purple colour is breathtaking.We had a very scary journey on one of my shortcuts,it was supposed to be a A road but whoever graded it must have been new to the job!It was so narrow and full off holes and very very winding,with a long drop down the side 50kph seemed very fast we were very relieved when we reach Woodenbong,what a great name,and a great free camp spot.Now we have arrived in Coffs Harbour and its pouring of rain!!Oh well Ive made some chocolate muffins, so we will put a movie on make a cupa and enjoy a muffin!!