Caravanning Camping Touring
Let me share some of our stories with you. I'll try to keep it fun and interesting, with heaps of photos, hints, tips and reviews all relating to life on the road.
After many years of dreaming, several years of planning and four weeks of chaos, we are finally ready to hit the road and explore our magnificent country in comfort, in our own time and for as long as we please. Finally, we are free!
I guess you could say we are undertaking the ultimate downsizing of our home. For weeks now we have been sorting, packing and taking most of our worldly goods to a secure storage site. At first we thought we would have heaps of space, then after a couple of trips we went into panic mode thinking…It’ll never all fit in! But in the end, it did. Peter has done a excellent job squashing our belongings into a three by three metre storage locker. Not only that but he has done it in an organised and orderly way. So much so, that when I said, “Peter, my sweet, my darling, my little sugar dumpling,…” (I don’t normally talk to him that way. I was trying to butter him up because of what I was going to ask,) “…my cherry blossom. You know that yellow throw with the cream tassels?” He nodded suspiciously. “Well…” I said. “We took it to storage on the first run, but I’ve changed my mind. I want to take it with us.” I smiled sweetly expecting an onslaught of verbal displeasure, instead he said. “Not a problem, I think know where it is. I’ll get it for you on my next run.” And true to his word, he did. Mind you, he was gone an awful long time when he collected it, and I’m sure he must have unpacked half the locker to get to it, but it does look very nice on the bed.
I have been asked if I will miss the comfort of home, and I actually ask myself the same question many times leading up to, and after our decision to embark on a life on the road. I guess that is a question that I won’t be able to answer honestly until I have been on the road for a while. So I’ll let you know about that in a few months. I mean, I’m sure I will miss a lot about our home. The luxury of a fully stocked, large kitchen, the bedroom with Ensuite, the media room and my piano not to mention the wonderful outlook. But…I reckon the tradeoff is pretty good, because instead of brick walls and colourbond roof, I will have wide open spaces, crashing oceans, mountainous regions and rainforests. I will have ever-changing scenery to entertain me and a chorus of melodies from our unique Australian birds, and I will have vast, clear skies filled with millions of stars. Even more than that, if more is needed, I will be embarking on an adventure of a lifetime with Peter, my partner in crime, my best friend, the love of my life. I honestly don’t think it can get much better than that.
So, where are we going? Not very far apparently… 
…we overheated on the first hill we came to. Just kidding, sort of. We did get the transmission overheat alarm, and the car did slow itself down to a crawl, much to the delight of the cars behind us. But after we stopped and popped the hood, stared at the engine for a couple of minutes (as if we knew what we were looking at) then closed it again, we got back in the car and drove off. We didn’t have any more problems, and we did climb quite a few hills on the way to Kingaroy. I think Big Ears just chucked a hissy fit because he was having to tow Chunky Bum again. He’ll get used to it. Anyway, back to where we are going. Initially we will be catching up with friends and family, in Kingaroy, Port Macquarie and Sydney. Then from there, I think we will be staying in NSW and heading west, towards Broken Hill and on to the Menindee Lakes. From there? Who knows. We can go where we want, stay as long as we want, do what we want.
For my overseas readers, we are at the back end of Autumn, so we are travelling in the cooler weather and the further south we go, NSW, it will only get colder. Oh, and it has been raining for the past 4 days. 🌧 Here we go again. 🤪
See you out there somewhere
On tow and on the go
So, this was the last leg of our trip and finally, the rain was beginning to ease. We stayed overnight at a free camp at Bluff Rock, just south of Tenterfield. The next day we found a lovely little spot for morning tea. Beardy Woodlands, on the New England Highway. This area had distinct English country feel. I don’t know if it is like this all the time, or is a result of all the rain, but the river was flowing fast, and was surrounded by lush, green grass, speckled with wildflowers. Sure they could have been weeds, but they were still pretty. The scene was completed by weeping willows on the riverbank and grey sky that promised rain.
By this stage we were pretty much out of clean/dry clothes. We had the choice of making the run for home or finding a spot to do some washing. We chose the latter. That is how we found ourselves at the Country Style Caravan Park at Glen Aplin, about five a minute drive into Stanthorpe (Link TBA) It rained all the first day there, and most of the second, but by the third day we had beautiful washing/drying weather.
Things brings us to the end of our trip, almost. We wanted to squeeze in one more stop. Why? Because we could. Where? We didn’t know. We were on the Old New England Highway and drove north. Somewhere along the way we saw a touristy road sign showing a caravan symbol, that was good enough for us. We took the turn and twenty-five kilometers later found ourselves turning into the Goomburra Valley Bush Campground.
What a lucky find that was, it is a beautiful relaxing spot. We were only there for one night, but that was long enough for us to know we will definitely be back.
Tomorrow we will be home.
After leaving Port Mac we drove through to Coffs Harbor. Here we had some fun exploring the area on our e-scooters, before continuing on to Macksville.
Macksville is a lovely little town on the banks of the Nambucca River. The Pacific highway used to take you through Macksville, but like so many other small towns, it has been bypassed. But, if you have the time or the inclination, it is a great little spot for a rest or an overnight stay, which is what we did. We spent a comfortable night in a small free camp area on the banks of the River. And guess what, we had blue sky and sun, for a while anyway. ?
The next day we headed north-west, then cut further inland from Grafton. We planned to stay at the Floyd Bush Campground, Coombadjha, on the Mann River, it looked like a great spot and had a lot of good reviews. But long story short, we never made it there. Both access roads to the campsite were closed due to flooding. Who would have thought it?
Now planning is not our strong suit, so we did what we normally do. We pointed the car in the general direction we wanted to go…and drove. Our general direction took us over the Gibraltar Range, a very pretty drive, even in the pouring rain. After a while we saw a sign for Washpool National Park. (Insert link to review) It was getting late in the day, so we decided to give it a try. We didn’t realise how high we had driven until we started to go down.
It was still raining, it was a steep narrow, gravel road and I have to say, it was a little bit scary. By the time got back on to level ground, the smell of burning rubber told us just how hard the brakes had worked. We did very little that evening. Basically, got the camp in order, went inside, dried off, had a couple of stiff drinks, and pretty much went to bed.
The next morning, we woke up to a fresh, beautiful, rainy day. The funny thing about all this rain is that when we were packing, I took all the winter and wet weather clothes out Chunky Bum. Peter asked why and I said derisively, “We won’t need it. It’s almost mid-summer.” Who has egg on her face now then?
It was here that we got to try our Ozpig for the very first time and I have to say, I was impressed. For those of you who don’t know, the Ozpig is a self-contained fire/cooking unit. It takes very little timber to get a good fire going, it is safe to use in, just about everywhere I think, because it is off the ground and well contained. And it is a great little stove to cook on. By the time we left Washpool NP the Pig was my new best friend.
Even though the weather was terrible, we just had to do a bush walk. We put on some wet dirty clothes; we were running out of dry ones. What the rain had missed, the dampness had gotten into, and hit the road. It was not a long walk about 5 kilometers return, but it was lovely. I have to say I’ve never bush walked with an umbrella before. I also have to say it was an utter waste of space.
The walk followed the stream, and because of all the rain, it was flowing deep and freely. The track was becoming slippery and we decided to turn around as soon as we’d found a place deep enough for a quick dip. Yep, you heard right, we wanted to have a dip. Well, we were already wet, and we thought that it would be refreshing. Hmmm, refreshing…if I said my heart skipped a few beats when I jumped in, I would not be lying. It was f-f-f-freezing.
Now we had stripped down to our undies for this little dip, we figured, who else would be stupid enough to go out walking in this? As it turns out, we were not the only idiots out that day. We needn’t have worried though because as it turned out the other idiots were stark naked. Yep, you heard me, not a stitch to be seen, not even the mandatory thongs!
They were of course, Europeans. What else needs to be said. Still, we had a good long chat with them, and they seemed to be a lovely family. At least they didn’t have to worry about drying their clothes when they got back to their camp, on the other side of the river.
I also had my first sighting of a Satin Bowerbird and…wait for it, a Lyrebird, very exciting. After some considerable stalking skills in the rain, I managed to get some good shots. I feel I should mention at this point that I was running out of dry clothes. Maybe we should move to the camp a cross the river?
After the excitement of the day, we dried out some wood, dried out some clothes, poured a couple of scotch’s and enjoyed a late-night viewing of Guardians of the Galaxy by the light of the shimmering pig.
I thoroughly enjoyed our three nights there and was a little sad to leave. Because of all the rain, we did a quick reckie run to check out the road before we left, and it was ok. Big Ears pulled Chunky Bum up the steep incline without a hitch, and we were back on the black once more.
We realised now that we had surpassed Soggy and very, very and we were now officially saturated. Good job we were heading home.
We left home on the 5th December 2020 and drove to Kingaroy. My sister-in-law was celebrating her 70th birthday, and we had an absolutely lovely day catching up with the family. It was a great start to our trip.
From there we went to Hervey Bay for a few days before travelling further north to Burnett Heads, and that’s when the rain began. After a week at Burnett Heads, we were starting to get a bit soggy, and hoped to leave the rain behind us as we began to mosey towards NSW.
The day after we drove out of Queensland into NSW, we discovered that the border had once more slammed shut behind us. Luckily, one of the benefits of being retired is that you have no time constraints, so, we decided to keep to our plan, which was to go to Port Macquarie and have Christmas with mum, my brother, and his fiancé and of course, Hugo.
Our plan to leave the rain behind was short lived as It rained for the entire trip, on top of that, it was bloody cold, but we arrived at Port Mac safe and sound on the 21st December and made our home at Flynn’s Beach caravan park, (Link TBA). We had a wonderful Christmas and a great catch up with mum, even though the weather didn’t allow us to do much, we had some quality catch up time.
It was sad to say goodbye to mum when we left on the 4th January, but even though I know she will miss us, I think she was ready to get back to her normal routine without having to worry about anyone else. As we were packing to leave, we realised that we had gone from soggy to really, really wet. Surely, it had to stop raining soon.
We knew our trip was coming to an end, but we had to squeeze one last stop in. About 3 km south of Condamine, just off the Leichhardt highway, we found Caliguel Lagoon. Another hidden gem. We dragged the pushbikes off the bed and set up camp. “What,” I hear you say, “were the push bikes doing on the bed, instead of bouncing merrily around on the back of chunky Bum?”
So, here’s the thing. We bought a quality Hayman Reese receptor to mount the bike rack on the back of the van. This is the rack we’ve used for years mounted on the car towbar, so why not the same solution on the van? But by the time we got to Roma the Hayman Reece receptor had begun to bend. I showed it to Johnny (brother in law extraordinaire) and he just said, “I know a guy who can help with that”. (It turns out that Johnny can not only turn his hand to anything, he also knows people all over the place). Off he went and turned up an hour later with a thick steel reinforcing plate. We fitted the plate, and when I say “we” I mean Peter and Johnny. I sat with with Hazel and opened a bottle of wine, while they bolted the whole thing back in place as tight as Johnny’s rattle gun could do it. Yes, Johnny also travels with everything in his tool kit, including a rattle gun.
For the rest of the trip, we watched closely and checked at every stop to make sure the bolts weren’t loosening off – they weren’t. Then, after a thousand or so kilometers we were back in Roma – I love the symmetry of this. The day we left the Roma Gun Club, we were hitched up and I was doing my final checks, I shook the bike rack and lo and behold, the bikes all-but fell to the ground. Johnny’s fix was as solid as ever, but the weld on the Hayman Reece had broken.
And that is why for the last few days of our trip, the bikes travelled on the bed. I think it’s fair to say we dodged a bullet with that one and we need to rethink our secondary vehicles before our next trip. 😊
Now, back to Caliguel. This free campground offers two areas for camping. As you drive in, the right-hand side is a car park like set up with a boat ramp, rubbish bins and toilets. To the left, you have the option of the privacy of a bush camp. This is a little tricky to navigate, and there are only a few spots, but that is where we camped.
I really enjoyed Caliguel, and judging by the lack of firewood, it is a very popular spot. But, we had a solution to the missing firewood. We had the kayaks and I had Peter. He paddled over to the other side of the lake and came back fully loaded.
This next set of photos is dedicated to those of you who have a partner who is less than tidy.
Our stay at Caliguel ended a ten week road trip, our longest trip yet. Tomorrow we will be home, and we have some serious thinking to do about our future travel plans. Where will we go? How long will we go for? We’ll just have to wait and see.
As pleasant a spot as Charleville was it was time to leave, and our next stop was back to Roma. This time we didn’t stay at the Big Rig, but at the Roma Gun Club. Yes, you stay in the car park, but it has been set up for caravans and campers. There is power, water, shade, and excellent facilities. You can also try your hand at clay pigeon shooting if you’re there on the right day. I think someone has been very smart here and found a way to supplement the income of the gun club; and done it very well.
We stayed there for a couple of nights, and while there we experienced one of the most amazing sunsets that we saw on this trip. I think the beauty of it lay in the single tree that was silhouetted against the burnt orange sky.
That sunset left us craving the quiet of another bush camp and we found just what we needed outside of Mitchell. Fisherman’s Rest is located on the Maranoa River and was our home for the next three nights.
When we arrived on the Saturday, there were only two other campers and we got a top spot right on the banks of the river. Next morning, we were up early and dropped the kayaks onto the water and paddled upriver. We were gone for about two hours and when we got back the place was swarming. Obviously, a popular spot for locals and travelers alike. By the end of the day all the locals had disappeared, and only the travelers were left. The following morning was Monday, a workday, and once more we had the area to ourselves.
The second night we were there our friends from Eromanga turned up again…Stalker alert!
We had a lovely evening with them. Between us we dug a fire pit, gathered and chopped some wood and had a great night sitting around the fire with a couple of brewskies.
Even though it rained for a couple of days, we had a great time at Fisherman’s Rest and will return.
