Issue 2 Oct 2017
Brodie’s next 15,000 klm
On th e road again
Our travels from Sept 30 to Oct 8 We have driven 23.5 hours and travelled 1959 klms. The temperature has ranged from 12 to 41 degrees. We have hit one roo (Well Jan has!) But most importantly WE ARE HAVING FUN! and most of it is in these pages
Day 5 Heading for Bollon Why Bollon you may ask? The tourist blurb suggest that emus' regular walk down the main street, that was enough reason for me, what a great photo shoot. The fact that it had a highly rated free camp was a bonus. Leaving Lightning Ridge around 9, under a gorgeous blue sky we set out to see the emu’s, We saw 5 or 6 in paddocks along the highway but didn’t bother taking a common photo when unique shots were waiting for us. After crossing the Qld border the first little town was called Hebel, it consisted of a old pub, a caravan park and a general store and not much else, although they had a “History circle” a collection of plaques with stories of the past. We had a coffee at the store and although it was fairly crowded (5 people) there was a sign saying it close in December, would probably be the end of the town. Jan and I had decided we should stop at every little village and have a look around, we drove straight through Dirranbandi (the next town population 711) without seeing a single thing to attract our attention or even take a photo ..we will have to try harder. St George was next stop, as it was lunch time it was easy to stop here, they had a pleasant river walk and a nice bakery, we haven’t quite got to the stage of visiting heritage sites but I suppose that will come. There was a very impressive weir/bridge on the way out of town
Warram Creek B
At least the close neighbours will be quiet
NO BLOO
k Camping Ground Bollon
Wallam Creek Camping Area Distance travelled Driving time Avg. Fuel Cons Fuel cost
338klm 4 hours 03 12.1 l/100.
Accommodation Cost
Free Camp Donation
Bollon was a pretty little village and the camping area along side the creek was fantastic,The shower block was actually on the highway about a klm from our campsite so we used our own shower. The town had great infrastructure with a concrete walk right along the river, but no amount of riding could locate any emus,
ODY EMUS!!
Day 6 Heading for Charleville This was our first night free camping with no reception, thats Ok I was prepared, I had a hard drive with movies to play through the dvd player. . Where is the dvd remote? I said, I put it on top of the dvd like you wanted, she said, Did you put it on the velcro? I said, What velcro? she said! The remote had fallen down the back of the microwave, which is screwed in, and no way of getting to the back of it ..... we didn’t watch movies last night. Next morning I removed the microwave .. retrieved the remote and showed Jan the velcro .... all good. Just as we were driving out a low tyre pressure warning sounded and as Cunnamulla was the closest tyre repairer it was out with compressor, which after running for 10 minutes proved totally in adequate for the job ..... there was still 60psi in the tyre so we took it easy all the way to Cunnamulla. The leak was caused by a nail and $40 later it was fixed. The journey to Cunnamulla was amazing, just long straight roads, no traffic and lots of wildlife. There were emus’ everywhere, well we saw about 30 mostly in ones and twos
Finally getting to Cunnamulla and getting the tyre fixed, was a relief.While the tyre was being fixed we had a look around and a coffee. The tourist centre had an Artesian Time tunnel display, it started with a lift ride, very similar to Draculas on the Gold Coast, very clever if you have done Draculas you will know what I mean. It was really hot and after getting the M5 back we decided head towards Charleville, maybe staying the night at Wyandra. Once again it seemed just one long straight road with only the colour of the verges changing from white to red and back again many times, Wyandra was about half way and just off the highway, we pulled in to have a look, it had the choice of free camp or caravan park. We felt it wouldn’t keep us occupied and as it was only 2pm we decided to push on to Charleville, another 100klm up the road. Once again the sense of isolation on this long straight road has to be experienced to be believed. Over the 388klm of mainly straight road we passed in either direction about 10 vehicles and except for the 3 towns there was nothing in between except emptyness, that was 5 and half hours driving and only seeing one other vehicle every half hour. The road kill count was incredible, we have never seen so many dead roos’ and emus’ it seemed there was something dead every couple of hundred metres, we were surprised that there were still live ones and lots of them still around. Arriving in Charleville we had a quick tour of caravan parks (we were staying for 2 nights and wanted a base) and decide on The Charleville Bush Caravan Park a few k’s out of town, it is nice and quiet and with only about 4 other travellers not nearly as crowded as the others.
Charleville Bus
sh Caravan Park Charleville Bush Caravan Distance travelled Driving time Avg. Fuel Cons Fuel cost Accommodation Cost
378klm 5 hours 03 12.5 l/100. $101.82 75.5 Caravan Park $30 per night
Waking up early and nothing planned we had a wander around the park, watched a couple of vans packing up, took them nearly two hours, small things are starting to amuse us ... bit of a worry. We were going to ride our bikes into town, but Jan thought it was too hot and a bit windy so we took the M5. We had a walk round the town, like a lot of these outback towns there were a lot of empty shops, but the town was still fairly busy. Itchy feet saw us driving 27klm out of town to visit the site of most powerful explosion in the history of Australian transport, not a lot to see but the railway bridge was considered un economical to be prepared. We had lunch at the site but it was way too hot to sit outside, we really have to get used to it as we are heading further north and it may get hotter.
It was really hot when we got back from the bridge so the local pool at $2.50 got our custom. The main pool was so cold that this is where we ended up ..the kids paddle pool
We decided to go to the local pool, we had it all to ourselves. After the pool we headed back to the park and veged out waiting for the Happy hour and Jan’s chance to socialise. Around 5pm the park manager told us happy hour was o due to illness and an imminent thunder storm. We decided to pack up in case of the storm and beat it by about two minutes .. lucky!!
A week on the road We have now had 7 days on the road, some of the things we have learnt already. FREE (low cost) camping. This seemed a really good idea when we were planning the trip and continues to be but, when the free camp is a dry dusty paddock with no shade then the price of a caravan park pales into insignificance in regard to our comfort and enjoyment of the trip. We will continue to check the “Free camps” first but in really hot temperatures comfort will win every time. WATER So far we have been Ok as we are using the on board tank and have had access to taps just about everywhere. We haven’t been able to use mains pressure at the parks because we can’t get the right fitting, our attachment requires an American thread which I only discovered when I couldn’t stop it leaking .... in western Qld the hardware personal just look blank when I describe the problem. I’ll find one somewhere. THE MOTORHOME We have had a lot of problems with the electric bed, most of it user error (me) we put a mattress topper for more comfort but with the quilt, the thickness, we discovered after blowing 7 fuses, caused the motor and brake to jam as it .touched the ceiling. Due to the heat we no longer need the quilt so for the present problem solved, when it gets colder and the quilt is back on, not taking the bed as high and a quick push of the up button (to take the tension off the brake) and then the down button. The other problem with the bed is the wiring around the motor is easily snagged when removing stuff from the boot, I have to plug plugs back in a few times ,,,some sort of cover is needed there. These problems are fairly minor and so far easily solved. DIRECTION OF TRAVEL AND TIMING We are obviously going in the wrong direction and/or the wrong time of year as so far most of the caravan parks and free camps are almost empty and some of the attractions are closed, not that bigger problem and a whole lot easy to find somewhere to park ...Bonus!!
Day 8 off to Barcaldine A big storm during the night left us wondering whether we bogged in the sandy sight, fortunately it wasn’t as soft as yesterday and we were out of the park around 8am. Thirty minutes into the journey we were discussing the lack of wildlife ...Jan slammed on the brakes!! narrowly avoiding a big roo and bang as its joey smacked into the side of the motorhome .... no damage to the Fiat but a bit more road kill for the crows. Our first stop was the small town of Augathella, The movie “Smiley” about a young boy growing up in rural Aust was based on here, the town was
Friendly pub and the men’s shed Augathellao
bypassed a few years ago and only a few businesses survive including, according to the manager, a profitable hotel. When we walked the main street not one shop was staffed, they were all out on the footpath chatting and quickly included us in the group (whether we wanted to or not!) the friendliest town we have ever visited. Tambo was the next stop as the highway went through it, a few businesses and the shire council offices and a few tourists wandering around, nothing really caught our interest so we headed on to Blackall.
A long pub and a Furphy in Tambo
Each town was getting progressively bigger and we had considered Blackall as our o/night stop (they had an $8 camp by the river) but it was just too hot and dry so we had a drive round the sights and headed for Barcaldine.
Blackall had a few sites of interest, a couple caught out attention, the first artesian bore ..... drilled down 1663 feet, just amazing in the 1880's and of course Blackall lays claim to the original “Black Stump” so shortly we were
going beyond the black stump, Barcaldine is the biggest town today, not as big as Charleville (I don’t think) but it had 4 pubs down the main street almost next to each other, none was more than a short stagger to the next. We were going to free camp but the camp was dry, hot and dusty so $25 saw us in the Homestead Caravan Park with the air con flat out. Free camping will definately depend on climate!! Once we had our site setup it was off on bikes to check out the town, while riding down the main street a lady stopped me for directions, being on bike in 38 degrees must be a local, After a brief conversation she said I know you, well those who know of my acute facial recognition skills which when straight into action because she did look familiar .....mmmm!! isn’t Diana Ross , wrong colour, not Marilyn Monroe, she’s gone, but before I could sift through any more of my vast data bank she said she was Our bike ride a midwife that used to live in Tucabia when we were there and came into the shop a regulary..... small world!!! We had a look at the Tree of Knowledge where a shearer’s strike caused the birth of the Labor party in the 1880's, rode past The Australian Workers Heritage musuem, covers a very large area dominated by a huge Bicenntial Recreation Tent which travelled rural Qld in 1988 showcasing Australia’s history.
Homestead Cara
Triple road rain at our park
Bicentennial Big Top
The Mason
avan Park Barcaldine
on Temple
Homestead Caravan Park
Wind chime enclosure over Tree of Knowledge
Distance travelled Driving time Avg. Fuel Cons Fuel cost
415klm 5 hours 30 12.5 l/100. $69.65 55.33 litres
Accommodation Cost
Caravan Park $25 per night
Tree of Knowledge
Ilfracombe Mile
Ilfracoombe was going to be our base for Longreach, it had a caravan park usually with very good free entertainment happy hour ... not for our night! so we moved on to Longreach Holiday Park. We had a look around before moving on and it has some interesting low cost attractions (we may return tomorrow to check them out) The whole side of the highway is lined with all sorts of semi restored machinery, by myself I could have spent a few hours wandering among them but 15 minutes seemed ample and then it was on to the Longreach park.It is a huge park with a pool and as it was only about a 3rd full there was plenty of room but no shade.
e of Machinery
It was only a short trip from Barcaldine, even so we were up at 630am, not used to sleeping in, and packed up and on the road around 730.. The wind that started when we were at Charleville hasn’t stopped and we needed both of us to put the awning down, I will think twice about using the awning in this heat and wind. After the brief stop at Ilfracoombe we found the Tourist info at Longreach and booked a sunset tour for the following day, we noticed there was a day stockman show at the Stockmans Hall of Fame starting in hour so off we went. That would have been one of the best $50 we have spent on entertainment for along time. The show consisted of two dogs, a sheep or two and a comedic stockman. Not only did he have us all laughing at his and his dogs antics, at the same was also teaching the history of droving Lunch back at the caravan park and into the pool for an hour or so .. not as cold as Charleville but we were the only one’s in there. I rode my bike (38 degrees) to the QANTAS founder’s museum (wasn’t Jan’s thing) and spent an enjoyable couple of hours (after cooling down) watching videos and displays on the formation of QANTAS. We decided to try the RSL club for tea as we had seen in most towns along our travels RSL offering great value .... well like everything else in Longreach it was dear, that been said the meals were huge and although tasty (with chips) we left them half finished. The most disturbing thing we have found in Longreach is that we get offered the seniors discount without even asking for it ....perhaps we may to buy a more truthful mirror!
Stockman Show
The heat hasn’t relented so with nothing planned, catching up on the washing, a bike ride and into the pool was the order of the morning. After lunch I rode off to see the Powerhouse museum, one of the most complete regional town power station that was still generating power to Longreach up to 19856 when the grid finally reached them. I found it really interesting, they also had a lot of memorabilia that reminded me of my childhood, this nomading business likes to shove your age right in your face lol. The school across the road from the museum had an electronic signboard showing 40 degrees when I arrived so I stopped to take a photo, an hour later on leaving I noticed it was 44 degrees I quickly turned round for a better photo, by the time I was set up the gardener had turned the hose on the sign and it was back to 40 so no photo proof but it was hot. On the ride back to the park I ran into a bunch/mob/group/flock(cross out what is not applicable) of 5 emus wandering down the middle of road in suburbia ... couldn’t get my camera out quick enough but they were quicker!! That night we had a 60 min voyage by paddle steamer on the Thomson River them a camp oven followed by a bush poet and a very well light and sound show on Captain Starlight. Nice food and great entertainment.