Boonah, Scenic Rim, Granite Belt QLD 03-12 November, 2021
- Ken Fredric
- Nov 3, 2021
- 30 min read
Updated: Mar 29, 2023
Day One - Scarborough - Boonah 03 November, 2021
We had planned a week’s holiday around the Granite Belt, from the 7 - 12 November, thinking that we wouldn’t be able to go to the Explorer Motorhome owners’ rally, which was on from the 1 - 4 November.
However, as the time for the rally came closer we decided to go to the rally for the last two days, and combine that with the holiday we’d already planned, which just meant taking a few more days off work and staying in Boonah for a few more days after the rally.
Because this was going to be our longest trip to date, ten days, we got Matariki out of storage the day before we were due to leave, to give us plenty of time to pack everything we needed for the journey.
So we set out on Wednesday morning around 9:30 p.m. and drove directly to Boonah, arriving at the Boonah Showgrounds around 11:00 a.m., which is where the rally was being held. After checking in we found a spot to park up at for the four nights we would be staying there. The grassy site had power but no fresh water, and was in what would normally be the arena during shows. There were a few Explorers there when we arrived, but the majority (around 50) had gone out for the day on a tagalong tour of some local areas that included a few creek crossings. Another group we spoke to later in the day didn’t want to do the tagalong tour so four of them did a winery tagalong tour of their own.
After saying hello to a couple of other owners and setting up Matariki, it was lunch time so we wandered up to the Boonah main street in search of food. Sandie Lee’s Kitchen looked good so we headed in there and ordered a chicken caesar wrap for Meg and chicken caesar salad (large) for me. Meg wasn’t that impressed with her wrap, but I thought the salad was very good, if a little too large (one day I’ll learn to not order the large meal!).
Back at the showgrounds we spent the afternoon relaxing and meeting fellow owners and swapping war stories. Many of the people we spoke to we knew of from the Explorer Motorhomes Facebook group. It was also good to catch up with people we’d met previously, like Phil and Alexandra who we met on the 4WD course at Landsborough a few weeks earlier. We also caught up with Paul and Margaret Acton, who live in Redcliffe, and who we’d met the previous November at the Sea Salt and Vine in Scarborough, after we’d ordered our Explorer and were keen to talk to owners for advice on build options.
I must say that when all the Explorers that had been out for the day returned, it was an impressive sight to see them all together.
That activity filled the afternoon until it was wine o’clock. A few owners had congregated at a couple from Woolloongabba's motorhome, so we joined them for beer, wine, snacks, laughter and lies until it was time for the organised trivia event for that night’s entertainment.
We arranged to grab a table in the community hall across from the arena for nine of us, which we did, then once we were all seated we were told that the table limit was six, so our numbers reduced to us, Phil and Alexandra Stuart and Gavin and Nadine Fredric.
We’d contacted Gavin on the owners’ Facebook group when we first saw his name, thinking it was unusual for us both to have a surname spelled exactly the same. Quite uncommon in fact. Gavin gave us some details on his parents and grandparents, who also live in New Zealand, as mine do, which provided us with enough information to use Ancestry to establish that we have a great, great, great grandfather in common. Small world!
Back at trivia, which was run by Chris and Joanne Clark, we had 22 questions to answer over an hour and a half or so, all of which were related to early explorers. More wine helped with our thought processes, which meant that there was a lot more hilarity during the event. As was expected, by us anyway, our team (the Fred Stu’s) won the event and a treasure trove of chocolate in prizes. At the start of the evening there were some lucky build number draws and we won one of those as well (a $50 Coles gift card) so it was quite a profitable evening all round.
We’d had quite a big day by the time we arrived back at Matariki, and plenty of wine, so we just relaxed for a little while before hitting the sack.
Day Two - Boonah 04 November, 2021
We didn’t have any real plans for our second day in Boonah so we weren’t in any real rush to get up and get going anywhere. But, because we’d had a reasonably early night the night before, we were awake early and rose about 7:00 a.m.
After tea/coffee and brekky, we wandered around the showgrounds chatting to people and finding out peoples’ plans to see who was staying and who was heading out, and looking at other peoples’ motorhomes for ideas, including trying to find someone who had a Fiamma bike rack, so we could see how they work. We did plan to take our bikes on this trip, but it seemed like too much hassle to figure out how you actually mount them on the bike rack. Next time!
The day was beautiful, with a light wind and a few clouds, so we decided to go for a walk and check out some of the local sights.
We’d read about some statues in the town, which we headed for first, walking up to the main street.
The first we came across was “With an eye on the sky”, which is a man holding his hat with his eye on the sky. This sculpture represents association with the land country people work and how they rely on sun and rain.
Right next to this sculpture is the “Blumbergville Clock”, a very strange looking piece of art, that is actually a working clock that chimes every 15 minutes.
Wanting to get a good view of Boonah and the showground with all the Explorers, we headed for the closest lookout to town, the Mt Carmel lookout, which took us past the “Clydebuilt” statue that commemorates the Clydesdale horses that worked in Australian agriculture.
It was a hard slog up to the Mt Carmel lookout, but the views made the effort well worth it. I probably should mention that although it felt like we'd climbed Mt Everest, the walk up to the lookout only took about 15 minutes, so this is another example of Australians naming something a mountain, that in New Zealand would be called a hill, or even just a pimple in this case. After using up another metaphorical roll of film capturing the beautiful vista, we headed black down the pimple and back into the town to try to find another statue we’d read about. This last statue eluded us so we went back to the camp to shower and chill for a while before lunch.
When we were in the main street the day before we’d spied a nice looking bakery across from the place we had lunch at, and thought we should see if they had any yummy stuff for lunch. I managed to restrain myself from supersizing lunch two days in a row and followed Meg’s lead of having a very tasty sandwich, hers a chicken and salad, and mine egg and salad, both with a very tasty creamy dressing.
The afternoon was spent relaxing, cross-stitching, blogging and more interaction with other motorhome owners. Meg was sitting outside at one point when a strong gust of wind blew a neighbouring owner's freshly-washed knickers off her clothesline! The lady, Michelle, was on an important phone call at the time and couldn’t do anything about it, so she was grateful for Meg’s intervention.
By wine o’cl…., ah late afternoon, we were sitting outside having our usual drinks when we were summoned by a fellow owner to Wendy Gammon’s motorhome, where all the owners who had decided to stay were hanging out. A few of these older people we hadn’t met previously so it was good to put faces to names we’d seen on the Facebook group. We hung out there for a couple of hours then went back to our place for dinner, which was the Chicken Korma we’d brought from home.
All of this social interaction that we weren’t used to was making us very tired so we had another early night.
Day Three - Boonah 05 November, 2021
Most of the other Explorers were leaving this day and, because we were still parked in the showground arena, we had to move to the main campground for the next two nights.
Because this meant we had to pack up for the move we planned to take the opportunity to explore the local area some more, before setting up in the main campground later in the day.
After breakfast, packing up, a phone consult with my doctor for a prescription and chatting to other Explorer owners who were leaving, we headed out of town after filling up the fresh water tank and emptying the toilet cassette.
Our first stop was Mt French, which was only about 30 minutes drive from Boonah. There are two short walks you can do from here, the North cliff track which is a 720m return walk, and the Mee-bor-rum circuit which is 840m return.
The North cliff track leads to Logan’s lookout with excellent, panoramic views over the Fassifern Valley, with the Main Range escarpment to the west and Flinders Peak and beyond to the east. The Mee-bor-rum circuit track passes through heathland and features the East Cliff lookout with views of Tamborine, Lamington and Mount Barney. Care must be taken at the lookout as it is a natural feature and has no handrails. Further along the track a circular platform with seating provides views of the heathland and southern section of Mount French.
Next up we wanted to check out the Lake Moogerah dam wall. We’d been to the lake a few weeks earlier, but not around the side of the lake where the wall is.
At the lake we walked most of the way across the wall and took in the views across the lake.
After our busy morning we decided we were hungry and went in search of a winery at Mt Alford, hoping that they also had food. Alas, when we got there, there was nobody else there except an older man talking on his mobile phone on the balcony of an older house. After asking the question about lunch we were disappointed to find they only served food on special wine-tasting event days.
We’d passed a pub on the way to the winery, the Dugandan Hotel, where we’d seen four Explorers parked, all with single female owners, and thought that would be the best option that was fairly close for lunch.
After ordering food, steak, chips and salad for me and chicken parmy burger and chips for Meg, we grabbed a couple of drinks and sat on the deck outside the pub. We were entertained by some classic cars, e.g. a ‘57 Chev Bel Air, a MK3 Cortina, a Torana, etc., all with very large lumpy-sounding V8 engines, laying down a lot of rubber as they left the pub. After sitting outside for about half an hour waiting for our meals, light rain started falling, which forced us to run for cover inside the pub. The food was good, albeit fairly standard pub fare, and not particularly remarkable, although my steak was cooked really well (medium, not well done) and was very tender.
So after a couple of drinks and quite a large meal we were ready for a nana nap, and drove back to the showgrounds to relax for the afternoon.
I’m not very good at relaxing, so I did have an excursion into the town in search of a USB C cable, as despite our best efforts to have dedicated cables in Matariki, so we didn’t need to bring them from home every time we travel, we seemed to have misplaced Meg’s tablet cable. I was hoping to find a genuine Samsung cable, because the USB C cable I use for my mobile wouldn’t charge the tablet for some reason. I couldn’t find the real thing and ended up getting a no-name brand cable, crossing fingers that it would work, which it did. One less thing to worry about!
That was our lot for the day, not achieving anything else, as was the plan.
After a few aperitifs, Tuna Pasta Bake was on the menu for dinner, another dish we’d bought from home.
For some reason this travelling life was making us very tired, and we didn’t last much past the ABC news and Gardening Australia before the eyes were struggling to stay open. Must be all the fresh air!
Day Four - Boonah 06 November, 2021
For our fourth day on the road we planned a rest day to recuperate from all the unfamiliar social interaction, and also the sightseeing we’d been doing.
We needed to stock up on some food items during the day, and I wanted to sort out our cupboards, which were still in the same state as when we set out on our first trip and threw stuff willy-nilly into any cupboard or drawer where it would fit.
After a leisurely start to the morning that consisted of our usual hot drinks, breakfast, dishes and showers, I went crazy emptying most of the cupboards and drawers and rearranging things, which actually had the effect of creating quite a lot more space.
Late morning we wandered up to the IGA to replenish supplies, and that was our only outing for the day.
We had a couple of visitors during the day, the first an older man by himself who was camping in a swag whilst waiting for his new Pathfinder to be ready, which was due in about five weeks. We chatted for a bit about Explorer-related topics and tried to encourage him to join the Explorer Motorhome Owners’ Facebook group, but he wasn’t on Facebook. That same gent stopped off at our place on his way back from the town and a couple of beers, to ask about insurance. We told him about our insurer, and some other options, and made sure he was aware of the need to have insurance before picking up his motorhome.
Another friendly man stopped for a chat as he was passing by to take his dog for a walk, who seemed to know quite a lot about Explorers and the founders of the Explorer company, even though he had a Mercedes Sprinter conversion motorhome himself. We had quite a long discussion on the benefits of, and technical aspects of, solar panels on motorhomes. As always when talking with other motorhome owners, I learned some interesting details of how solar works, and that cooler cloudy days are better for solar panels than bright sunny days.
I spent the afternoon catching up on our travel blog and fixing some issues with the website not displaying properly on mobile devices.
Dinner was another meal we’d brought from home, Beef Stroganoff, served with rice, and of course washed down with a few drinks.
Day Five - Boonah to Queen Mary Falls 07 November, 2021
Our plans for today were to pack up from the Boonah showgrounds camp, then do some touristy driving around the area, on the way to the Queen Mary Falls campground.
We were all cuppa’d up, breakfasted, abluted, packed up and ready to go before 9:00 a.m.
We headed out of Boonah towards Croftby for our first port of call, Minto Crag, which wasn’t a stop, but rather a photo opportunity out the window as we drove past. There didn’t seem to be any official stopping point that we could see, with the usual information boards and photo opportunity.
The next part of the journey was the part I’d been looking forward to, which was the same as the Explorer tag-along tour had done, along the Condamine River Road with its 14 creek crossings, that would take us to Killarney for a lunch stop.
On the way we had a brief photo stop to capture the beautiful escarpment we were following.
The road was quite corrugated and full of potholes so we mostly drove at the recommended 30 kmh.
The creek crossings weren’t particularly deep, but were very rough so we had to drive very slowly through them, avoiding any large boulders.
Reading some information later in the day we found out the Condamine River feeds into the Darling River, then into the Murray River.
I found the driving really enjoyable, once again reinforcing just how capable Matariki is in all conditions, but it’s also quite demanding for newbies, so we had a scenic morning tea stop to rest and recuperate part way along the road.
After about an hour of solid driving we finally cracked all 14 creek crossings and drove into Killarney, where we parked up at the Killarney Hotel. It was still earlyish so we killed some time before lunch checking out some local shops and popping in to the newsagent to buy a crossword book.
We’re really bad Facebookers because we didn’t take the obligatory insta-worthy lunch photo, so you’ll have to trust me that we had great steak sandwiches for lunch washed down with a cider. We’d read about how good the steak sandwiches are somewhere and we left the pub agreeing with that assessment.
Before lunch I’d noticed an interesting looking shop across the main road from the pub, which we went to check out while lunch settled. It turns out it was really interesting, with a really friendly local lady who greeted us. I should note that everywhere we go the people we meet, and especially business owners, are extremely friendly and helpful. The shop was full of antiques, collectables and some junk but in its entirety it was very interesting. There was even a piece of equipment we couldn’t identify, which turned out to be a device for farm fencing that is used to tighten the fence wires. On the way out of the shop I was looking at a frame that had photos of an old lady and newspaper articles about her. The lady in the shop told us a bit about the subject in the photos, Nellie Bowley. Nellie was a real character who was known as the “dingo lady” because she was a crack shot who hated dingos and would shoot them at every opportunity, and who died a month short of her 109th birthday in August, 2009. The lady in the shop said that for most of her life Nellie would walk along the main street of Killarney with a shotgun over her shoulder, until such time as that became ‘un-pc’.
For the next part of the day we planned to drive along Falls Drive to Carr’s Lookout, at the furthest point we were going for the day, going via Brown’s Falls and Dagg’s Falls lookout before heading back to Queen Mary Falls campground.
So the first stop on this little expedition was Brown’s Falls, which we’d read was about a 1.2 km round trip walk to the falls and back. Setting out we diligently read all the warning signs about how the walk was only to be undertaken by able-bodied people, about how rough and steep parts of the track were, and about how dangerous it could be, all of which we scoffed at of course, as people experienced in this type of activity. Hindsight is a wonderful thing! The track was very rough, in some parts non-existent, and in many places we had only red markers to guide us in the right direction, across the falls creek, over fallen tree trunks and on very slippery rocks and tree roots. It was one of those walks where you had to watch every step you take for fear of slipping and spraining an ankle or breaking an arm or a leg, or falling in the water. At the first water crossing Meg decided to take off her new shoes, because she didn’t want to get them wet and muddy, and walk barefoot. As a much more nimble and sure-footed walker, I decided to leave my shoes on and save my feet the trauma. I lost track of time and couldn’t say how long it took us to walk the 600 or so metres into the falls, but it took a lot of determination to carry on in some places.
When we eventually arrived at the falls there were about 15-20 other people there, most on the rocks to the left of and in front of the falls, but some hardy people were in the water at the base of the falls. We climbed up the hill to the right of the falls to get some insta-pics, to stay away from the rest of the people and to see if there was an alternative route out so we wouldn’t have to climb over the large rocks just before the falls. We were at the point of starting walk back out when some people down at the base of the falls starting shouting. One of the men in the water, maybe in his 30s or 40s had slipped and hit his head on a large rock. A man nearby shouted for a towel to try and stem the bleeding from a large cut on the side of the injured man’s forehead. We were too far up to be able to provide any assistance, apart from checking our phones for mobile coverage, which was obviously a waste of time in a remote area like that. The injured man was moving and several people were rendering assistance, so we decided we couldn’t do anything useful and started the walk back to the start of the track and try to find some mobile coverage to call emergency services. We made it back without incident, apart from me slipping into the water at the last water crossing and getting my shoes wet, after all that hard work of keeping them dry. Another man who was at the falls and had witnessed the accident had gone out ahead of us and was to talking to emergency services when we got there, so we didn’t have to do that.
Obviously, with all that drama at Brown’s Falls, I was having second thoughts about looking at any more waterfalls when we started driving the short distance to Dagg’s Falls, but Meg assured me this one was a lookout at the side of the road. At the Dagg’s Falls lookout the only other people there were two carloads of Asian people, standing on the small lookout so that we couldn’t get on there, taking insta-pics with a drone. I remarked to Meg that this fad may be the next iteration of the selfie-stick. Once they finally finished with their selfies, we had the opportunity to take a couple of our own before jumping back in the van and driving up to Carr’s Lookout.
The views from Carr’s Lookout were amazing, ranging from Cunningham’s Gap to the Gold Coast but, being so high up, it was really cold so we didn’t linger too long.
Then it was time to drive back along Falls Drive to the Queen Mary Falls Caravan Park, where we were booked to stay for two nights. We checked in, set up our camping spot and hit the showers because we were covered in mud from the Brown’s Falls expedition. The rest of the day was spent catching up with social media, languages on Duolingo, blogging and our usual Sunday night dinner of cheese, crackers and caramelised onion chutney.
There was rain forecast for most of the coming week; it started to fall early evening and didn’t stop until mid-morning the next day, which made for a broken night’s sleep worrying about the chairs and shoes we’d left outside, and also wondering if Matariki would develop any leaks as we hadn’t encountered any serious rain since taking delivery. After tossing and turning for what seemed like hours, I got up about 4 a.m. to bring in the chairs and shoes, which we stored in the shower, the only storage space available for larger wet items. I don’t think we slept much for the rest of the night.
Day Six - Queen Mary Falls 08 November, 2021
Day six of our adventure started as the previous day had ended, with steady rain and no end in sight to it. The only plan we had for the day was to do the Queen Mary Falls walk, which started across the road from the caravan park and which was only about 2 km long.
After we’d completed our normal morning routine, the rain was still coming down. We reverted to plan B, which was for me to catch up on blogs for previous couple of days and for Meg to do her usual thing, until such time as the rain stopped long enough to allow us to escape our little home.
Around morning tea time the sky started to brighten a little. We decided to have morning tea then, if still not raining, we would head out for our planned walk. For a little treat we went to the caravan park shop and bought some sticky buns for morning tea, although Meg said we had to go to pay the bill because their EFTPOS machine wasn’t working when we checked in, and they just happened to have some yummy sticky buns that she’d noticed the day before. I also bought a 2022 calendar of Australian native birds for my office.
As we left the motorhome to go to the office, we had some unexpected visitors come to see us, king parrots and crimson rosellas, looking for food. They were very cheeky, parking themselves on Matariki and the outside table. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any food, but the shop sold suitable bird food, which we included in our purchases.
After morning tea we needed to work off the sticky buns and walked across the road to the start of the Queen Mary Falls walking track. There were two tracks, the Cliff Circuit and the Queen Mary Falls Circuit, and we chose to do the longer Falls Circuit.
We set out on an anti-clockwise circuit, which is a bit disturbing to some people, but not others apparently, that took us past the falls early in the walk.
With all the rain in the past twelve hours or so the falls were spectacular, if a little dirty coloured. It was one of those walks where it seemed that everything you could possibly see, we did see, from beautiful small red-beaked finches to brightly-coloured orange fantail-type birds to large lizards. The walk is very easy, with gentle ascents and descents, and didn’t really tax us at all. There are some huge trees in the falls valley and one particularly large specimen was a what seemed to be about 50-metre-tall Hoop Pine. Our timing was excellent, getting back to the caravan park a bit after twelve, which meant lunchtime.
We ate a lunch of silverside with pickles on toast, all of which we’d bought at the IGA on our way out of Boonah.
I was interested to see if the King Parrots and Crimson Rosellas would come back if I went outside with the bag of seed and shook it to attract their attention, and come they did!
Two King Parrots, one of which was particularly bossy, making it difficult for any of the other birds to get any food, and half a dozen Crimson Rosellas came for lunch. The really cheeky King Parrot, which was missing most of its tail feathers, seemed to be the dominant bird to the extent it would fly up and sit on our heads to assert its dominance.
I had some serious catching up to do for the rest of the afternoon on the blog, so the laptop got a hammering for most of the afternoon. The sun eventually came out so we moved outside, but we were a bit like a ‘whore’s drawers’ having to go inside every time a shower passed through, then back outside once it had passed.
Dinner was a cobbled together meal of pasta and quarantine sauce, with leftover mushrooms and spinach tossed in for good measure (we hate wasting food).
We tried to watch the ABC news at 7:00 p.m. but the TV couldn’t find any channels, which drove us to find an alternative method to do this. We eventually figured out that we could watch the QLD version of ABC news on the tablet, using Wi-Fi, rather than having to rely on a TV signal.
And that brought another day on the road to a close.
Day Seven - Queen Mary Falls - Glen Aplin 09 November, 2021
Yay, I finally managed a good sleep, despite having to get up quickly at one point in the night because I had cramp in my calf muscle.
After our usual morning routine we packed up and left the campground around 8:30 a.m., headed initially for Morgan Park, near Warwick, to empty the toilet cassette because the Queen Mary Falls Caravan Park didn’t have an official dump point.
After dealing with that we drove the short distance to the Warwick shops to top up some supplies in Woolies and to top up our booze supplies at a bottle shop in the shopping centre.
We had planned to get a coffee and sticky bun somewhere for morning tea, but didn’t see any likely looking cafes, so we carried on to our next planned stop, which was Stanthorpe Cheese at Thulimbah for a cheese tasting experience, shopping for yummy things and a beautiful ploughman’s lunch with some local wine.
The cheese tasting was very well done, with a small sample of 11 different cheeses, all named on a sheet of paper that had space for us to take notes if we wanted to remember which cheeses we liked to purchase later. A video presentation ran at the same time telling us about the cheeses, the way they are made and their particular characteristics.
The ploughman’s lunch, that consisted of fresh, warm bread, two of the cheeses we chose from the tasting selection, ham, tomatoes, slices of pear and apple, cocktail onions, ham, boiled eggs and two relishes was excellent and filled us up enough that we didn’t need any dinner.
Suitably replete, we drove the back roads to the Country Style Caravan Park at Glen Aplin, where we’d booked in for one night.
The main part of the campground was just off the New England highway near the office, so it was quite noisy with all the traffic going past. But the older gentleman who greeted us in the office led us to an unpowered site at a beautiful spot beside the Severn river weir, where the only noise was water running over the weir, and the myriad birdlife.
After performing the setup routine, we spent some time cleaning around the toilet and toilet cassette looking for the source of some unpleasant smells that had been bothering us for the previous couple of days.
Despite the forecast for heavy rain, the day was sunny and hot, so after the cleaning effort it was time for a shower. I decided to use the caravan park facilities to shower, even though it was a bit of a walk from our campsite up to the amenities block. Unfortunately, when I got there I discovered that to operate the showers you needed 20c coins to run the shower for 3 minutes.
We had the forethought to stock up on one dollar and two dollar coins for doing laundry, but who would’ve thought we’d need 20c coins? Luckily we are self-sufficient so it was back to Matariki for a shower, after waiting half an hour for the water to heat up.
We relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, catching up on bits and pieces. The view over the river was absolutely beautiful, so we’d parked with the awning facing that way, but it was far too hot and sunny to sit on that side until the sun went down, so we had to sit behind Matariki for a while to shelter from the heat.
We were still full from our wonderful lunch and decided to skip dinner in favour of some light snacks, with our usual wines and beers, as we sat outside watching the beautiful sunset and, once dark, watch the stars come out.
Another beautiful day in paradise!
Day Eight - Glen Aplin - Storm King Dam 10 November, 2021
Woke at our normal 7:00 a.m., did our usual morning routine, and packed up ready to hit the road for another day of adventure.
We had some loose plans for the morning, to kill some time before going to Storm King Dam for the 2:00 p.m. check-in time, however we obviously hadn’t prayed to the correct travel gods this day.
We had researched everywhere we planned to go to make sure they would be open for the times that we planned to be there. However, we were packed up and ready to go at 8:30 a.m., but our first planned stop, Jamworks Gourmet Foods, didn’t open until 10:00 a.m.
So, onto plan B, which was to go strawberry picking at a place we’d passed on the way to Glen Aplin, Ashbern Farms PYO Strawberries. Alas, when we got there a sign on the open gate informed us that the farm was closed for the day.
So, onto plan C, but it was too early for that because that plan was to go to a nearby winery for wine tasting and lunch.
Plan D, formulated on the trot, was to go and check out Stanthorpe as, even though I'd driven past on the highway many times, I’d never been into the town. I was concerned that our tyre pressures were low so we pulled into a servo to pump them up. According to the tyre gauge there the pressures were slightly high so I skipped that idea and we drove up to the Mt Marlay Lookout, a short drive away, to get a view of Stanthorpe. The view was underwhelming, but there was a short walk around the top of the lookout that we did to get a bit of exercise.
After that it was morning tea time, which we’d planned to spend at Suttons Juice Factory in Thulimbah. At the factory they’ve repurposed a storage shed as a café and shop to hawk their wares. We ordered some yummy apple slice with cream to eat and coffee to wash it down with. The shop has a great range of juices and other products such as jams, pickles and vinegars, and we made a couple of purchases.
That was morning tea done and we still hadn’t decided where to have lunch. We looked through all the touristy information we’d picked up along the way trying to find a suitable option, which would ideally be a winery that also served food. We must’ve looked at a dozen different winery, breweries and other eating establishments, all of which were closed on Wednesdays.
We decided to revert to one of our favourite lunches, pies from a bakery in Stanthorpe, but it was still too early for that, which led us to drive to a park, through which the Quart Pot Creek ran, to use up some time until lunchtime. Turns out the park was called Gleeson Park!
There were walkways along both sides of the creek so we set out for a stroll to work up an appetite for lunch. There was an impressive array of wildlife enjoying the environment, including ducks, swampys, shags, white egrets, freshwater turtles, blue herons and the obligatory ibis. We walked about 1.5 kms along one side of the creek and back along the other side to where we’d started.
Finally it was lunchtime and we drove into the main street of Stanthorpe, parked up and went to Zest Pastries for a pie lunch. Meg had a chicken, leek and vegetable pie and I went off-piste a bit with my choice of a lamb masala pie, and we were very impressed with both, the pie aficionados that we are. We also both had a very nice gingered apple drink to accompany the pies.
We checked out some silo art-type paintings after lunch that Meg had read about in a lane off the main street, and in the street behind the main street.
Even though it was still a bit early for the Storm King Dam campground’s 2:00 p.m. check-in time, we decided to head there anyway and take our chances because there were some very ominous clouds in the sky and it was starting to rain. The drive to the Sommerville Valley Tourist Park was only about 11 km from Stanthorpe, which meant we got there around 12:30 p.m.
There was no issue with checking in early and once that was done we parked up, in the rain, on a powered hardstand site that also had fresh water and a grey water outlet. Thankfully the rain stopped while we were setting up and the sun came out, which meant we put tables and chairs out too.
The only thing to do around the camp was to check out the Storm King Dam, and that was what we did after setting up for the night. As we were walking the short distance to the shore of the dam, we were shocked to see dozens of rabbits all around the campground and dam. Meg later asked the lady who checked us on about the rabbits and she said there’s very little she could do about them, not being able to shoot or poison them for fear of hurting camp users. There wasn’t much to see at the dam, so it was back to Matariki to catch up on what the rest of the world had been doing while we were gallivanting around the countryside.
Day Nine - Storm King Dam - Giraween National Park 11 November, 2021
After our usual morning routine, we packed up to drive to Giraween National Park, where we would be spending our last night on the road for this adventure. We left Storm King Dam Caravan Park around 8:30 a.m.
The drive for the day wasn’t very long, but there were some interesting places we wanted to visit along the way. Also, Meg had found an app called the Aussie Park Guide, which was developed by an Australian owned family company to allow travellers to explore Australian National Parks. The app would guide us from a starting point, through the park, pointing out interesting features, historical information, how the environment was formed millions of years ago and indicating walks we could do along the way.
The drive was slow because the roads were quite rough, with regular potholes and corrugations, but we had the whole day ahead of us so we weren’t in a hurry. The only issue we could have though, was the forecast heavy rain, a continuation of the downpours we’d experienced in the past few days.
Once into the National Park, the first stop the app suggested was to walk to Dr. Robert’s Waterhole and Underground Creek, from the Dr. Robert’s Car Park. In the 1930s, Dr. Roberts had realised the importance of the area, and he had a particular interest in providing a safe habitat for the local wombats, lyre birds and Bell Turtles, that are only found in the National Park. He petitioned the government for years to set aside some of this important environment and was eventually granted two parcels of land, from which he created the start of the Giraween National Park.
The walk to the Underground Creek was 1.2 km from the car park and, of course, as soon as we started the walk, it started raining. We’d had the forethought to put on rain jackets, and there was no wind, so the light rain didn’t bother us too much. The well-formed gravel path was mostly flat and, because of the rain, had a few places where we had to dodge puddles so as not to get soggy shoes, but other than that it was an easy walk. The native flora was very colourful, with many native plants that had small delicate flowers in a range of colours from pink to white to yellow to purple.
Once again, because of the recent rainfall, there was plenty of water flowing when we got to Underground Creek, so named because Bald Rock Creek appears to mysteriously disappear underground. The walk back was along the same path, until about 200 metres from the car park there was a junction in the path where we chose to walk to Dr. Robert’s Waterhole, which was only 400 metres from that point. The waterhole was surrounded by huge granite boulders, had a beautiful reflective surface and was extremely peaceful, so we sat and soaked up the serenity for a while.
Walking back from Underground Creek the rain had stopped for long enough to feel that we had dried out somewhat, but walking back to the car park from the waterhole it started bucketing down again. We had to put the awning out when we got back to Matariki to provide us with some shelter to get our wet jackets and shoes and socks off before hitting the road again.
Our plan for the rest of the day was fluid, and was reliant mainly on the weather, which wasn’t cooperating at that point. The next stop was the information centre, which was the starting point for a few easy walks around the local sights. We were greeted at the centre by a park ranger who gave us a map that covered all the local sights and walking tracks. After finding out our plans for the rest of the day and the night, we were warned that floodwaters had affected some of the walks, and that if there was much more rain we may also not be able to get back to Brisbane the following day, when we would be heading home.
We went back to Matariki to have morning tea, whilst waiting for the current shower to pass, and to have a read of the map to plan the next part of the day. There were a number of short walks close by and, after morning tea, we set out to do as many as the weather would allow us to do.
Once jacketed up again we set out to the closest and shortest of the walks, the Wyberba walk, which took us alongside the ever-rising Bald Rock Creek. Unfortunately, because of the rain, there wasn’t much wildlife around, apart from one or two tiny finch-like birds and we didn’t get even a glimpse of a Bell Turtle or Bowerbird. The Wyberba walk led us to the start of the Bald Rock Creek circuit, which was the next one on our list.
When we first set out to do these walks the rain had eased and wasn’t bothering us, but by this time it started bucketing down again. We went in one direction on the circuit until the path was cut by the raging creek, which forced us to go back and try walking the circuit in the other direction. However, it wasn’t long before we got to another point where we could see where the path continued, but this had also been cut off by the floodwaters.
By then we were absolutely drenched so went back to Matariki and decided to give it up for the day and drive across the road to the Castle Rock camping area where we were staying for the night. After setting up and removing our thoroughly wet clothing we had quiche for lunch that we’d bought from home.
Just to add to our woes we discovered there was no internet in the park so we would have to go old school to amuse ourselves for the rest of the day. Meg did some cross-stitching and crosswords while I did some blogging in Word on the laptop.
Dinner was spaghetti bolognese, which was the last meal we’d bought from home. I was quite impressed that we were still eating food we’d taken with us after ten days travelling.
Day Ten - Giraween National Park - Scarborough 12 November, 2021
When we went to bed the night before the rain had finally stopped, for good we were hoping. However, during the night, it started pouring again hard enough to wake us up and keep us awake for some time.
Thankfully by the time we got up the rain was falling only very lightly and soon stopped, which allowed us to pack up without getting wet again.
Rather than driving straight home, we had plans to first drive about 5 kms to a place called Heavenly Chocolate for a morning tea of hot chocolate and sticky buns, find a dump point somewhere along the way to empty the toilet cassette, and finally stop for lunch at The Barn and Scotty’s Garage at Flagstone Creek, which was sort of on the way home.
The first disruption to our plans for the day was that, because we got up so early, we were ready to rock and roll by 8:30 a.m., and Heavenly Chocolate didn’t open until 10:00 a.m, so we decided to skip that stop and instead go to Vincenzo’s Cafe at Stanthorpe for morning tea, which we’d noticed had reopened when passing earlier in the trip. Vincenzo’s didn’t appear to have changed very much from our earlier visits, despite the new ownership. We had coffees and scones with jam and cream for morning tea before carrying on to Dalveen where we’d seen a dump point a few days earlier.
The drive to our planned lunch stop took us around the back streets of Warwick, being guided by Google Maps navigation, when we came to a railway bridge with a floodway beneath it and there were a couple of cars stopped just before the bridge. The road was cut by flood waters passing over the road, so we turned around to find another route. The second attempt took us back out to the highway, which we stayed on for some time before turning off towards Scotty’s Garage, along a very narrow, winding, scenic road flanked on both sides by heavy bush, farmland and a proliferation of jacaranda trees.
We arrived at The Barn & Scotty’s Garage about 11:30 a.m., which gave us some time to look around the garage first before having lunch.
We were pleasantly surprised by the amount of items in the garage, including a small number of vehicles and motorbikes, but focused more on a large amount of historical motoring memorabilia such as petrol pumps, oil dispensers, car manuals, car maintenance equipment and many other items too numerous to mention.
At the back of the garage there was another large room fitted out as an American diner, and which looked very authentic, complete with a jukebox and a dance floor in the middle of the room.
We had a good chat with the man who greeted us when we first went in (Scotty?), and it turns out that we both started our motor apprenticeships around the same time in the seventies.
I recognised a lot of the memorabilia from my time working on cars back then.
‘The Barn’ part of this business is where we had lunch, which was a very filling and tasty seafood mornay cob loaf for both of us. We didn’t really feel like moving after all that food, but it was time to head for home after ten days on the road.
The drive back to Rothwell was uneventful and uninterrupted apart from a fuel stop at Hendra, where we took on board 113 litres of diesel at a cost of about $190.
After unpacking at the storage facility, and covering up Mata to protect her from the birds, we drove home, arriving about 4:00 p.m.
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