Day One - Scarborough - Mungindi 03 April, 2022
This adventure was undertaken to use up more of my excessive leave before retiring at the end of June.
We had a very fluid plan to cruise around south-west Qld and north-west NSW for about ten days, and return home before the Easter holidays to catch up with family.
Matariki was parked across the road because we’d picked her up on Friday morning, and she was pretty much fully loaded up by the day before we left for this trip.
We set out from home about 9:00 A.M. headed for Mungindi, about 600 kms away, for our first night on the road.
This first day was just going to be a day of driving to get to the area we wanted to explore. As with most of our journeys in the direction we were travelling, we headed to Toowoomba and utilised the wonderful Toowoomba Bypass, before turning off to Goondiwindi.
Unusually for us, we hadn’t even planned a lunch stop on the way, and were tossing up between using up some of our stocks in the fridge we’d taken with us, or finding a nice cafe in a town we were passing.
The latter option won when Meg suggested we go into Pittsworth, which we would normally bypass, to see what it had to offer. On a Sunday we were sceptical that anything would be available, but we were pleasantly surprised by the Bottlebrush Cafe in the main street of Pittsworth. Meg had a nice chilli chicken wrap and I had a huge steak sandwich which filled us both up to the point of being bloated.
Back on the road we headed once more for Mungindi, but Meg had seen a side trip that we could do to Thallon, which had some silo art, and was a potential stop for the night if we didn’t want to continue on to Mungindi.
The drive to Thallon, although partly on gravel road, was worth the extra time because the silo art was great, and we also got to meet Willy the Wombat in a nearby park.
We checked out the available camping option in Thallon and, although it looked ok, we decided to carry on driving the 35 kms or so to Mungindi.
The drive to Mungindi was easy, on long, flat, straight stretches of road, so it only took about 40 minutes.
Our first option for the night’s camping was a free camp on the banks of the Barwon River, on the outskirts entering Mungindi, but that was fenced off after the recent floods. That left us with the only other option, which was the Mungindi Caravan Park, which had a $20 per night unpowered site. As we drove into the caravan park we were met by Lyn, the park manager, who steered us into an unpowered site and invited us to an open shed near the amenities block for “happy hour”.
Once set up we headed over to happy hour with beers in hand, and met a number of interesting characters, some travellers like us and some locals. Ja
Lyn was a wonderful host and provided finger food for all present, while we all swapped travel war stories and local knowledge.
It would’ve been easy to stay there for the night but we’d had a long day and wanted to catch up with our usual languages and socials and have an earlyish night, so we tore ourselves away from the social scene.
Back in Mata, we caught up with our usual stuff, with a big storm raging overhead, and had a light dinner of bolognese on toast, whilst contemplating the next day of our trip, considering the amount of rain that had been falling.
There endeth the first day of this adventure.
Day Two - Mungindi - Lightning Ridge 04 April, 2022
After a reasonable sleep for our first night back on the road, we worked through our morning routine then broke camp around 8:30 P.M. for the 230 km drive to Lightning Ridge.
There had been some discussion between Meg and I about the best route to take to Lightning Ridge, and also with those present the night before at happy hour. One suggestion was that the Morialta Road was passable and would save us a longer drive back through Thallon, where we’d been the previous day, and up to St George before going south again to Lightning Ridge. I thought this was the best option so we set off in that direction. The discussion with the happy hour people the night before included a light-hearted argument about how much gravel there was on the Morialta Road, and the consensus was around 20 kms. In hindsight I should’ve paid more attention to that conversation.
As with the best laid plans of mice and men, particularly men, this may not have been the best route option, and discretion would certainly have been the best part of valour, by sticking to sealed roads after recent floods, and a storm the previous evening.
The initial part of the drive was easy, with very little traffic on the road, and we enjoyed pottering along at 80 km/h checking out the wildlife including myriad different varieties of winged birds, and also quite a few emus in paddocks.
And then we hit the gravel, which in itself wasn’t so bad, just potholed and corrugation in places.
Then, slowly but surely, the road turned to slippery mud that caused us to switch initially to high range 4WD, then to low range 4WD. It was very slow going and at one point my 4WD driving skills let me down and we ended up sideways across the road and we were beginning to think I wouldn’t be able to straighten up enough to get back to the middle of the road!
After a tough 20 or kms, we made it the Gwydir Highway, physically intact but mentally scarred from that experience, and sadly Mata was covered with mud from head to toe.
On the drive along the highway we made just the one stop, to look at the Aboriginal Collymongle Carved Trees, and to have a settling cup of tea.
On the drive from Collymongle to Lightning Ridge we were lucky to see a herd of 11 emus, that we assumed was the father and 10 offspring.
On the outskirts of Lightning Ridge we also stopped to take a photo of the big emu statue, at the site where an incident occurred in 1879 that gave Lightning Ridge its name. Unfortunately, in that year a man, his dog and 600 sheep died when lightning struck them.
We arrived in Lightning Ridge at lunchtime and stopped in a large carpark at the visitor information centre to have our lunch, then to grab some information on local attractions from the visitor centre.
At this point we were still undecided whether to stay one or two nights in LR, and thought we could use some time checking out a couple of attractions after lunch, then maybe we could do everything we wanted to do with a one-night stay.
The first attraction we visited was The Bottle House, which was quite impressive in itself, but not so much as to want to pay money to go inside.
Next up we drove to Amigos Castle, which we thought was a little underwhelming, and once again we didn’t feel the need to pay money to go inside.
Further out along the main road is the one attraction we really wanted to check out, the Lightning Ridge Artesian Bore Baths.
We parked up, put our swimmers on and gingerly got into the 41.2C artesian well water, which originates in the Great Artesian Basin.
Once in, the water was beautiful and soothing on all the aching bits of our ageing bodies.
With that out of the way we drove to our camp for the night at the Lightning Ridge Holiday Park, where we parked up, got setup for the night, and had an attempt at removing some of the mud that was caked on Mata. This was only partly successful and much of the mud remained for a time when we could do a more thorough clean, though I suspect we removed about half a tonne of mud.
We had a well-deserved beer while catching up with our usual languages, blogging and socials, and relaxing for the rest of the afternoon.
Dinner was beef bourguignon that we’d bought from home, served with rice, and entertainment was SBS News, because ABC News wasn’t available.
Day Three - Lightning Ridge - Brewarrina 05 April, 2022
We had an average sleep again, not quite getting into being able to sleep well on the road.
The day’s plan was to do an opal mine tour in the morning, then drive to Brewarrina for the next night’s stop.
After rising at 7:00 A.M. we took our time with the morning routine and packing up because the opal mine tour wasn’t until 10:00 A.M. and was only a short drive away.
Even with taking our time we were still ready to hit the road before 9:00 A.M., so we decided to do some chores before the mine tour. First up was filling up with diesel, which hurt because it required nearly 120 litres to fill the tanks, at $2.20 per litre, which cost $257!
Next up we stocked up on solid and liquid necessities at the local IGA and bottle-o, before carrying on out to the Chambers of the Black Hand opal mine experience.
And what an experience it was!
This crazy person, Ron Canlin, has carved hundreds of carvings 40 feet underground, in what started life as an opal mine, but didn’t produce enough opals to be a going concern. From their website:
“Ron Canlin started the Chambers of the Black Hand in 1996 and it took 6 months to dig to the opal level of 60 feet for the purpose of showing visitors the opal mine. Over the past 18 years, he hasn't stopped.
At this point the carvings were not even thought of but after the first year of unofficial business showing a few people the mine I decided to dig a Little extra room at the 35 foot level to give visitors a demonstration of opal cutting.
As the sandstone was excavated for the new room I decided to carve a welcome on the wall and the Chambers of the Black Hand was born. One carving led to another and then when one room was completed the next room was excavated to allow for more carvings.
With the passing of time and practice I decided on bigger themes like the Egyptian room, animal room etc. I then decided on “David” and the story goes on.
The Big Buddha turned into three big Buddhas and many more Ideas waiting to be born. My intention is to make the Chambers bigger and as time goes on I will continue to carry on carving either my ideas or requests from our visitors who have in the past given me good ideas.”
The first part of the tour was guided, then we were left to our own devices to explore all the carvings, which we did for the next hour or so.
With everything we wanted to achieve in Lightning Ridge done, we set out for Brewarrina, via Walgett, where there was some silo art we wanted to get a pic of.
The road was in good condition, but absolutely featureless for the whole drive to Brewarrina, with long, straight, flat stretches of road for dozens of kilometres at a time, before it was necessary to navigate around a gentle curve, before more of the same boring roads. Even the emus and birdlife were non-existent for the 120 km drive.
Driving into the main street of Walgett Meg spotted another Explorer on the side of the road, so we pulled up as soon as we could and wandered back to meet Stephen and Jane, #357 TP, a very nice Irish couple who bought their Explorer from Ireland, and are now travelling around Australia full-time. After a nice chat they decided to follow us to the silo art, so we set off in that direction. However, along the way I noticed another Explorer down a side street so I did a U-turn and pulled up behind the other Explorer, and Stephen and Jane followed us and pulled up behind us.
The owners of the other Explorer were nowhere to be seen (we think it was the couple who’d stayed in the same campground as us the night before, and who had bought a second-hand Explorer and were driving to SA), so we took a pic of all three vehicles together and then carried on to the silo art a couple of blocks away.
This silo art depicted Aboriginal musician Jimmy Little.
With nothing else we wanted to see or do in Walgett we continued on our journey to Brewarrina, on the Barwon River.
On the way into Brewarrina, and at the visitor centre we encountered some great wall art.
Our first stop, as usual in any town we’d be staying in, was to visit the visitor information centre to see what the town had to offer. The lady on reception was very helpful, pointing out the sights and amenities around the town, and letting us know that the main experience we wanted to do, the Aboriginal Fish Traps tour, wasn’t available until 9:30 A.M. the next morning.
After picking up some other brochures we decided to call it a day and head about 10 kms out of town to our chosen camp for the night, the Brewarrina Four Mile Camping Reserve free camp, on the banks of the Barwon River.
We found a reasonably level site close to the river, which looked almost idyllic, but which was plagued by flies.
We sat outside and persevered with the flies and heat for a while, catching up on our usual stuff before dinnertime.
After dinner we sat outside for some time, on a beautiful clear evening and marvelled at all the universe had to offer in a light-pollution-free area. The view we had of the entire night sky was absolutely amazing and I was wishing that I had a camera that was capable of capturing some of that.
Day Four - Brewarrina - Bourke 06 April, 2022
As usual our day started around 7:00 A.M., despite an early awakening by a cacophony of Kookaburras before daylight.
Once we’d had brekky and broken camp we drove back into Brewarrina to do the Brewarrina Cultural Centre Fish Traps Experience, which started at 9:00 A.M. As usual we were early, the Cultural Centre hadn’t opened, and had to kill some time so we first amused ourselves watching some Red-Tailed Black Cockatoos in the trees across the road, then we drove out to look at the old bridge over the Barwon we’d passed on the way into town.
Back at the Cultural Centre ourselves and one other couple were taken on a firstly indoor informational session, then out to the river to view the area where the fish traps were, but unfortunately they had been underwater after the recent floods, and since 2016. The experience was led by a local Aboriginal man who was extremely interesting and informative, teaching us a lot about the fish traps, the local people, the river and Aboriginal life in general.
There was nothing else we wanted to see in Brewarrina, so we hit the road to Bourke, which was only about an hour’s drive away. As for the previous day’s drive, the roads were flat, straight, mostly empty and almost devoid of wildlife, but we did see some more emus once we got closer to Bourke.
Our first brief stop in Bourke was to the water tower for some silo art pix, then to the Bourke cemetery to see the grave of Fred Hollows, and look around some of the older original graves of people who died in the early days of Bourke’s European history.
We then drove to the old jetty, which looked like a good lunch spot. Lunch as chicken and avo sandwiches, eaten on a park bench beside the Darling River old jetty.
With lunch out of the way we wandered up the main street to an Aboriginal Art Exhibition, featuring the work of local artists. We chatted a little with the men working there creating their works of art, and wandered slowly around admiring the paintings, wooden art, carved emu eggs and other assorted art works. It would have been nice to purchase some of the art to support the local people, but the prices were quite steep, with most paintings selling for at least $250, and the carved emu eggs, which I really liked, were $300.
Our next stop was the visitor information centre and ‘Back O’ Bourke’ experience, in north Bourke. The one experience we wanted to do in Bourke was the paddle steamer cruise down the Darling River, which takes about an hour. Unfortunately, when enquired at the visitor centre about purchasing tickets for the paddle steamer, we were told that it wasn’t running because of the recent floods making it too dangerous.
We asked about other attractions that we hadn’t already done, and about free camps in the area, and were given some good information by the visitor centre. They also asked if we would like to do the Back O’ Bourke Experience, which we weren’t aware of, and which was located at the visitor centre. At about $23 dollars each, and with nothing else to do we thought why not.
The experience was very comprehensive, tracing the history of Bourke from the perspective of Aboriginal and European people, and covering all aspects of life around Bourke and the Darling River. This would have to be one of the better experiences of this kind we have done and well worth the entrance fee.
We were all cultured out by that time and drove out to our free camp at May’s Bend on the Darling River about 10 kms north of Bourke on the road to Cunnamulla. The site was a bit dusty, hot and once again plagued by flies like the night before, but I guess you get what you pay for.
Also, the internet was a bit dodgy, which made it hard for us to catch up with our usual afternoon tasks.
We showered and sat outside braving the flies for a couple of hours, doing what we could with the intermittent internet.
While sitting outside we chatted with another nearby camper, who invited us to their caravan for drinks and nibbles later in the day. At the appointed time we wandered over to their caravan, Colin and Christine, and we were also joined by another couple, Kevin and Deborah. We sat for some time having a few drinks and some nibbles supplied by Christine. As the alcohol did its job the lies got bigger and past adventures got more venturesome, and it was a nice social outing for us, that we wouldn’t normally partake in.
It was still quite hot by dinnertime so we used up some leftover vegetables and cooked chicken, and made a passable chicken salad, rather than firing up the gas cooker to make a meal.
An early night beckoned because the entertainment options were limited without internet, phone signal or TV signal.
Day Five - Bourke - Cunnamulla 07 April, 2022
We promised ourselves a sleep-in this morning because we only had a 250 km drive to Cunnamulla planned for the day, and not too much we wanted to do when we got there.
However, as usual, we were awake at our normal wake-up time of 7:00 A.M. and on the road by 8:30 A.M., which seemed like a good idea anyway because the river we were parked beside was rising, and rain was threatening, which would have made the drive on dirt roads out to the main road a bit dodgy.
As with the previous days’ drives, this one was the same in that it was straight, flat roads with kilometres-long stretches before we had to manoeuvre around a gentle curve, before carrying on another kilometres-long stretch until the next gentle curve, and so on and so on. The wildlife was once again sparse, but we did spot a few emus, some wedge-tailed eagles, a couple of curlews and hundreds of feral goats.
We arrived in Cunnamulla just before lunch and stopped on the outskirts to do the Cunnamulla Bushlands Walk, seeing we were driving past and wouldn’t be going back that way. We learnt about the local flora in the Cunnamulla and Warrego areas as we were walking around the gentle course.
With that done it was lunchtime and we lunched in Mata to use up some more of the food we’d taken from home.
We had a couple of whistle-stops to make before heading for the visitor centre, the first of which was to take a look at the colourful Cunnamulla sign at the edge of town.
The sign was certainly colourful, and was surrounded by a huge flock of hundreds of Galahs.
Next stop was the Cunnamulla Railway Station, which had been in existence since the late 1800s.
As with many Australian country towns, Cunnamulla also has silo art on its water tower, so that was our next stop for a couple of pix.
Next up was probably the most iconic stop for most travellers to the town, the Cunnamulla Fella monument.
From there we drove to the visitor information centre to see if there were any sights we’d missed on our drive around town.
We’d pretty much covered what we wanted to see, except the visitor centre itself also included a museum, time travel experience, and a 30-minute video in a small movie theatre that informed us about the Great Artesian Basin, so we decided to do those.
The video was very informative and gave us a better appreciation of the GAB, and what a precious resource it is for a large part of Australia.
The museum was quite small but quite well stocked with historical items from the area.
The time travel experience was mostly a bit of fun and included some information about dinosaurs that lived in the area, more on the Great Artesian Basin and some other local information.
By then it was time to head to the campground for the night, going via the Robbers Tree for a quick pic.
We were setup at the campground and doing our usual stuff by 3:00 P.M. sitting outside for a long time, despite the strong wind and the threat of rain.
Eventually the skies cleared to the west and we managed to get some nice sunset pic’s behind the campground.
Dinner was Minestrone we’d taken from home, so a nice easy meal that only required reheating.
We watched a bit of SBS News, because there was no ABC signal in the area sadly, before hitting the sack.
Day Six - Cunnamulla - Eulo 08 April, 2022
After rising at our normal time we were breakfasted, packed up and on the road by 9. There was one more thing we wanted to do in Cunnamulla before carrying on to Eulo, which was the Walk along the Warrego nature walk. It was a short drive to the walk, and it was only 2.5 km long, so not very challenging, apart from the incessant flies. It wasn’t that great but it was good to get some fresh air and exercise before the drive to Eulo.
The easy 65 km drive to Eulo was along similar roads to the past few days, straight, flat and mostly featureless. We arrived in Eulo around 10:30 and the first stop was the Lizard Lounge, a picnic area on the eastern entrance to Eulo that was designed to represent the frilled neck lizard.
This was also the site of the original Eulo police cells, which contained some historical information.
This is also the site of the world-famous Eulo Lizard Race, which has been happening since 1967.
We then parked up in the short main street to walk around the other sites Eulo had to offer, the first of which was the Paroo Leather shop, mostly for that lovely smell of leather. We didn’t come out empty-handed though because they had some great fly swatters, like a switch, with the tails made of leather strips. We got one each to help cope with the flies for the rest of the walking tour.
At the end of the main street is the original post office building, which now sells local art, opals and other memorabilia and which also had an eclectic collection of junk in the yard, including an old double-decker bus.
Further along the street was one of the more interesting historical items, a World War 2 bomb shelter, which was put in place after the Japanese bombings of Darwin and Broome. The thinking was that Eulo was in the direct flight path from Darwin to Melbourne, so the local community thought they should be prepared for the eventuality if the Japanese chose to bomb Melbourne.
Our last stop in the small township of Eulo was the Eulo Queen Hotel, where we hoped to get some lunch, even though it was only about 11:00 A.M. We ordered a couple of beers and chatted to the owner of the hotel, who said lunch wouldn’t be starting until after midday. To kill some time we drove out of town to have a look at a billabong, which was 2km along a rough dirt track, but which was thankfully dry. The billabong was hard to see because of long grass and our thoughts of staying there for the night were dashed when we saw the size of the local flies.
On the way back into town we checked out another possibility for a free camp for the night, Troy’s Camp, on the banks of the Paroo River. Camping was available on both sides of the river and one side already had a few campers staying there, so we went across the river to the camp on the other side and found a nice spot we could use, with no other campers around.
With that sorted, and the decision made to stay outside Eulo for the night rather than carrying on to Thargomindah, we went back to the hotel for lunch.
It was nearing 30 degrees by that time, so we had another nice, cold beer and ordered our lunch, chicken burger for Meg and grilled salmon for me, both served with chips and salad.
Suitably fed and watered, we drove back out to Troy’s Camp and parked up for the rest of the day and night, even though it was only about 1:00 P.M.
We’d decided to use this as a half down day to catch up on bits and pieces after nearly a week on the road.
It was a beautiful hot afternoon and the setting was picturesque, but the flies were a problem again.
At one point in the afternoon we were sitting outside swatting flies, there was a clear blue sky looking over the river, and it started to rain so much that we had to retreat inside for a while!
After the rain cleared and went back outside to light a fire in our mobile fire pit, because I could, not because it was cold.
At 6:00 P.M. I started watching the Warriors vs Titans game on Kayo, while Meg rustled up some dinner, which we ate at half-time. The Warriors managed to win their third game in a row, although it was only a one-point golden point Shaun Johnson drop goal that won the game.
And that was that for another day of adventuring for us.
Day Seven - Eulo - Noccundra 09 April, 2022
We started the day at our normal time, and sat outside braving the flies while we had our morning cuppas. The scene was picture perfect, with the sun shining, the river running slowly and the birds singing.
We broke camp about 8:30 and drove a short distance towards Thargomindah, stopping at the Springvale Mud Spring Nature Refuge to hopefully see some mud springs.
Unfortunately, there was no mud springing that day, and even the local wildlife was conspicuous in its absence, apart from the flies of course, so we carried on the drive to Thargomindah to see what it had to offer.
As with most places we visit, the visitor information centre was our first stop, to collect any reading material on local attractions we wanted to visit.
The first attraction we visited was the old hospital, which dated from the late 1800s. It was quite interesting looking at the displays of hospital-related historical items, photos, and watching the audio-visual displays that centred on peoples’ experiences of that time.
As we moved around the attractions we were impressed that all were administered very well, had plenty of information and all had solar power installations to provide their electrical needs.
Next up was the old jail, which looked at very briefly, because the audio-visual presentations were broken, then moved on to the country’s first hydro-powered electricity provider, which was powered by water from the Great Artesian Basin. Once again the displays were excellent, the presentation interesting and the amount of information not too overwhelming.
By this time it was lunchtime, and the hydro plant was next door to the Thargomindah airport that had some trees we parked under to have our lunch of a quickly cobbled together salad.
That was Thargomindah done and dusted, so we hit the road again, this time headed for the Noccundra Hotel, which was 140 km away, and about 25 km off the road to Eromanga.
This drive was surprisingly even more desolate than the previous days’ drives. The straight stretches were even longer than we’d experienced previously, and on little more than a single lane road, which required us to pull off to the side of the road when another vehicle approached from the other direction, or wanted to pass us going in the same direction, because we doing our usual pottering along at 85 km/h. The road condition was good, despite there being constant floodways, and the road was bounded on both sides by richly coloured red soil and gravel. It was quite an amazing experience to look through the windscreen to see the road, dead straight, as far as the eye could see, then look in the rear vision mirror and see the same view, with mirages at both front and back extremities of vision.
There wasn’t much happening on the wildlife front to keep us amused on the drive, apart from domestic cattle (apparently it is a big cattle rearing area, with some properties in the millions of acres), one wild horse, a few eagles in the sky we couldn’t identify, and one magnificent Wedge-Tailed Eagle within a couple of metres of us on the side of the road, snacking on some Kangaroo roadkill.
We arrived at the Noccundra Hotel around 2 P.M., went inside the historic pub and ordered a couple of beers. Chatting to the barlady we learnt that the hotel was celebrating its 140th anniversary in 2022 and was originally made from sandstone blocks hauled from 200 kms away in NSW, by camel and cart.
With the pleasantries out of the way we registered to stay the night in the Noccundra Billabong free camp, drove the short distance to the camp and set up for the night.
As with our previous few nights camping, this was another idyllic spot, but plagued with flies, which took the charm out of the whole experience. The other thing to detract from this camp was that there was no mobile phone coverage or internet. What to do? We sat outside for a while having a cuppa, but the flies drove us inside after half an hour, to undertake analog pursuits for the rest of the night, including having our first game of euchre for many years.
Day Eight - Noccundra - Quilpie 10 April, 2022
We woke to a beautiful sunrise from across the billabong, and the day had started nice and warm, but we decided we couldn’t be bothered fighting the incessant flies, so stayed in Mata until we were ready to take off, heading first for Eromanga, then Quilpie.
We had to first drive back along the Noccundra Road, to get back to the highway before heading for Eromanga. The road was in good condition, but mostly single lane, which meant that whenever a vehicle came in the opposite direction, which wasn’t very often, one or other vehicle had to pull over to let the other vehicle pass. It seemed to be a matter of the biggest vehicle wins the decision of which vehicle pulls off the road to let the other one pass, so road trains won every time.
The countryside alternated between vast stretches of nothingness apart from red dirt, red gravel and scrubby grasslands, to densely treed areas, to some hilly areas for a change, but mostly it was the usual long, straight, flat stretches of road. Along the way we spotted emus, including one that I had to brake heavily for to avoid hitting it when it ran in front of us, brolgas, a few different species of lizards on the road that we managed to avoid running over, goats, cattle and dozens of large eagles that we took to be wedge-tails because of their size.
The first stop in Eromanga was the Eromanga Natural History Museum, to check out Cooper, the Titanosaurus dinosaur that the area is famous for. The centre is fairly new and does guided tours every couple of hours, with one starting at 11:00 A.M., just after we got there, so we booked that tour.
The tour starts with a 20-minute movie documenting the history of Eromanga, from over 4 billion years to the present day. It was very informative and put into context the dinosaur presence in the area millions of years ago.
After the movie our guide took us to the research centre where we were given more information on how the dinosaur bones had been discovered, and collected. The model bones of Cooper were impressive, giving us a better idea of his actual size, but not as impressive as actual bone samples of other dinosaurs and megafauna that are stored in a climate-controlled room, set to 23 degrees celsius.
After that great one-hour guided tour, the Royal Hotel at Eromanga was the next stop for lunch.
The pub was very quiet and the menu was limited, so we both decided to go with the safe option of fish and chips, and cold drinks of course to combat the 35 degree temps.
Then it was back on the road to Quilpie for our planned stop for the night. On the outskirts of Quilpie we’d read about the Baldy Top Lookout and thought we should take a look at that and get a little bit of exercise for the day.
The walk up the hill was a little bit challenging with a loose gravelly surface, but easy enough to climb to the very top. The 360 degree views were spectacular, particularly looking towards Quilpie.
Back down at the bottom we drove into Quilpie, decided we didn’t really want to see anything there, and drove another 10 kms or so towards Charleville to The Lake Campground for the night. We chose an unpowered site on the edge of Lake Houdraman, a natural lake on a working farm, which had recently moved from stocking sheep and cattle to stocking only goats.
This would have to be one of the top sites we’ve camped at, as can be seen by the number of photos I took, which were quite spectacular, but which couldn’t completely capture the stunning location.
Also, for a nice change, the flies weren’t rabid, as they had been the past few nights. This meant we could sit outside comfortably all night, even having dinner outside, and watched the amazing sunset and waited for the night sky to appear. When it did, that was another treat and looking mostly south we had a great view of the Southern Cross and the Milky Way and everything else the universe had to offer.
Day Nine - Quilpie - Charleville 11 April, 2022
We woke to another beautiful sunrise and perfect views over the lake while we had our cuppas and brekky.
After packing up we were on the road not long after 8:00 A.M. headed today for Charleville, about 220 kms away.
The drive was another easy one, and on similar roads to those of the past few days, but with a few hills thrown into the mix for a change. We made the decision before setting out that we didn’t want to go back to Quilpie, in the wrong direction, for fuel, and calculated that we would have enough to get us to Charleville, with about 50 kms of fuel to spare. Along the way I was becoming more and more concerned that we wouldn’t make it, and of course we didn’t have mobile coverage for most of the journey, which would make it difficult if we did run out of diesel. However, my fears were unfounded and we limped into Charleville before 11:00 A.M with about 70 kms left in the tank.
First stop, obviously, was the servo to fill up with diesel, which cost an eye-watering $250! Across the road from the servo was the visitor and Bilby Experience Centre, which was housed in the Charleville Railway Station, that had recently started receiving trains again from Brisbane. We booked in for the 1:00 P.M. Bilby experience, then took a drive out to the Cosmos Centre a few kms out of town to kill some time before lunch.
Unfortunately, the planetarium was closed, and we didn’t really want to do the sun viewing experience later in the day, so we just spent some time looking at all the space and universe-related displays.
A little further down the road from the Cosmos Centre was the Royal Flying Doctor Service headquarters, which we chose not to go into because we'd already checked out an awesome RFDS display in Longreach a few years ago.
Back in town we popped into a supermarket to grab some supplies, then drove to the main street where we’d read there was a bakery that might do a nice pie for lunch. We both got chunky pepper pies and a cold drink and went across the road to a park to scoff them.
By then it was still too early for the Bilby experience so we went to the historic house museum next door to the park and looked around for half an hour.
Back at the railway station we rocked up for the Bilby experience. This started with a 20-minute presentation by a very engaging young lady, who was very entertaining, and who had a passion for Bilbies. We learnt all about Bilbies and about the two men who started the Save the Bilby Fund, the organisation responsible for the experience. Next up was the fun stuff, where we went into a controlled room to see the two Bilbies in there. The room simulated night for the Bilbies, with a dull red light that gave us enough light to be able to see them clearly, running around as much as their space allowed.
With that done we felt all touristed out and wanted to just park up for the night, which we did at the Red Lizard Campground, a nice site with plenty of shade trees a few kms south of town. After setting up and doing a load of washing we settled in for the usual afternoon/evening routine.
While sitting outside we were entertained by dozens of Apostle birds that were quite comfortable coming right up in front of us looking for food.
It was another beautiful evening, if a bit warm, and the flies weren’t as bad as they’d been for the last few nights, so we sat outside enjoying the night. The camp allowed open fires, and provided converted truck wheel rims as fire pits, and even a pile of kindling sized wood, so I took advantage and lit a small fire (somebody thinks I’m a pyro!).
Day Ten - Charleville - Wallumbilla 12 April, 2022
We seem to have some built-in alarm clock because we always wake up around 7:00 A.M., even when there’s no rush to be anywhere and we could have a sleep-in. This morning was no exception and we were done and dusted with the morning routine and on the road by 8:30.
We had to drive a few kms back into Charleville first, before driving towards Mitchell. On the outskirts of Charleville there's a park with a large red chair, which we couldn’t resist stopping at to take a couple of pics.
Our drive took us through Morven, to Mungallala, where we emptied the toilet cassette, then on to Mitchell, where we stopped to check out the musical stock grid.
From there it was on to the Muckadilla Pub for lunch. I ordered a fisherman’s basket and Meg the chicken parmy. It was typical pub fare, more quantity than quality, and neither of us could finish our meals.
Back on the road we carried on to Roma and stopped at a couple of places there that we hadn’t seen on our previous visit.
First stop was the Roma Bush Gardens for a walk around the lagoon. It was an easy walk, and quite picturesque, but we thought maybe not as good as advertised.
Our next stop was Roma’s Largest Bottle Tree, which was really impressive, and we learnt that the Bottle Trees are native to Queensland.
Our last in Roma was the Roma Saleyards, the largest cattle selling centre in Australia, with 275,258 cattle sold through the yards in the 2019/20 financial year.
The saleyards also have an interpretive experience, where you can learn about its history, which we were hoping to do, but unfortunately the experience closed at 1:30 P.M. and by this time it was around 2:00 P.M.
We decided to drive closer to Dalby seeing it was still quite early, and we’d sussed out a free camp behind the Federal Hotel at Wallumbilla, so that’s where we headed next.
The campsite was fairly basic, but we were able to park facing away from the sun, as it was still around 33 degrees at that time, and where we could catch a nice breeze.
We relaxed for the remainder of the day, enjoying the peace and quiet and rural surrounds.
Day Eleven - Wallumbilla - Cooyar 13 April, 2022
We woke earlier than normal today, and were on the road before 8:30, heading initially to Miles where there was apparently a historical museum that shouldn’t be missed.
The Miles Historical Village Museum, behind the visitor centre, was certainly impressive. The museum was set out to resemble a settler’s village and all the buildings contained historical items relevant to the building, like the butcher shop, grocery shop, bank, garage etc.
There was far too much to see to do it justice in a flying visit, but we did as much as we could in an hour or so.
Next up we carried on driving towards Chinchilla, but took a detour before reaching town to look at the Cactoblastis Monument, which told the story of how farmers in the early 1900s battled, and won, against the invasive Prickly Pear bush, which had taken over thousands of acres of farmland.
From there it was on to Chinchilla, where we parked up beside “The Big Watermelon”, outside the botanical gardens, and had our lunch in Mata.
We still didn’t have a final destination in mind for the night and carried on driving to get as close to home as possible before we stopped for the night.
After driving for a while we decided to aim for Yarraman as a stopping point, which took us through some small towns such as Warra, where there is a memorial in a public park marking the spot where Leichhardt camped in 1844, en route to Port Essington.
Our last tourist stop for the day was at the Railway Tunnel, which was entirely underwhelming because, firstly we couldn’t find the entrance to it, and then when we did the tunnel floor was covered in water, which meant we couldn’t walk through it.
Back on the road to Yarraman we’d read about a suspension bridge in a public park at Cooyar, that was also a free camp, so we stopped to see if it could be a possible stop for the night, which we ended up doing.
The campsite was quite nice with grass underfoot for a change instead of red dirt, and plenty of trees for shade. We were all set up and had the top of a bottle by 3:30, which gave us plenty of time to catch up on our usual afternoon entertainment.
The afternoon was reasonably pleasant, although a little cooler than we’d been used to, until a rumble of thunder and a few spots of rain sent us packing up and running inside for the rest of the night.
Day Twelve - Cooyar- Scarborough 14 April, 2022
We seemed to be waking up earlier and earlier as this trip progressed, and today was no exception.
We were all done with the morning routine, packed up, and on the road by 8:15, headed for home via Yarraman, Black Butt, Kingaroy and Caboolture.
The drive was uneventful and we only had two stops on the way, the first at Black Butt to empty the toilet cassette and the other to drop off a birthday present for Liz that we’d bought on the trip.
We got home and had Mata cleaned out and everything sorted before lunch.
Now to work on the next adventure!
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