No 9 - July 2013 in Qld

Monday 8th July sees the rain again so we decide not to go to Mareeba and I stay home doing this while J goes to town to get groceries without his wallet!!!!!! It is interesting that in the 2 weeks since the shortest day it is light now until 6.30pm, not sure about when daylight happens - but it is before 6am. One of the cats here, Whiskers, is very friendly and likes to sit in our chairs and gets miffed when we want to sit in them, so he has now enlisted some help from Tabby. Oliver gets very jealous when they sit in our lap of a morning and he can't. He is a big kelpie cross/stray dog who is also very affectionate and won't leave your side.

Tuesday and we head back down Gillies bends in the rain and fog to have lunch with George & Denise and go to their place for coffee and long chat afterwards. They seem very well and enjoying life and are off to England and Scotland in August for 3 weeks holiday. It was good to hear about their 3 Stacey, Brendan and Craig and 9 + grandchildren. George tells us that Des hadn’t been near Aunty Phill for 30 years and after her funeral hired a barrister to contest her will so we forget about calling on him, and will try to catch up with Alan & Leigh. We arrange to call in for them on Monday when we go to Cape Tribulation as neither has been there before even though they are only 2 hours away. George tells us about the time he went to Bamaga with school friends in 1956 and they drove the car onto a tarp, pulled it up around the vehicle and towed it across the Jardine river – can you believe it. We are not doing that!! Then it is back into fog and rain and a slow trip up the range due to all the roadworks.

We have been having fun with Whiskers at breakfast time as he always wants to sample our food so after todays’ episode we fill up a bowl of milk and water and let him drink that instead. Ginger comes for a pat when it is food time and then goes back to sleep somewhere. We haven’t seen Tigger for a few weeks so hope he is ok. The rabbits are fine if you feed them and keep water up. They love lettuce and carrots and being patted too.

There is a phone message on J’s mobile so he goes into town to listen to it and get some bread and comes home to say that Tom & Wendy are at the Avenue of Honour and are coming for a chat so I quickly make a batch of scones and hope that the oven works properly. We have only made pizza’s in it so far as I am not sure how you tell if it is hot enough but they cook up very well. It is lovely to see them again and get the news from home even if some of it isn’t good. Ray Paroz has cancer which isn’t nice as he is a lovely man. We spend the day talking to them and exchange information on places we have been. They are staying at Rocky Creek until Monday when they head into Cairns for Lachie’s soccer carnival after that they have 4 days to get to Bundaberg for Jake’s baseball carnival. Then they are coming back up this way to have a look around as Tom was born and raised in Cairns. Even though he is the same age as George he didn’t remember him.

14/7 After church we go over to Malanda Hotel’s 103^rd birthday celebrations and spend the afternoon watching the wood chopping in the rain. It gets so cold and they waste a lot of time between events so at 3.45pm J brings me home to watch the Netball Grand Final, which the Qld Firebirds lose by 2 points.

It is still raining in Malanda when we leave for Cape Tribulation but clears a little towards Cairns so we are hopeful – the locals say just to ignore the rain but it makes for dull photos! But it is a pleasant drive up even if it takes 3 hours – we get stuck in a line of cars (we are 28^th in line) at the Daintree ferry with George & J in the front and Denise and I in back chatting away and I learn that Uncle Karl's grandfather was a Mayor of Cairns. Our first stop is Mason’s café at Cape Trib for some crocodile burgers for lunch. They must have had some spices in the mince as it didn’t taste like fish or chicken (J reckons croc tastes like chicken) but were very nice. Sated and toileted we head to Cape Trib beach which is like the Queen street mall there are so many people there. We guess that as the road is sealed this far that every tourist must come up here. It is a lovely spot with sandy beach around the bay. Walking out along the boardwalk to lookout we see a big croc in the water out near some buoys and hope that the boat moored nearby is far enough out of the water – you wouldn’t want to climb aboard and find someone else had moved in.

 Since it is so busy here we head south to Cow Bay where there are only 2 other couples on the beach and it is just as nice. The rainforest really meets the sea here and it is so dense you would never see a croc lurking in the undergrowth. The beaches are all flanked with coconut palms so J & George check them all out to try to find a full one.

Then it is a short trip into Cape Kimberley where we have the beach to ourselves as it is getting late. John finds a coconut that he thinks is full and George finds an empty one that looks like a pigs head.

 We had to stop at the Daintree Icecreamery on the way and it is lovely – manicured green lawns flanked by lush tropical gardens full of gingers, pinky cordylines and crotons and the most delicious ice creams. I try a cup with 4 scoops – coconut, wattle seed, yellow and black sapote and they are divine. Black sapote’s other name is chocolate pudding fruit and that is what it tastes like. The wattle seed was greyish colour and had a distinct wattle aroma – all very yummy. Along the drive in they have many different trees planted some had names under which made it interesting to see what size the tree was and if they would fit in a house yard – not really, they all seemed to be the size of a mango tree, but maybe you could prune them. I did find a black sapote and a sapodilla (is that a sarsaparilla) and a Marang (does it taste like meringue)?

Amongst the trees along the roadside is a large round palm frond growing in a lot of places so will have to try to find out what species it is. It is 7.45pm when we get back to Mt Sheridan so we have a quick cup of tea, wish George a happy 70th birthday next Wednesday and them both a great holiday, and head back up the mountain and of course it is still raining here.  It was a very enjoyable day.

 John goes into town and gets a phone call from Richard & Margaret D’Archy who are here for a few days so they come for a visit. After lunch we head out to Cathedral Fig tree and Gillies lookout to show them the view and what a time to go – just as we got there a big rainbow came across the valley and it looked stunning. They were as impressed with the view as the fig tree.

They also like waterfalls so we went across to Milla Milla falls and then met a herd of cows crossing the road on way to Zillie falls. I would have like to ask the farmer if I could stay and watch the milking but the others don’t – I will get into Gallo one day before we leave. As it is dark when we get back to Malanda we go to the Hotel for 2 for 1 Tuesday and have another lovely meal. This time Margaret wants dessert so I join her in a maltese cheesecake and is it sweet! I feel quite ill by the time we get home so head off to bed and leave the men to chat about old times.

Wednesday 17^th and it is State of Origin night so what do we do – head off to Ingham. Margaret likes walking around old cemeterys and Richard doesn’t but J talks him into it so we head off in the rain. Fortunately the Palmerston highway isn’t as winding as Gillies so it is a pleasant trip if a little wet in places, and our first stretch of legs is in Tully with it’s big gum boot. The boot is 7.9m high the amount of rain they received in 1950 – can you imagine it. We are having trouble with the mould in shower with the small amount of rain we have had. For morning tea I get adventurous and try a coconut ice (drink) – coconut milk with a drop of raspberry cordial to give it some colour – bit bland but heh if you don’t try it you will never know.

 Passing through Cardwell we drive beside the water of Hinchinbrook channel and see H island. This area must have copped it during the cyclones as they are still doing up the roads and the foreshore and there was a bit of damage to buildings etc. We haven’t seen any damage around Innisfail but maybe it has all been cleaned up. There were some great views from top of range heading to Ingham but as there were roadworks everywhere we couldn’t stop for some good photos and only got ones with concrete barriers in the foreground.

When we drove up to Ingham cemetery it became obvious what everyone had been talking about – the Italians have built mausoleums for their departed and they are very ornate and 99% were very well cared for. They are all tiled with glass windows and doors, photographs and artificial flowers everywhere. It was amazing, even Richard was impressed and couldn’t stop talking about them.

 We find an aboriginal grave with its windmill and sea shells and a chinese grave covered with white stones, but it is all the tiled ‘houses’ that are fascinating.

 Some had a front patio, others awnings over front; we could learn a thing or two about looking after our elders.

As I have wanted to see Mission beach we decide to go in there on the return journey and are thrilled to see 2 cassowarys one with a small chick beside the road. They have shorter legs than emus but seem to have same size body, and the chick looked like an emu chick.

Mission beach was also lovely with lots of coconut palms and rainforest next to miles of sand, it would have been spectacular on a sunny day. The cost of a night in caravan park would probably be mindboggling but we will have to do it one day. Arriving home at 7.30pm we have just enough time to cook dinner before the big game started and Qld made it 8 in a row. We were highly amused to see Fourex put out a new can with 8 x’s on it and space for 2 more though I think that will probably jinx it. We can but dream!

Thursday 18^th sees us leave R & M with a list of places around here to visit and we head back to Cairns to get the snorkel fitted to car and spend the day with J’s old friends Stewie and Joan. Stewie was a soldier with J in Melbourne and they are David’s Godparents and were stunned to see how he had grown – yes from a 6 month old baby to a 34 year old man! but enjoyed seeing photos of David, Relle and children, along with some of Micky. They belong to a photographic club and were only too happy to give us hints on taking exceptional photos. I loved a photo Stewie took of an owl in flight – it was stunning. John and Stewie were able to have a long chat about old times and people they knew which was good for both of them. Their son Douglas and his wife Fiona called in so we met them also and caught up on the gossip on the girls and their families too. All too soon it was 4pm and we had to leave to collect the car and head home. From inside the driver can’t see the black snorkel but the passenger can so a few times I got a surprise but guess you get used to it. We will keep in touch with them and call in when we are next in Cairns. Another long drive home in the rain up the winding Gillies highway where we find R & M have had a good day also.

After breakfast Richard suggests a visit to Jacques Coffee which turns out to be well worth it. Our guide was a young man who lives next door and well informed on growing and processing coffee. The short movie at the beginning tells of the struggles that the Jacques family had starting out. After leaving the family farm on slopes of Mt Kilamanjaro in Tanzanier they emigrated to Australia in 1978 and started growing coffee.  With interest rates at 22% in the 80’s during ‘Keatings -depression we had to have’ the banks foreclosed on them without waiting for that years’ crop to be harvested and sold – so they walked away with nothing. After managing to save up and buy another block of land which they cleared and planted with coffee seedlings, the Qld DPI sprayed all the trees for nonexistant papaya fruit fly and killed them all. Hopefully 3^rd time lucky they are in their current place for the long term.

 The coffee bean has 5 layers of 'skin' that has to be husked, soaked and/or rubbed off before you get to the bean we know. If you pick a bean off the tree and squeeze out the seeds they are quite sweet to suck but very hard inside. Most berries are red but occasionally you get a tree that bears yellow fruit when ripe. They prune their trees to keep them under 4 meters and each tree bears 15 kg of fruit - I think.

They have another lovely spot with green lawns and lush tropical gardens around the restaurant where you can have Devonshire teas/coffee or lunch after tasting their coffee liqueurs and doing the tour. My salt and pepper squid salad was very nice too. We stopped off at Tolga Woodworks to let R & M see some of the expensive but lovely wood works there and then called into the Rainforest Gallery to see their jewellery, paintings and wire objects. There were some very intricate objects as well as ones similar to others we have seen but all quite expensive. As J didn’t take the road to strawberry farm I made him stop at Gallo so Margaret could buy some chocolates. (Really so I could see the afternoon milking). It was amazing to see the cows walk into each ‘stall’ by themselves and just stand there while the floor rotated around. Of course some of them pooed and peed over everything and the guy putting on the cups just wiped it off onto the floor with his bare hand. Didn’t seem very hygienic to me – he also didn’t wash down the udder unless it was obviously very muddy either. Some of cows must have had vaccinations etc as they had blue tape around their tails and missed out on being milked first time around. Evidently they were drafted off and went round a second time and that milk is fed to the calves. It smelled quite off but I guess with 350 cows pooing everywhere it was always going to. Each cow gives 20 litres on average per milking – 14,000 litres per day. The new milk vat that was installed at Broxburn held 5,000 litres I think and was collected every second morning. They have some huge silos and must also have some big milk vats and a very large cooling system.  I don’t know whether they make all their own cheese, yoghurt and chocolate on the premises but think they would have to sell some milk to Dairy Farmers for processing. Margaret couldn’t stand the smell so didn’t buy any chocolates but I did – and I got 5 different ones from last time. Of course J tried the cheeses and came away with a mild blue. John & Richard stayed up for a very long time drinking and talking and paid for it the next morning.

Saturday was Malanda Market day and they were having a Morning Tea for Cancer so we checked out the stalls before having a very nice Devonshire tea for $5.00. I found the lady that makes buttons and bought 2 more for my wall hanging and got 2 big custard apples for $2, a pineapple for $3, a red pawpaw for $2 and a bag with 11 passionfruit for $2 also - came home loaded with change from $20. While the boys spent the afternoon trying to get Richard’s satellite dish to work Margaret chatted while I stitched the front of Lilly’s library bag.  Will have to get some material on Tuesday so I can get the machine sewing done before we leave. We watched the Suns beat Collingwood while having dinner and to cap it off the Lions then beat Demons in Darwin. If the cricketers had played better I would have gone to sleep very happy.

Sunday saw us head to Kuranda as John & Richard wanted to go on Skyrail. I was promised that we would go down on it and back up on the train but alas when we got to ticket office you can’t do that so I had to go BOTH ways on skyrail. Because I really don’t like them clunking over the towers and seeing the big drops/lifts etc I went down backwards and could have quite easily got off at the first stop and gone back to car, but no I went all the way to Cairns and back again. We did go for a wander along the boardwalk at the change over point so I could stretch my legs. The highest tower is 40 metres above ground but looking down you would think the earth was hundreds of feet away.

 Barron Falls didn’t have much water going over them but the dam behind was full so I guess that was where all the water was. You do get a great view of the rainforest and Cairns’ northern beaches. Next door to Cairns base is a pool where they were water skiing without boats which looked quite strange but what a good idea. We couldn’t tell exactly how it worked but people were going around in circles some going over jumps and you could see the rope and handle bouncing over the water when someone came to grief. I was very happy to climb the hill when we got off in Kuranda.

Beforehand we walked around the markets and found a gallery with some wonderful photographs. One I thought was wonderful was only $1230.00 for the print!

To appease me we went to the Butterfly sanctuary after lunch which was amazing. We had seen the Ulysses butterfly on the tree here at house and had heard about the Cairns Birdwing but in abundance along with others they were wonderful. Our guide was lots of fun and delighted the boys with the details of butterfly mating – female on top, male in coma in case of attack – foreplay for 6 hours and mating for 14 hours. The female only mates once in her life and can then decide how many eggs she lays at a time over the 2 – 9 weeks of her life. They collect the eggs from under leaves every few hours and take them to a separate nursery where they are carefully monitored. The live in a dish for first 2 weeks then in special cages till they pupate. After turning into butterflies they are left to dry their wings for 2 days before going back into aviary to life in outside world. They have several food dishes with a green liquid that smells of urine but is a pollen substitute to feed on and then get chased around/or chase some good sort to resume the process over again. I think they had 10 different butterflies – all local species and I am sure that they would have a research program going as well.

The Cruiser is an orange butterfly, Lurcher is orange and brown striped, Common Eggfly is small with white spots, Male Orchid is yellow with red spots and female has a lot of white and Red Lacewing has ‘guess’ red wings.  Just standing there watching all these brightly coloured butterflies flit around everywhere was breathtaking.

 At one stage I had 1 on my head and two sitting on my arm. They have a large collection in display boxes for you to see as well, but they aren’t as nice as having them fly around your face in the garden.

Dragging ourselves away we stop off at Emerald Creek Icecreamery on the way home for a scoop of cinnamon and one of mandarin icecream – just to prevent malnutrition of course. Richard had apple pie flavoured icecream and he declared it the best apple pie ever tasted. We will have to stop there on way back from Cape so I can try it too. We stop off at Yungaburra hotel to show R & M all the wood work and have a cold drink while we wait for Geelong to fritter away a 5 goal lead and lose by 2 points to Adelaide, and then head home after another great day in great outdoors.

Richard & Margaret leave on Monday morning for Cooktown and we hope to catch up again in Newcastle or Point Cook, where their daughter Louise lives; and we spend a relaxing day downloading photos and writing up our travels of last few weeks, with Whiskers and Oliver for company.

23^rd sees us head into Atherton for a haircut and Malanda for a chiro manipulation and while I am putting the groceries away Bill & Jan arrive and it is wonderful to see them. We have been very spoilt over the last few weeks with people to talk to about life in Toowoomba. Bill & Jan are totally self sufficient also and do not need to connect up to power at all and water every few weeks when they empty the toilet. Maybe we need a bigger solar system as ours doesn’t cope with the tv and then 2 CPAP machines. We have to be very careful with power useage when bush camping so that we make it through the night – otherwise MY CPAP machine dies. Bill seems very well after his recent heart scare but is taking his new pills so let’s hope all goes well for them.

Bill & Jan join us as we head back to Nerada Tea in the hope of seeing the processing plant working but no – not today come back next week! We all buy some tea bags (white tea and chai for me), and have a lovely Devonshire tea behind closed windows as it is blowing a gale and cold, and then go our separate ways. Mungali Creek Dairy is our destination and a little disappointing as we get there on lunchtime and just as a busload of Japanese tourists arrive, so we quickly buy some gorgonzola cheese, bush honey yoghurt and a chilli dip and leave. The welcome from Daisy at the front door is memorable too.

 The country around here is very hilly (mountainous) but lovely and green. The dairy also run free range chooks and there are hundreds in paddocks with 6 hen houses – would have loved to look inside but the barbed wire fence was a bit of hindrance.

Mungali Creek village boosts a youth camp which was also full when we got there – so it was a quick scamper through the restaurant to the lookout over the top of Mungali Creek Falls. The rapids at the top of falls were quite spectacular and even more amazing when we saw the little creek that was feeding them. I know you won’t believe it but this little stream is all that fed the rapids and waterfalls.

As it was time for us to eat again?? We called into the smokehouse café at Tzarli lakes and had another enormous meal of the freshest barramundi with chips and salad as we chattered to the owner. The barra was better than Bruce’s at Bull & Barley and that is saying something. They have 16,000 fish in their ponds mainly perch and barra which you can pay to try to catch. He has offered us a job looking after the place next February and March while he goes to Thailand for holidays. Pity we will be in Tassie as it would have been great parked up alongside the lakes watching the platypus swimming around. Yes after lunch we walked down to a natural lake that has 14 platypus in it. We managed to see at least 2 different ones about 6 times. They were swimming along the top of water amongst the lilies looking for food. Every so often they would dive down and come up 45 seconds later nearby so you had to keep an eye out. The ones we saw looked about 15 – 18” long so guess they are adults. It must be a very pristine area to get fish and platypus to breed so well.

We team up with Bill & Jan again to look out at Mt Hypipamee crater – a big hole that was formed when the gasses in a volcano exploded. The walls are almost sheer for 80 meters going to water which is 65 meters deep when it turns down under the earth and forms several caves. The water was covered with algae and looked cold – the day was wet and windy as well.

Bill, Jan and John climbed down to Dinner Falls and I walked back to the ute to take some photos of the lush vegetation. Dinner falls were worth the scramble and came in 3 parts, making them quite effective. I have been told not to use so many amazings, wonderfuls, awesomes and spectaculars so will have to try indescribable in future.

 My brochure on area lists Herberton Conservation park as having Halls falls and Drover’s lookout and as they are nearby we journey into the unknown along a very rough 4WD track. After much hilarity and angst from Jan we eventually find Drover’s lookout which due to the fog/mist/rain wasn’t very picturesque. But we do find an interesting tree hiding in the mist.

 We had travelled about half way around the park at this stage and the others didn’t want to go back to try to find Halls Falls so I was told to google them – and I did. This is what we could/might have seen!

As it was late when we arrived home it was a quick change of clothes/shoes before a trip over to Peeramon hotel for dinner. My seafood basket was undescribably fresh. We didn’t stay for dessert as the Broncos were playing Cowboys and couldn’t be missed. This time the broncos won.

Traipsing around Yungaburra markets in the rain was not fun! After morning tea with Bill & Jan we quickly bought the necessary fruit and vegies and left them to it. We also bought some intriguing salt and pepper shakers that we are assured will not become damp in wet weather. They are cone shaped and you shake them to get the condiments out. We’ll see if they work here as this is the wettest for so long I’ve ever been. We walk around Malanda showing B & J the hotel and picture theatre and discover that the film I have heard about is on next Saturday night at 6pm – hope there is no football, and then the Dairy Centre where it stops raining long enough for me to get a photo of the little girl statue out the front. All the timber is the hotels around here is silky oak and it looks superb (a new word!!) Both the Yungaburra and Malanda hotels have cedar panelled walls and silky oak staircases and trimmings. The timber cutters got some beautiful big trees for these buildings. The reason that the hotels are so large was because they housed all the timber cutters in the area and there must have been hundreds.

We have a long chat over milkshakes and my Malanda Magic (concoction of pineapple, apple and ginger and very nice). They have decided to leave Malanda tomorrow and head west to get away from the rain. The film is called ‘A Ride to Remember’ and was made by Jayson Watkin with 5 old time drovers and covers an epic drive from western Qld to the Kimberley, which I think could be great. John goes off to phone June, Michelle and David and catch up on the family gossip. Sandy & John are going to the football and I hope John B is a better loser than John C as Geelong beat the Saints by 101 points. JC would have been unbearable had the tables been reversed.

Sunday is also wet and windy so it is time to do some sewing and watch the Lions lose to Port, but at least Tony will be happy. Monday and Tuesday have us doing housework and outside jobs as the sun comes out in between showers. Let’s hope that the wet weather has gone for a while as we chlorinated the shower mat and curtain, and scrubbed the mould off shower walls. I finally manage to finish Lilly’s library bag and John’s tool bag (now all the necessary tools won’t be rolling around the floor of ute). Now we have a clean van and ute both inside and out!! When I remember to buy some press studs I'll be able to finish a wall hanging that I have done to hold all the remotes and my scarves and handkerchiefs. Whiskers likes us being around the house as he gets a comfy lap to sleep on. An email from Jan tells us that they made it to Ravenshoe on Sunday afternoon.

Wed 31^st and we finally get to Paronella Park – a wonderful tribute to one man’s determination and resilience. Jose Paronella a Spanish immigrant worked at many labouring jobs in early 1900’s to save enough money to build a ‘castle’ which he did in 1930’s. He built a stone cottage for the family to live in and then built a castle, ballroom/cinema, icecream parlour, a grand staircase and planted thousands of trees and plants. The end result was a lovely lush tropical garden that he invited the locals to enjoy.

They could come and swim in the creek under the falls or wander through the tunnel of love to Theresa falls or just enjoy a picnic on the lawn. After several floods and a cyclone or two he had rebuild in 1946 and unfortunately he died in 1947, but his family continued on till 1977. If you look closely at the staircase there is a plaque about 1/3 way down which is the 1946 flood level. Cyclone Larry caused devastation as did a fire in 1979 which destroyed the ballroom but the current owners are doing miracles to return it to Jose’s dream. The customer service was fantastic and a real credit to all the staff.

 The moss growing on all cement walls, tables, chairs, planters and stairs helps make it look ‘old’ too. Jose planted a Kauri tree avenue which has the waterfall as vista at one end. He also designed it so that when you look through the tea room you see the waterfall too. Every so often walking around the gardens you get a glimpse of the falls and it is magical.

Leaving there with our return pass to come back again during the next 2 years to do the night tour, we get a call from Nicole to say the element in the oven has blown and Sonny replaced it for $80. She also has a letter from Centrelink which might be the one telling us whether they are going to continue paying me to care – hope so. Kurramine Beach is another lovely spot – white sand, blue sea, lush green gardens and spotlessly clean. The caravan park along beach looks pristine so we will come back here.

After doing some grocery shopping in Innisfail we head home well satisfied with the days’ activities. Sitting at the table next morning we are joined by Kate’s minister who has called in to say hello. We spend the day doing jobs – with Whiskers and Oliver’s help of course.

Friday we head back down the Palmerston Highway to see some of the sights that have been passed by with roadworks and rain. The first one is a scenic drive through some lovely rainforest, fortunately it is a one way road as it gets very narrow in places and the trees are too big to try to drive around. Then we stop at Crawford's lookout which has lovely views down South Johnstone River and at a lookout on Henderson Drive that has views over Johnstone shire towards the mill - all very green and hilly.

The Sugar Museum at Mourilyan is the next stop where they tell the story of sugar growing, milling and refining in Australia since 1820. The museum has lots of old implements, cane trains and machinery and they are currently building a replica canecutters hut. It is well worth a visit – if only to learn about sugar is made.

Veering off the highway we checkout Bramston Beach - another lovely clean green spot beside white sandy beach. They also have a caravan park beside the water with lots of shady trees.

Heading up the highway we decide to go to Babinda to see what it is like – another clean tidy country town with a variety of shops and there didn’t seem to be any empty ones. A sign to the Boulders has us wandering up a country road to a park with quite a few cars. Not knowing what was waiting we walk off to the river bank and are once again amazed at the crystal clear water – this time it is quite shallow. Noticing people heading off on path along river bank we follow and are stunned at the first lookout, where we see the boulders – there has been some volcanic activity in this area in years gone by.

 Continuing on we find the Devils Pool – a circular hole carved out in the rocks and surrounded by huge boulders, and then Devils gorge. This is a small gap between some more very big stones. You can definitely see why they called the place the Boulders. It was also very lush and green with lots of tropical plants and ferns, and as the clouds blew glimpses of Mt Bellenden Kerr could be seen.

Continuing up through sugar cane farms to Gordonvale we came home to see Geelong lose to the Kangaroos – J is not a happy chappy, but he must learn his team are not invincible even if he thinks they should be. It doesn’t help much when the Lions beat St Kilda but the sad news is that the Broncos drew with the Knights, and now mightn’t make the finals.

Saturday we venture to Atherton to their markets and are disappointed as there are very few stalls – a few crafty ones, 2 junk ones and half a dozen fruit and veggie ones. I manage to buy most of the goods needed to take north and we head over to the Antique shop which has got lots of rave reviews. Think the owner must have been writing up the reviews because there wasn’t much of interest. J liked a mantle clock, and there were some nice pieces of pine German furniture along with a red cedar 4 poster bed which was for sale at $12,950! As Barb had sent me $100 to buy a birthday present from everyone I bought a pair of peridot earings and a pair of amethyst ones from the Crystal Cave. On our way home we called in to the ‘Vienna Inn’ in Yungaburra to see what was on the menu and how much and decided we would come back for dinner. It was very nice – the owner was Austrian and she did a great job running the restaurant on her own. It is only small (5 eat in diners) but there was a steady stream of take away orders going out as well. I had a Hungarian pork dish with paprika and sauerkraut and John had a Czech pork roast with sauerkraut only his was deep red whilst mine was orange. The food is eastern European were both very tasty. Having seen Austrian Apple Strudel on the menu we saved up for dessert and shared the strudel and a very alcoholic chocolate Hungarian cake concoction. Replete we head home to watch the cricketers put up a fight and end up going to sleep around 3am.

Bleary eyed we go to church to say goodbye and meet the area Dean Paul and his wife Christine who have come up from Cairns to take the service. As the weather is fine with just an occasional cloud passing over we go out to Lake Barine. While waiting for boat to leave we walk up to twin Kauris – 2 huge bull kauri trees estimated to be over 1000 years old. They are over 6.4m around and are not the largest ones. The early timber cutters felled one that was 11.2m around! They were only interested in red cedar so most of the other trees that were felled went to fence posts or firewood. Can you imagine how much firewood you would get from a tree that big?

 The boat captain gave a running commentary on the lake and surrounds and pointed out lots of interesting titbits. They have some big male eels in the lake and when they reach about 30 years old they change sex, swim out down a little creek to the ocean and across Coral Sea to Vanuatu where they mate, lay eggs and die. When the young males hatch and grow a little they make their way back across the ocean and up the creek (during flood time) to the lake where they live till they are about 30 and then they repeat the process. The lake is also home to some seraphin (tortoises) and several small fish species (bony bream being one) as well as numerous black ducks and a pelican.

He pointed out a smooth barked Kauri which was just as big as rough barked ones, white figs that the birds loved seeds off, and some Alexandra Palms that just swayed in the breeze when cyclone Larry was blowing around this area. Larry felled a huge red cedar tree which fell into the water and is just rotting away. Because it is a national park they couldn’t take the tree out and use the timber – seems a bit of waste to me. As I am trying to empty the fridge we had to finish the last of mussels for dinner, which we had with a chilli pasta sauce – yummmmmmm. We will miss the cheap seafood here so will have to stock up when we return.

Our time here is rapidly coming to an end so it is a case of orgainze food, clothes and bits and pieces to take north so Monday and Tuesday are spent getting everything done – I hope. This will be like our house sit in Brisbane over Christmas only we can’t keep coming back to caravan for anything we’ve forgotten. Hope it isn’t anything essential that gets left behind. We will have to swap things from car to van and vice versa when we get to Lakefield on Wednesday but hopefully it will go smoothly. Kate, Elliott and Emily arrive home on Tuesday and are all excited especially Oliver. Emily takes the rabbits out onto the lawn for a brush and it is amazing how much hair comes out – I only brushed them 10 days ago. They seem to have had a wonderful holiday but have gone 39 hours without sleep so are a bit knackered. It is time to sign off here in Malanda and I will continue with my story on our return from the tip of Australia. Can’t imagine how I am going to get up off ground with my ankles the way they are but guess necessity will prevail – I can’t stay in bed forever.

9/8 The country is dry, dusty and flat with lots of trees, some grass and the occasional brahmam beside the road. After eventually getting everything we think we will need out of van and into ute, and everything we know we won’t need from ute into van(ha ha – remains to be seen what vital necessity has been left behind) we left Lakeland and our van behind and spent last night at Archer River Roadhouse about 5 hours north. Near Mt Carbide we see a modern Phone tower which was to contrast dramatically with one from the old Telegraph line. 

Road wasn’t too bad as it is kept maintained to get trucks and personnel into Weipa. The stretches of bitumen vary from 1 to 5 klms and happen every 5 – 10 klms so it was quite pleasant really. The few creek crossings didn’t have much water in them – just the occasional puddle until we arrived at Archer River which has some good fishing holes – according to those that know!

 The campground was nearly full at 4pm and they still kept arriving till after 7pm. The Massey Ferguson Tractor club are driving their tractors to the top and have 12 in the convoy along with 12 – 14 support vehicles. One of them has a warped sense of humour as we are awoken at 6am with the bagpipes playing ‘wake up and get out of bed’. We decide to let them go ahead and hope we don’t have to pass them before the Weipa turnoff. It didn’t really work as we are now wide awake and can’t go back to sleep. We have used some public conveniences that weren’t very salubrious at times – like long drops in national parks etc but nothing came close to the mess in ladies. How a female could have made such a mess all over the cistern, lid, seat, floor and walls and not bothered to make any effort to clean it up is mindboggling. I can only assume that ‘it’ stood on seat, astride the toilet bowl up against the wall –why would you??? The staff hurriedly cleaned it up when told about it – I pity the poor girl though. Although the tractors left 2.5 hours before us we caught up to them about 50klms north, and had some fun and laughs over the UHF.

 They came from all over Aust (2 from Tassie, some from WA & SA) and shipped the tractors to Cooktown where they started their odyssey. The road is well graded and in the middle of nowhere you are faced with a red light. This turned out to be the haul road taking bauxite from mines to stockpile at port. These big haul trucks have right of way so all other traffic gets out of the way. Weipa is a typical mining town, lots of company flats & houses near the police, hospital, schools but miles from the shops. You wouldn’t survive here without a vehicle as there is no bus service – didn’t see a taxi either. It is quite leafy and spread along the coast, but at low tide there are miles of mud flats.

Saturday morning sees us head to Mapoon as a man from church said to go there because it was pretty and the fishing was good. We have picnic lunch on the beach under palm and gum trees, but don’t go near the water – it was low tide and mud flats went for miles. Afterwards we head down a track with a sign saying camp ground and find a wonderful memorial built for the Jantssen in the Duyfken and other Dutch sailors who explored the area in early 1600’s. In April this year Penelope Wensley officially opened this lovely memorial listing the feats and history of both Aboriginal and whiteman in the area. While we were there reading all the information a man and young lad came around to shift the hoses. (They water the plants in their spare time)

 One thing that had really stood out was all the houses were neat, tidy, new, and there was no rubbish around. I remembered going through Alice Springs & Tennant Creek in the late 70’s and couldn’t believe the mess. Seems the Govt moved all the people from here to New Mapoon near Bamaga in 1967 when Comalco started mining, but by 1984 they had decided to move back to their homeland. Each family has been allotted 1 hectare in their family area and they are really looking after their piece of dirt which was great to see. They have all had to build new houses and they are brightly coloured and some are quite large 2 storey buildings. We arrive back at the van to find our tractor friends have arrived so John goes off to chat to them for a few hours. Back over the water we settle down to listen to football and watch a train coming over the causeway. Then it is home for an amazing sunset and some interesting birds (think they are scrub fowl) come for dinner, before we head to the Bowls club for dinner.

Sunday sees us pack up and head north via Brunett Downs where a water truck is watering the road. The Bamaga bypass road takes us to Bramwell Junction where we stop for an icecream before tackling the Overland Telegraph Track. Why did I ever agree to this – it is very narrow, sandy and then you come to a creek crossing where it is almost a vertical drop down the bank to water. The first 2 creeks have the water lapping the TOP of bonnet and if that isn’t enough at the other side you have to get up the bank to get out. We drove around in circles at the first crossing trying to find the track across and had 2 vehicles behind us who were a bit timid, so of course we went first. Much the same happened at the second crossing except you had to do a dog leg turn in middle of river and then we saw some vehicles on the bank so headed for them. Unfortunately one was stuck on a mud hill and the other was winching him out. They offered to winch us out if we wanted to come that way or we could go down to left and over a rock mountain and get out that way – talk about the lesser of two evils. We left them to it and continued on to the next crossing. This procedure went on for 3.5 hours after which we had covered 90 klms. I made J take the detour around Gunshot creek I couldn’t handle and extreme crossing when all the others had been listed as steep. He wasn’t happy until a few days later when told that Gunshot had claimed 40 vehicles already this year.

 Our destination was Elliot falls campground which was great. Lots of trees, space between each campsite and the loos close by. Twin falls and Elliot falls were a short distance away down a boardwalk and flowing well. It seems that they are spring fed during the dry season so run all year round.

Elliot falls were in a horseshoe shape and there was a lot of water going over them and it seemed so little in the creek downstream.

 From here there was another ‘delightful’ crossing at Sam creek and then we wove our way over to the bypass road and up the wrong side of guide posts to the Jardine river ferry. The road is cleared and graded about 3 car widths wide but is so corrugated that a lot of people drive in the sand on side so we just followed in their tracks where we could. It was much the same north of ferry so you just have to drive slowly and get used to having your fillings shaken out. Some wag has dressed an anthill to provide some amusement.

The OTT is in direct contrast to Bamaga road (highway) being lush and green, the other is so dusty with the prevailing easterly wind that the trees on western side of road are all covered in red dust and those on east side relatively green.

The Jardine isn’t very wide but must be quite deep – it looked it but as it is full of big lizards I didn’t venture in to find out. It costs $129 to go across but as there isn’t an alternative you just have to grin and bear it. Makes the free ferries across Clarence even more appreciated.

Of course the minute we get here we have to set off for the Tip (Pajinka) and it is a long trip – 1 hour to drive the 38klms and half an hour to clamber over the rocks like a mountain goat to get there. All that just to say I got to the northern most point of Aust mainland. Oh well it’s done now – don’t have to do it again.

It seems quite insignificant when you are at water level and there are towering islands just off shore. Eborac Island has a lighthouse to shine some light on the area. As you have probably guessed the road in is not in pristine condition and one pothole was 6 feet across and 6 inches deep and in the mottled afternoon shadows you hit it full on with a bang. There were a few MORE water crossings for him who hasn’t done enough, so he was happy.

Tuesday 13^th and we had booked in to take a tour of TI and Horn Island with a ferry company so it was an early start and a very pleasant 1.5 hour trip over to TI. The ferry takes passengers and goods as well and was quite big. They played a 1 hour movie about the history of Torres strait and the islands which was rather informative. They also had a digital chart on screen which plotted our course so we could see what the islands were as we past by and the captain gave a running commentary.

 Our bus met us at the wharf and off we went to explore TI – 5,000 people on 400 sq m. Most of govt operations for the north run from here though the Sherga airforce base is near Weipa. It is a lovely tropical isle where you could come for a very relaxing holiday.

They have restored the fort built to save us all from attack during the 1800’s and it is now the military museum. John had a lovely time comparing it to the Army base at Stockton. Inside the museum were some huge oyster shells - you would have loved the pearl that came out of them I'm sure. They also had a light from their lighthouse and a pearl shell cutting machine that didn't look like it would cut paper.

Driving around the island it was good to see Bishop Saibo Mabo is still in charge of Anglican church and where everything is clean, tidy and in good repair with a lot of new building going on.

Then it was onto a smaller ferry for the 30 minute trip over to Horn Island. I had never heard of Horn before but it was a huge airforce base during WW2.It was the second most bombed place in Aust during WW2. Our driver and her husband do tours of the island taking people to lots of WW2 sites which they are gradually reclaiming from the jungle. Our first stop was at the cemetery with its memorial to all the Japenese pearl divers who died diving the Torres Strait. Another interesting item were the aboriginal/Islander graves. After someone dies they are buried then the headstone is made and placed and covered with plastic until an appropriate time of mourning is up and then they have an unveiling and wake.

Another fascinating thing was listing the persons achievements and endeavours on the headstone or grave - makes for interesting reading. This lady was a member of Mothers Union so I've put her photo in. Whenever a sailor died on board ship they kept the body until they reached shore and then handed it over where it was placed in an unmarked grave (Well it has a number attached) Such a contrast!

Vanessa is very passionate about saving the history and has developed another very good museum in a resort where we had lunch. Lunch was an enormous chinese style smorgasboard with desert, fruit and cake; museum was great and tour very well done.

She knew lots of stuff about the places where she took us – anti-aircraft battlements, airforce bases, crashed plane sites, and made it all interesting and fun. After Darwin; Horn Island was the most bombed place during WW2.

Even though her husband is an islander they are not allowed to live in the bush on Horn. Those with native title to Horn are the only ones allowed to live outside the town, even though Horn is 4,000 sq m with about 400 residents. The islanders have native title to most of the islands but only a few are inhabited. They have work for the dole and you have to work 22 hours a fortnight to get any money so there are lots of well maintained parks, public buildings and no rubbish lying around. The houses we could see were all in good repair and there were no dead cars parked in yards or on side of roads. They have a love of colour and lots of houses have a feature wall in contrasting colour which really set them off. There were a few buildings in TI that were made of brick back in 1800’s but everything now is steel frames with weatherboard cladding. There were a lot of trees bare of leaves but loaded with yellow flowers and pods – they are Kapok trees and yes the aborigines used the fluffy bits to fill pillows and mattresses.

I had a lovely chat to TI’er on way back in ferry. He had been to Townsville and was wearing a flannelette shirt because it was so cold down there. Horn Island has the airstrip so everyone catches the ferry over and back if you have to fly out. Near the jetty on TI were 30 odd tinnies with outboard motors that the locals from outlying islands use to get to work. Don’t know how they go when the wind is up – would think it would get a bit hairy.

 Our trip back to Seisia was rougher than trip over but nothing to really worry about, and after 9 hours we made it back to our van to have a crayfish tail each for dinner. We were able to purchase 3 frozen tails for $40, which were delivered to the ferry for us – and what a meal. One of the feral horses came to visit but didn't seem too interested in our fish only wanted bread - there are many signs saying don't feed kangaroos, birds or horses but someone has been.

Our camp site is right on the beach where the helipad is and they were doing evening flights which would have been good if noisy.

Waking up early on Wednesday I went off for a little walk and coming back noticed a lovely pink sky over the water so grabbed the camera and wandered down to take a photo. Standing there admiring the view one of those ‘snapping handbags’ swam past, oblivious to all the people standing on sand at waters edge and dog running in and out of water – or was he, maybe he was taking notes for tomorrow’s breakfast.

We spent the day exploring after doing a load of washing, and getting two punctures repaired ($100). Brian used to charge $20 at Top of Range and he took the wheels off car – John had to do that. Our first port of call was the Crock Tent at Lockerbie where they have an array of souvenirs and clothing but were a little expensive. They didn’t have anything in size 2 so we bought some postcards and a bar mat for when we get back home. We had heard that there was a café at Punsand Bay which did good meals so we stopped there for lunch and it was very nice sitting out on the deck looking out over the garden to sand and sea. Food was good too. They have some beach tents (with hard floors) right on waters edge which would be great to stay in. There were cabins at Archer River and with various farm stays and all the motels and resorts around Bamaga and Seisia you could just drive up here without having to bring camping gear.

Our next stop was the ruins at Somerset where the govt set up a depot in 1860’s to check all visiting boats for illegal immigrants !!!!!!! etc. We drove down to Somerset bay and spent some time walking around the camping ground looking out over the beautiful green water to Albany Island. It was a lovely spot but I’m not too sure about camping there  - it looked a very nice spot for our big lizards to camp on too.

We did come across a little frilly lizard on our way back to main road. Turning off to the airport we went down to Jacky Jacky creek where a boat was coming in to the ramp and the driver got out into the water to go and get the trailer. He must have been very sure but it looked like tempting fate to me.

After that we had some navigational errors trying to find the WW2 plane crash sites but eventually got there. A Boeing that left Archerfield for New Guinea during the war crashed just short of runway at dawn – you wonder why or how; but killed all 6 on board.

Just down the road a bomber crashed killing the 3 crew – also so close to runway. We couldn’t find the other wreck but these were well cared for, and obviously have a lot of visitors.

Our last stop for the day was Loyalty Beach which was a little disappointing as it didn’t seem to have much sand – lots of rocks and a bit grotty. The locals were in caravan park when we arrived back selling fresh rainbow crayfish for $25. They looked lovely but as we still had 1 of our tails left we didn’t buy one.

The Mango tree is very prolific around here in more ways than one!

Thursday saw us bidding farewell to our neighbours and heading south over that road again. We drove fairly slowly and let everyone go by. One car was going so fast that you could see the wheels bumping up and down at least 6 inches everytime he hit a corrugation (every 6 inches) I’ll bet he needed all new shockies and springs by the time he got home if not before. A bloke in red Colorado followed us for a long way and at one stage he called out over UHF to an idiot that passed too close and too fast. The idiot was pulling a trailer with boat on top and 5 klm down the road the trailer and boat were on the ground. We did stop to ask if they needed help – but don’t know why. It was a good 6 hours driving before we made it to Archer River and called it quits for the day. We had thought about going into Lockhart River but the jolting had had its effect and I just wanted a smooth road and my bed. John had noticed that the steering was a bit heavy and on checking discovered that there was no power steering fluid in the bottle. We travelled on the next day and stopped at Coen where we bought some to top up. Unfortunately it didn’t last because by the time we got to Musgrave roadhouse the steering was heavy again, so after a very nice burger, I settled down in shade with my book and John got under the car and dismantled the bottom guard to try and find a leak – Eureka a screw had come loose with all the shaking, so he tightened it up, we bought a big bottle of fluid, filled it up and drove on. Musgrave Telegraph station was built in 1887 and one of many taking the morse code telegrams from oz to the world. It was decommissioned in 1929 and bought for a private residence in 1931 – the same family still live here today. They had 2 arab mares with 2 newborn foals in the yard mowing the grass, that didn’t seem in the least bit interested in checking out our food.

One tourist actually went and lay down with all the brahmans camped outside the fence – they are a lot quieter than the brahmans I have experienced.

Oh what a pleasure to hit the bitumen at Laura and enjoy a smooth ride back to Lakeland. The park operators sell cooked prawns for $17 kilo so we had fresh prawns for dinner, a hot shower and a long sleep in my own bed – what bliss. Then we had the fun of transferring everything back to where it belonged, so we could leave and head down to Cooktown. I said down to Cooktown because it is on the coast but it seemed like we climbed a lot of hills to get there. Of course we had a little glitch leaving Lakeland when the caravan went walkabout because we hadn’t put air back into the tyres. We let some out to travel up the dirt and sand and hadn’t noticed when we got back onto the sealed road. So it was quickly find a place where we could pull over, get out the compressor and reinflate the tyres. No drama really so we are soon back on our way. The only thing we forgot to take north was the cable which connects the car fridge to 240volts, so we couldn’t take it out of the car at night and connect it to electricity. By the time we got to Seisia we found that one of the 12 volt cpap machine cables fitted it so we were able to keep food a little cooler.

Cooktown is another lovely spot, where they are trying very hard to attract the tourist dollar. There is a park full of monuments along the river bank, Grassy Hill Lookout(named by Cook because he climbed up there to survey the river mouth and coastline for a safe passage out) with a fantastic view of the river, town and Cherry Tree Bay. A walk they have created takes you for a tour of everything with lots of informative boards along the way. It takes a full day to do it so I didn’t try.

In the park is a musical ship with 6 different musical instruments for kids (and big kids) to play. It was very popular with lots of people. They had also painted creatures onto the rubber matting surrounding it which turned what could have been an eyesore into a piece of art.

 At one point they wrote to the powers that be in Queen street and told them they needed protection from a Russian invasion so one cannon, 6 rounds of ammunition, 2 pistols and one man were sent to defend our north!

Of course there is the James Cook Museum in the old Sisters of Mercy Convent, and the Cooktown History Centre where you can get your fill of our Aboriginal, Cooktown, British, Chinese and Catholic history. The convent and 2 old bank buildings are the only brick buildings in town the rest are timber, and once again the place was very well kept. There is a mega huge mango tree in the front yard - oh wouldn't you like to eat all these.

After a few days cleaning out the car and tent and checking out the town itself it was time to venture out onto some dirt roads again. This time it was a short trip to Isabella Falls which were small but very pretty.

Stopping off at Keatings Lagoon we spend the rest of afternoon in a bird hide looking at a Rainbow bee-eater building a nest, some pacific black ducks eating lilies, magpie geese bathing and some comb crested Jacanas mating. A bit of everything there!

Another day we drove into Archer Point and after looking across the water to what we thought was a lighthouse we left – only to find out later that it was a navigational beacon (lighthouse without a light) and the actual lighthouse was up a dirt track we saw going over a distant hill. Oh well – will save it up for next time.

Going out to Wujal Wujal falls we passed the historic Lions Den Hotel built in 1872 and still serving beers and food and nowadays has a caravan park attached. The falls were great with a lot of water coming over them – they would be stunning in the wet season.  In the pools at the base were some wonderful yellow and black fish about 8 - 10" long. After our picnic lunch at the base of them, we went into Arts & Craft Centre for a look and I was given a necklace as a birthday present. It came with a little piece of paper telling you about the young girl who crafted it which was nice.

 Then someone said would you like an icecream – of course; so we headed down the Bloomfield track to Cape Tribulation for an icecream!!!!!!!! Another one of those roads with lots of dust, potholes, corrugations and river crossings only this one was better? It had 3 mountain ranges to cross over. That 38 klms also took over an hour to traverse. The only saving grace was my pineapple, mango, jackfruit and coconut icecreams were wonderful. If you ever see icecream from the Daintree Icecreamery buy some it is divine. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and we had to head home back up THAT road.

On the trip up the old telegraph track, we averaged 25kph; on the dirt 'highway' we made 60kph, but today we averaged 20kph so someone had to take a photo to prove it!!

21^st August and after having Happy Birthday sung to me by 2 little boys we wandered around town looking in the museums until lunch which we enjoyed on the balcony at Capers, looking across the park to river. Dinner was at Restaurant 1770 which is next to the wharf where John had spoken to guys on fishing boat. They head out to outer reef get into tinnies and fish during the daylight hours for Coral Trout which are kept alive. After 10 days fishing they come back in and offload the catch at this restaurant. We had eaten takeaway fish and chips from next door, so knew that the fish was lovely, and our fish wings with a sweet chilli sauce was lovely. The wings are fins and tail and there was a huge amount of flesh next to them. I had trouble eating all mine (5 pieces) but that was because we had shared 6 oysters and 4 scallops for entrée. Believe it or not the oysters come from NZ and the scallops from Hervey Bay. It was all very yummy.

Thursday saw us walking around the Botanic Gardens which was lovely and cool in all the shade. Some of the trees were planted in 1878 when gardens first established and of course they are nice big trees now. Mangoes are a pest up here – sprouting everywhere in the rainforest – but there are some massive trees. Birds and Bats would have a feed from the ones at the top because you would never be able to pick them, even with a cherry picker. The gardens fell into disrepair for a while when Cooktown’s population dropped dramatically but an intrepid band of volunteers got it cleaned up and now the Council manages it. The Ant House vine took our fancy – it is a beadlike vine which houses the ants and they then form the food base for some larvae whose droppings then feed more ants.

 We also saw a vanilla orchid and I never knew that vanilla came from a vine, so i learnt something new today (actually quite a few things). We found a temple tree which has lovely flowers, a pumpkin fruit tree, peanut tree, and red beech tree which has a pod which opens to red flower shape with white flesh.

Would have loved to see some flowers or fruit on the Tamarind tree but it only had seed pods. It was a lovely spreading tree with fern like leaves – probably won’t grow in Wyreema’s frosts. As I wasn’t feeling too well after lunch we stayed home instead of going to find Quarantine Bay and Treviathan falls. We did venture out that afternoon to see the sunset from Grassy Hill and it was stunning. Mt Cook seemed like a watchful uncle keeping an eye on everything, and there was a full rainbow over Cherry Tree Bay.

Friday and I was not well – grey green colour, cramping and major gastric upset so did the washing and lay down most of day. We had paid park fees till Saturday morning so decided to leave and head up to Rocky Creek in case I needed a hospital. Stopping at Mt Molloy Café for lunch John had a burrito with a very hot chilli sauce which he loved so bought a bottle of it. Just the smell would knock a thousand stampeding buffalo. While sitting at bench eating a lovely tiny yellow bellied sunbird came to eat the nectar from cacti next to us. It was lovely - long honeyeater beak, with yellow belly and bright blue under chin.

 We stop at Rocky Creek War Memorial Camp which is between Walkamin and Tolga (Mareeba & Atherton) where there is a very popular free camp. The camp was the site of 2 Aust Army General Hospitals and various other bases during WW2 and they have an amazing war memorial. 116 Large granite rocks with plaques attached from just about every Army unit that ever was, as well as one from Navy and one donated by DPI for the land army farm in area.

We called in on Kate and Emily on Monday afternoon and had a lovely catch up, Oliver was so excited to see us and my little Whiskers enjoyed her pat too. They are going to put the place on market as the grounds are too big to maintain, and buy a smaller block and we hope to meet up with them when back in the area. Tuesday is my long awaited visit to Tim Chiropractor who puts me back together. After getting some groceries to last us out the week we head home to pack up. Another Regal owner Maurice had spoken to us about our shadecloth annex walls, and he and another Regal owner had chatted to John for 3 hours on Sunday morning. Their van is in front of ours and when we got back from town Nora wanted John to take Maurice in to the hospital – seems he has been unwell for last 2 days. They admitted him so we arranged to stay here for a few days so we can take Nora into visit him. Wednesday mornings visit to hospital reveals that they believe Maurice has a blockage (piece calcium) blocked in one of the tubes of inner ear. After a deal of shaking it didn’t seem to move so they have to consider the next move. Fortunately my upset stomach has settled down, but we don’t know when we will be leaving.

1/9 Father’s day and we finally leave the tablelands – it is rainforest to Ravenshoe where we stop for lunch at a café that is doing Father’s day lunches for all the people having the day out and going for a steam train ride, so it takes an age to get our meal, but what the hell. John has a call from David and the kids and one from Michelle so he is happy. Zahra didn’t want to talk and Jayden kept yelling Poppy so it was a pleasure to chat to Lilly. After we eat we wander over to look at the steam engine getting up revs but don’t wait around for the engine to be connected up to carriages, and then continue on to Mt Surprise where we stop for the night at a caravan park with a few bird aviaries, and a brolga in a paddock with some miniature horses.

2/9 On the road again and we stop in Georgetown to ask about the road to Cobbold gorge and are told that the road to Forsayth isn’t too bad and they have a caravan park so we head there. The first time our van has been on a dirt road and it comes up trumps – even if it is now filthy.

3/9 Fortunately we leave the van behind and venture out to the gorge alone as this road is very bumpy. They tell us the council hasn’t graded it for 14 weeks because there is no water to wet it down. We make it on time and head off in a 4WD bus across the paddocks and Gilbert River and stop near the swimming hold. Heading bush on foot our guides Ian & Grace point out all the trees the aboriginals used for food and medicines, before we get to John Corbett’s grave. This grave was once beside a ‘main highway’ taking miners from Croydon/Normanton to east coast along the Robertson river. Now it is just a dusty block of Robin Hood Station.

Back near the river we climb up rocks to top of gorge to look down into the chasm at some freshwater crocs sunning themselves. Climbing down a different way we enter a butterfly cave with millions of butterflies. They live here for up to 9 months while eating the nectar of neighbouring trees and drinking at rivers edge while waiting for right time to breed.

 From here it was into some flat bottom boats with electric motors and a cruise up the gorge. The boats are only 4 feet wide so that they can negotiate the narrow course and when you get as far as you can go the driver goes to other end of boat and we head back – it isn’t big enough to turn around. The rocks were amazing and there were several patches of moss growing in crevasses. When a flood comes down they all get washed away, but the roots reshoot again when water goes down and it all starts over again. Our freshwater crocs are still there but one slips in under the water. It is amazing that the owners of Robin Hood station had swum in the waterhole for over 130 years and never ventured around the bend to see what was there. The gorge was only discovered in 1992 and is now a major tourist drawcard in this area.

We have lunch overlooking the pool and would that have been wonderful if the river behind had had some water in it – but there was no wet season up here last summer and they are all in drought. Judging by the amount of feed in some paddocks they are in serious drought. The native orchid must like the conditions - it looked lovely.

 Seeing a sign to lookout we take a 4WD track to a Quartz blowout and what an amazing sight it is. Years ago the earth had ‘indigestion’ and spewed up a pile of quartz rocks – still sitting there unconcerned for the rest of world.

Coming back to Forsayth we get a flat tyre and have a very hot 30 minutes while changing tyres. Now we don’t need another one till we can get back to Georgetown. Luck is on our side and we make it into Georgetown and find a tyre man who says he is too busy – come back at 2pm. We sit in the park and watch the birds – mainly crimson wings, bluefaced honeyeaters and butcherbirds. The honey eaters have learned how to get a drink by hanging upside down at the tap – talk about ingenious. After lunch we head back to tyre man who says he can’t do it till 4pm but try the BP. Why he couldn’t have suggested that 4 hours ago I don’t know.

 However the little chinaman sells us a new tyre because the old one has a 4 inch crack in it and we are soon on our way to Croydon. The caravan park is owned by the council and very dry and dusty but quiet. Our brochure says they have a historical precinct so we stop and go for a walk. John was expecting a few signs and rusty machinery and is very much surprised. They have the town hall open for you to walk through, along with the old police station, lock up and residence, but the crowning glory is the courthouse with the original furniture and a series of cardboard cutouts and tape recording of 2 trials. The first one is of Mrs Brown who was jailed for 2 months for being drunk and disorderly in her own home, and in the second one a chinaman is also jailed for 2 months for peddling opium! Bit different nowdays! It was hilarious and very well done.

The rooms in back of courthouse house a collection of artifacts from days gone by, including 2 coffins (never used) and some well used dunny cans!!!  They also have 4 nude dummies denoting a hot summers night?

 They have a small museum at the new visitor info centre and a short film on the town. It was really well done and a credit to Council and residents - all 300 of them. John thinks that God gave him the flat tyre so we would stop here, as if we hadn’t we would have just sped through to get to Normanton in 1 day. Just as we were leaving the phone rings and it is Bendigo bank telling him that there has been a large sum of money put into his mother’s account and does he know about it. I’m not sure about this – it is nice to know that they are on the lookout for bogus transactions but assuming an elderly lady can’t be told and her Powers of Attorney are told is a bit much. Anyway he spends 2 hours talking to Murray, Sandy and then his mother about what he thinks should happen to the money and I sit in the sun cooking. It is just a short trip (150 klm) to Leichhardt’s lagoon on Glenore Station where we make camp for a few days. The lagoon is nearly dry but there are 5 black swans, 5 pelicans and a horde of black ducks, galahs, corellas and 1 old white drake.

Friday 6^th sees us head into Normanton to vote, have a look around and try to find some drinking water to take home, as the crap he filled up with at Rocky Creek is foul. Krys the lifesized crocodile sits outside the council chambers and would not be nice to have met up with. There wasn’t much in Normanton so we headed to Karumba and could only find some cooked prawns for lunch, and as we couldn’t get to waters edge we headed off to Karumba Point where we found the sunset tavern. So prawns went into fridge and we shared a hot and cold seafood plate and had desert. J ate all his pavlova but I couldn’t get through my slice of sponge cake so he ate that too. It would be lovely sitting there at dusk watching the sun set over water, especially if it was high tide.

 All along the road wherever there was some water the brolgas would congregate and there would have been nearly a thousand, by my quick counting. They looked wonderful with their red heads and the one young one we saw seemed to be white. The paddocks all had signs saying no entry cattle quarantine area – and there were a few visible from the road. Haven’t been able to figure out if we are importing cattle or if they are Tb or brucellosis infected. I am sure that we haven’t resumed the live cattle trade through Karumba that Julia wrecked. Heading back through Normanton we manage to find some drinking water and fill up with fuel.

Turning off on the way home we go out to Burke & Wills Camp 119. Where they stopped for a few days while B & W try to get to the gulf – the mangroves were too thick so they didn’t get to waters edge. They have quite an impressive monument here, with the tree that has been carved, and plaques where others once stood, and the story under a shelter shed. After arriving home Tim the caretaker comes for a few drinks and regales us with his life story till 9pm, when john calls it quits because he can hear the tv I’ve been watching for last 2 hours.

Saturday 7^th sees us stay at home for a leisurely day waiting for Cats to lose to Freo, and then Port beats Collingwood so Tony is over the moon and J is nearly desolate, but at least he gets another chance. Next Friday should be interesting? with the sms’s flying between the two of them. Tony A wins the election which hopefully means that the country will get back onto its feet but you never can tell – they are all as bad as each other sometimes.

Heading out on Sunday morning we come across a mustering party with a dozen kids on their ponies helping push a mob of cattle down the road and then it is a long drive through a mix of savannah country and plain rocky ridges to Burke & Wills roadhouse at the junction of road to Burketown. We fill up, eat a hamburger and continue on to the Curry.

9/9 and our first stop is the Mary Kathleen museum which is quite good and has a rail ambulance – which was a car converted to run on train tracks, and some interesting pieces of machinery. The John Flynn Museum is wonderful and a great tribute to the man and his successors. It tells the story of the start of AIM and FDS, and subsequently the start of School of Air. We spent several hours there reading the info boards, and watching short films and had a chat to the woman in charge when we bought some books for kids Christmas presents. After lunch we go driving and find the original Qantas hangar which is still in use, and view The Curry from the lookout. It took some finding as there were no signposts and we ended up at Chinamans dam first. This is curry’s water supply and is getting very low. We saw a lone sacred ibis wading near the bank which was exciting.

Heading to the Isa I am amazed at the rocky ranges that go on forever. It is stunning when we saw some grass and a few cows but mostly it is just plain rocky. Can’t imagine how Aunty Veti must have felt arriving here in 1964. I have thought about her a lot and can’t remember her commenting in her letters about how she got on here on her own. This was when Uncle Viv really hit the booze so life can’t have been great. After lunch we head out to try to find the underground hospital and tent house. The sign pointed to right so we headed in that direction and ended up at Lake Moondara – Isa’s water supply – it has more water than Chinamans dam but is still very low. This dam was built by MIM and supplies water to the mine as well as the town.

From the lookout you get a good idea of how the mine is the most important thing here. The chimney stack built in 1977 is 22m wide at base and 2m at the top 270 up, and visible from everywhere around town. Finding the info centre we get a map and find the hospital, so we have directions for tomorrow. Heading home we turn the air con on to try to cool down the van – it is 37* and heading for 38* tomorrow.

Wed 11^th and 12 years since world trade centre bombings, sees us on a guided tour of underground hospital which was very good. After Darwin was bombed the local Doctor decided Mt Isa would be a target b ecause of chimney stack so he convinced MIM to help build an underground hospital. They supplied the gidgee supports and Oregon roof linings and the locals dug out the tunnels in an ‘E’ shape, over 3 months. The southern tunnel was for women. At the end of it was the birthing centre and cupboards.

Middle tunnel was male ward and northern one was for children, with the operating table in front of it. The cupboards and shelves were kerosene tins and gelignite crates! It was never used as a hospital, but the nurses on nightshift used to sleep in there as it was quite cool and could be dark with doors closed.

They also have a medical museum in old hospital next door with patients on verandahs. Those on western side would have been a bit hot during summer. The rotating bed and morgue trolley didn't look particularly welcoming!

 Next door is the last tent house which is in process of being restumped. MIM built hundreds of these houses for their workers – on stumps with canvas over wooden frames and corrugated iron around the bottom 3 – 4 feet to keep out the dust. Then they built a roof over the top which lets the breeze through. Quite ingenious really!

Then it was off to the Outback at Isa which was rather disappointing. Bit of a museum with a long climb up to a movie theatre but you couldn’t go through the door to Art gallery 3 inches away, had to walk downstairs and up again 3 feet away. Not much on offer for lunch – seem  to be catering for morning or afternoon teas – and then we had to pay another $10 to go to Riversleigh Fossil centre. The girl who took our money at start didn’t mention that we needed both. Anyway the fossil display wasn’t much – couldn’t find half the animals, and the fossils in rocks could have been anything really. Heading down to Rodeo drive which is supposed to have the winners of Mt Isa Rodeo in pavement was another disappointment – couldn’t find any and on one side of road is Toyota car yard and other side has discount stores and chemist – not a café or anything interesting in sight. Walked around the block so J could find a newsagent and buy his phantom comics? But there was nothing exciting so we headed home to pack up to leave tomorrow.

Hope Winton is more exciting.  

12^th Just outside Mt Isa is an aboriginal memorial to Dr David Harvey-Sutton a doctor here for many years before becoming an Anglican priest. We read about him at the Underground hospital museum – the aboriginals must have liked him too – pity they had to deface the monument with bullet holes.

We really wanted to stop at the Walkabout Creek Hotel made famous by Crocodile Dundee so planned to have lunch there. Number one mistake the publican doesn’t do meals – doesn’t do much - he was so offhand and couldn’t have cared less whether we wanted a drink or not. Finally got a cold drink and walked around looking at the bits and pieces on the walls and went over to roadhouse to get a burger for lunch. At least they were interested. In the time we were in McKinlay there were 5 caravans pulled up at the pub all doing what we did. You wonder why someone with so much personality would buy such a famous hotel. With a little bit of effort he could have had a really good business. McKinlay also has the smallest library – don’t know how many books it holds but it wouldn’t take too long to read them all.

We didn’t stop at the Blue Heeler Hotel in Kynuna so I don’t know if Tania Hindmarsh’s parents still own it. Banjo had a few drinks there as did the squatter and swagman as the Combo waterhole of Waltzing Matilda fame is about 16 klm away. Being 38* and in midst of drought and towing the van we didn’t go into it, but continued on to Winton, the dinosaur capital. As we are staying at the caravan park belonging to Tatts hotel we wandered over there for dinner, where I had a very nice garlic prawns and salad and a very upset belly next morning. Now I am thinking that maybe it is garlic that has been upsetting me of late.

Lark Quarry is 110klm south along a dusty road and is well worth a visit. They have uncovered the footprints from a dinosaur stampede 95 million years ago and they are now enclosed in a mud earth building with iron roof. Evidently 150 little dinosaurs (size of chooks) and 20 the size of humans, were drinking at the edge of lake when a monster came down and caught one. The 3300 footprints left when all the others fled to get away are what is left today.

The guide was very knowledgeable and they have quite a few fossilized leaves and wood on display. Afterwards we went for a quick walk around the edge of quarry, had our picnic lunch and headed off for ‘Old Cork Station’ and then we were going to Lilyvale Hills and Cawnpore lookout and home via Middleton Hotel, (built 1876) and now it is the only thing left in the town and is one of most isolated hotels in Qld.

However as with all good plans we couldn’t find Old Cork ruins and nearly ended up at Brunett Downs, so after 3 hours lost we came back to town along the Diamantina river road. Fortunately Geelong didn’t start playing till 7.45pm as we made it home at 7.15pm. You can see a life sized diorama of the stampede at Corfield & Fitzmaurice building in town, which also has a mining display, museum and craft shop.

Winton is of course famous as the birthplace of Qantas and you can see the first runway in town near the musical fence. They have strung up a wire fence so that standing in an acoustic shelter it will play music for you. They also have other musical? instruments for you to play on and a drum of steel and poly pipes of varying lengths to play with.  The North Gregory Hotel is where Christina MacPherson (visiting relies from Melbourne) played the music for Banjo’s Waltzing Matilda song in 1895. The hotel has burnt down 4 times and the current red brick building was built by the council in 1940’s. Can you imagine a council levying everyone in shire including other hotel owners so they could build another hotel? However they have a Qantilda museum which is very good, with lots on displays and info on the area as well as a life sized drama from the swaggies perspective of the drama at combo waterhole. They also have a very good art gallery, and a decent café for meals.

We have a wander through the Royal open air theatre and check out the old movie placards and projectors along with the largest deck chair – pity the canvas seating was torn.

 Check out an opal shop where we get Narelle and Shannon’s Christmas presents before heading to Arno’s wall – a 2m x 70m concrete wall full of junk – kitchen sink and several motorbikes were just 3 of the bits and pieces stuck in it.

The wall of supermarket was also in keeping with the heritage of area. Opalton where the boulder opal is mined is 100klm to the south.

 Sunday saw us outside a church all by ourselves so we decide to head out to Bladensberg Nat Park. The camping ground at Bough Shed waterhole was very dusty but could be very nice so we gave it a big tick to come back to.

Fortunately Nat Parks have kept the old homestead and outbuildings and they are open for you to look through. The kitchen was in a large tin shed about 30 feet from rest of house which probably stopped any fire from spreading but food would have got a bit damp in wet weather. The original chook pens are still there but the chooks were a bit stiff! And you had to take your shoes off when you went to see the station bookkeeper!!!

 When they couldn’t dig a hole to put in a fence post they just put a hollow in log and stood the post in it.

Then it was off over mistake creek past the octopus tree to Scrammy’s gorge and the evidence of drought was very marked with the cracks in ground. A scrammy is the name for a loner who would live away from everyone – usually as shepherd at outstation.

After going over mistake creek near a water hole, we get to see the vast Mitchell grass plains at Scrammys lookout. This country is so flat, you could almost see from here to Lake Eyre. Scrammys waterhole had a puddle of brown water in it for the red kangaroos and birds to drink – glad I didn’t have to.  

The info centre has a sign saying that church is at 6pm so we decide to go and when everyone turns round to look at us I see Robin Riley from Bush Connection. She had just arrived by bus to spend the week with her 87 year old sister Rosie. We get to catch up with a bit of ‘gossip’ after the service and learn that John Anderson is not well.

Monday is a short drive to Longreach, where we set up camp for the week, before heading out to Stockman’s Hall of Fame and we are very disappointed. It has changed dramatically from 1989 when I was here last and was so sterile and plastic. The hawkers wagon and cottage were still there but everything else was computer generated or behind glass.

The ‘Women of West’ quilt was rather nice as was the ‘mechanical’ horse and I had a turn at sitting in a replica RFDS plane.

The reply to Banjo’s ‘Vision Splendid’ line was very appropriate. The swallows building their nests on outside of building sort of said it all. We had been told that the show was pathetic – 1 horseman rode out, cracked his whip a few times and that was it – and that lunch was a premade hamburger or nothing, so we skipped it.

Outback Aussie Tours have a Legends Package which we buy because it was good value, so on Wednesday we join the bus tour of Strathmore station. Marie joins us at the front gate and tells us the story of the property since her father settled there 67 years ago. They breed Santa cattle and have merino wethers in 19 – 20 micron range. It was quite interesting listening to her pointing out the gidgee and mimosa trees and 4 different types of Mitchell grass along with cup & saucer watering systems.

After an hour driving around paddocks we head to the homestead for lunch and a look around. J finds the oldest non rusty diamond T water truck he has ever seen, and I find an unusual bull on top of pole.

We have a scan afternoon (senior citizens afternoon nap) before being collected again for our Drovers sunset river cruise, which is a cruise up the Thomson river and a view of sunset over the water. Alas the captain was a bit late and the sun had set by the time we got to the sunset viewing spot, but it was still pretty good.

Longreach was named for the long (14klm) reach of the Thomson river here. It is 24 feet deep in the town area – don’t know if that was today or when the river is full but there were a few pelicans and 6 or more dead ones along the bank. Back on land we have a lovely meal – I have barramundi and baked vegies followed by a brownie and icecream and J has Mitchell grass fed mutton stew followed by pavlova. Then Grant & Mike entertained us around the campfire with songs and poetry etc for 2 hours. It was very enjoyable and everyone at our table went home happy.

When I came here in 1989 the Qantas museum was a few planes in the old hangar, but now it is a lovely big airconditioned building next door, and it is very well done. They have lots of bits and pieces from old days, along with the computer generated stories etc, but what you first notice is the replicas of first 5 planes that Qantas operated are ‘flying’ around the ceiling. The uniforms bought back memories and the quilt was very well done.

They have the story of Fysh and McGuinness from their meeting during WW1 to getting the planes off the ground and the early life of Qantas before it moved headquarters to Brisbane – really fascinating and very well done. Outside in the original hangar are more restored planes along with the story of their building planes in Longreach and the frame of one – all in wood, along with the base of a beacon used to light up the way during the 1919 London – Sydney air race. They decided that the airmen could do a night flight between Cloncurry and Longreach b ecause it is so flat. Hey just needed a beacon every 100 klms to show the way. The one from Moscow station survives to this day. Moscow station was owned by Fergus McMaster one of the first shareholders and company chairman for many years.

 Outside are the first Qantas Empire Airways plane, a 707, 747 and a catalina flying boat used during WW2. You can go for a tour of 747 and a walk on the wing for an extra $55 but with my ankle the way it is I didn’t take the chance.

While we were standing looking at the 747, a RFDS plane started its’ engine, taxied out and within 3 minutes was flying overhead. They certainly didn’t muck about.

Friday saw us checking out the town centre, which must have been set out for camel teams to turn around in. After exploring Kinnon and Co’s store we wander down the back for lunch and find we have just missed the Harry Redford tent show. Oh well something else for next time (we missed the tour of school of air and powerhouse museum as well). The Outback pics had some wonderful photos and a book which gave me a few ideas for our next one. As it was rather hot we decided to buy some afternoon tea and head out to Captain Starlights lookout. Alas our navigation system was on the blink again and we couldn’t find it but stopped beside the Thomson river halfway to Muttaburra for our blueberry scroll. The river didn’t have much water in it! and the countryside was very dry.

We have a stressful night watching Geelong fade away during last quarter and lose their chance to play in Grand Final next weekend. Tony will be happy! As we haven’t done many klms this week Saturday saw us head south across the vast Mitchell grass plains to Stonehenge and what a lovely little town it is. They have a new Community Centre with lovely gardens in the front. At the rear is the old school which they are restoring and the old lock up. The local lads were playing cricket and there was a very good turn out of spectators to cheer them on. The caravan park has new showers and toilets and is $15.00 week for a powered site and $2 to use washing machine. We will stop here on our way to Birdsville.

                100klms of good dirt road brings us to Isisford. Chatting along the way about whether I still wanted to do the Gunbarrel highway, as I don't want to do the Creb track, I commented on the fact that gunbarrel is probably as flat as this road to which he replied that the road we were on was same as Hume Highway!!! Shortly we met up with some oncoming traffic - you would be soooo likely to see these on Hume. First Herefords we've seen for months.

                                                   Passing the road to Flora Glen station I loved their sign post.

                Dan used to talk about Isisford as it was where he first started working on Portland Downs, so I knew about the big round shearing shed on Isis station, but did not know about Isisfordia Duncanii – the ancestor of crocodiles. He was discovered near here in 1975 and was only 1 meter long – a mere dwaft when compared to his descendants living some 98 million years later.

                It is all on display at the Outer Barcoo Interpretive centre along with a large fish fossil also found in the area. This centre is only small but has a lovely café and craft shop and is well worth a visit. The town has a museum and has also opened up their old bakery and a milkbar/café for you to walk through and see what life was like in old days (read when we were young).

               The Community hall and Clancy of Overflow hotel were also well looked after. We had our picnic lunch down by the Barcoo river which had some very muddy water in it and a few campers along the banks. Along the 100klms of single lane bitumen back to Ilfracombe we pass 1 vehicle. On the 155klms to Stonehenge we must have passed 2 semis, 6 utes and overtook 3 4WD’s towing caravans.

                Sunday is a rest day after church, which was well attended for morning prayer. They don’t have a priest and the Bishop comes out from Rocky every 2 months to take Holy Communion service. Isn’t it amazing that Winton has a priest but Longreach doesn’t. Over morning tea J learns that the painting of a boxer hanging in the church is of an early priest who used to take all the boys out back after church and teach them to box. While I have been blogging J has been setting up his new toy – a remote to record tv programs – I didn’t know there was anything worth watching. 

              23/9 sees us heading east to Ilfracombe where they have several museums; 1 is an old house which details some of the history of Wellshot station – once the largest sheep station in Aust. Another is an old house that had been transported around the country on the back of a dray and eventually ended up here and is still in the same spot and a very basic tin hut which the family raised 11 children in – didn’t seem big enough for 11 people to stand up in let along sleep lying down! They have a machinery mile with old machinery lining the road for about a kilo. There is also an extensive bottle collection with photos of Melbourne cup winners on the labels which I have never seen before.

Barcaldine was always going to be tricky for us nonlabour supporters but you have to go and have a look. There were some interesting stories about hard workers who gave of themselves for others but the main thrust of the Workers Heritage Centre is unions and unionism with a smattering of Chiffley and Curtin and labour Prime Ministers thrown in. We still managed to spend a good 2  hours wandering around the complex which contains 8-10 old buildings and lovely landscaped grounds complete with duck pond and a clone of old tree of knowledge now known as the ‘young un’. It is wonderful that the DPI have been able to get another gum tree clone growing. Then it was off to the ‘old tree of knowledge’ which has been cut back to basic trunk and had these pine poles cut off at 45* and hung from roof to symbolise leaves and branches – it is quite interesting and the more I think about it the more I like the symbolism. Barky is a reasonable sized town (guess about 3,000 people) with 4 or 5 pubs and lots of old Qld’er style homes.

From here it is a short drive through some very dry country to Blackall, which we liked more. Blackall was the first place in Qld  to have an artesian bore, so the residents have hot water on tap as it comes out of the ground at 60*. It takes a while to get your head around the notices on shower block walls telling you to turn on the hot water first then add cold water. Why don’t they just change over the taps? The Astro station was established here in 1887 and used by surveyors mapping Qld. To mark the spot where they set up their theodolites they have placed a petrified wood stump, which seems quite appropriate. This is where the term ‘beyond the black stump’ comes from. 

They artists have really come to the fore here with lots of murals and sculptures around town.

Driving around looking at them we come across the Masonic Hall which is still in the same condition as when it was built in 1908 and lots of old houses on stumps with wide verandas. If it wasn’t so far away I could live here.

Back at caravan a local comes for a chat and we learn that he comes around town twice a day to give the pony some exercise.

On our visit to the Woolscour we get talking to our guide who turns out to be Leonie Lee Archer’s cousin Meg Irvine. She is also a cousin of Lionel Moore so it is getting to be a smaller world every day. The woolscour building is one of the largest timber framed buildings of its type and the hoop pine frame is tenon and morticed and completely nail free. Meg gave us a very informative tour of the last fully intact steam powered plant in the country, which worked till 1978 and now works during the winter months to show tourists how it operated. The only free flowing artesian bore flows near the entrance and wasn’t as pressurised as I thought it would be. The water flows down a drain through the sheep yards and down to a creek at the rear of property. At one stage they had a 100 stand shearing shed here and as it took 2 days to wash the wool from 1 days shearing they have a huge floor upstairs to store all the wool bales. It was fascinating to wash the rakes working along the trough to wash the wool and then it is conveyed into rather large driers. Outside they have shearers’ quarters etc and some of the loveliest bottle trees. It was rather hot so we grabbed our swimmers and headed to the aquatic centre for a late afternoon dip in the warm artesian water – but still rather refreshing and well patronised.

                We couldn’t visit Blackall without seeing something of Jackie Howe – the shearer who shore 321 lambs with blades in 7 hours and 40 minutes on a Monday at nearby Alice Downs station in 1892. He also shore 237 sheep by machine later that year at Barcaldine Station. His granddaughter has redeveloped the Universal Hotel into a Gallery and Garden centre to honour him and it is full of memorabilia. After he stopped shearing he ran a few pubs in town before buying a sheep station nearby so there were lots of photos of him outside various hotels with Premier Ryan whom he helped get elected to both state and federal parliaments. His wife Victoria didn’t like the limelight so has had her photograph taken in only 1 family photograph. Heading south we encounter major roadworks, but fortunately the roads are so wide that they have graded the track beside the road so kept everyone moving at 60kph. We had to stop at Tambo Teddies and were very disappointed. There were a few bears on display but not all and they were Very Expensive. You couldn’t buy one for a child to play with they would have to be put in a cabinet for displaying. The stockman and cowgirls were very cute in their dry-as-a-bones with whips and swags. There were 2 women sitting sewing but not interested in talking to us or selling us anything so we left. Stopping at a picnic area in Augathella for lunch we watched a dad emu with 4 small chicks wander along the street pecking at any grass they could find. They weren’t the least concerned about us. A couple of roos weren’t quite so sure and hopped off in a different direction when they became aware of our presence. After our icecream stop in Morven we brave the roadworks with no side tracks and give up in Mungalalla. The pub is run by an older couple with absolutely no personality or customer service skills. They had twin German backpackers behind the bar who were trying hard. One took our meal order and asked if J wanted veggies, mash, etc and then the old man came storming out screaming that this meal isn’t on the menu what do you want! When he finishes cooking it, the meals are put onto a table and nobody told us. We were sitting at the bar 10 feet away talking to the girls and a local. The girls were leaving the next day to move to a station 20 minutes away to look after 2 kids for 3 weeks while their parents went to the races! Being right on the Warrego highway it was a very noisy night so I was very glad to hit the road and head into Roma where Ros was waiting for us.

It was lovely to see her again and catch up on her family happenings. While we were there Mark secured a job which was great. I didn’t think much of her boarder or his ideas for ?renovating “Auburn” but it takes all types. On Ros’ advice we checked out a very good display in the Art Gallery. They had invited 40 local women to contribute a piece on ‘  ‘. The imagination and ingenuity of these ladies was incredible, even those who profess to being unable to paint put together pictures using cut outs and applique. In the entrance hall they had a display of paintings from the local kindy which were also quite good. Then it was off to the Big Rig to learn some more about the coal and gas industry from its’ earliest in this area. Some of the old trucks and drilling rigs were amazing. Walking around the garden in 38* heat wasn’t fun but there were lots of lovely bush plants wanting a big drink. This area is also very dry.

In the cool of airconditioned Council Chambers we watched an interactive video of life in and around Roma from then till now – it is a 3D mural which lights up various parts when the commentary gets onto the relevant subject. It was very well done. 

Then it was back into the heat to go and find Jane and as luck would have it Andrew was home and jumping on the trampoline with Matthew, so we met Darcy Leslie, and spent a lovely 2 hours talking to them. Everything seemed to be going ok at Eurumbah as they had all been out together buying bulls. Got Sandy’s phone number off Andrew as we hoped to see her in Surat on our way through, but she wasn’t answering and didn’t return my call. Beth would love Darcy - he is so cute.

 We had a leisurely day on Friday with J cleaning the pool, while Ros was playing bridge. Saturday saw us on a guided tour of Roma, with lots of lovely old houses on large treed blocks, and all the new brick houses on handkerchief blocks with colourbond fences everywhere – looked awful. Chatting to Ros about moving to Highfields, J decides he will paint the bathroom ceiling to save her $600. So while he tackled washing it, I washed down the walls and ceiling in laundry and Ros did back toilet. Talk about a working bee, but it all looked good afterwards. With one coat of paint on by dinnertime we were on track. To thank Ros for her wonderful hospitality we go out to dinner at the Overlander motel restaurant and have a lovely evening. We are met at the door by a young girl maybe 10, who greets us very nicely and shows us to our table. She takes our drinks order and her sister (12) delivers it very efficiently, and takes our meal order. We have only ordered a main so we can have desert later but mum comes along and tells us about the chefs’ cob loaf with cheese and ham cooked in it so we order that too. Then the kitchen delivers mums dozen oysters for dinner and she shares them with us to taste the tabasco, wine and mango topping – so of course we order a dozen to share and they are very yummy! Our mains arrive and they are excellent too and the service from the girls and their older sister was impeccable – a real credit to their mum for her training. Whilst letting our meal settle the younger girl played the pianola and sang aa few songs, it really set the evening off. Of course older sister came around with dessert menu and raved about the chocolate mousse cheesecake being absolutely divine when she licked the bowl earlier so we had that and the berry parfait that I liked the thought of. It was a really great night – we will make a point of going there when next in Roma.

Going to Beth’s church on Sunday morning was a bit heart wrenching but I made it. St Paul’s is a lovely old church and the stained glass windows are a sight to behold. I remember Beth going off about the amount of money Gary Harch spent getting them all restored and releaded, but it was money well spent.

The 4 girls from the restaurant were also at church and said hello, which really made us feel good. We headed home to put another coat of paint on the ceiling when Daphne rang to invite us to afternoon tea, which was lovely. She has a tree in her back yard which had the most wonderful deep red flowers on it, so I took some seeds to plant at Mother’s. Ros’ partner for Meals on wheels was busy caring for grandkids so we volunteered to help out and it was good. Saw more of Roma and J chattered to some of the elderly while taking their meals inside. Over lunch Ros tells us about Daphne’s door handle troubles, so we decide to go around and fix it for her. A brown snake comes in under the roller door of garage and can get in through the internal door when it isn’t shut and has met Daphne coming up hall to her bedroom. It seems to be very tricky as J spends nearly half an hour putting it together and taking it apart again. Eventually he says is there some reason why I would have 2 screws left over – oh yes pipes up Daphne they are Ros’. She brought them down to try to fix the lock. J looked daggers at everyone but we all laughed.

It was rather sad on Tuesday when we bid Ros goodbye and wished we could help her move house but goodness knows when she will be able to sell up.

 To avoid the Warrego roadworks we went through Condamine and Kogan to Warra where we had arranged to meet up with Doug Redding. It was a pleasant drive through the countryside with the obligatory roadworks but couldn’t find a butcher shop to buy another steak for dinner. Fortunately Doug & his housemate Rachel had some for us so after sitting outside enjoying the cool evening air and watching the lightening in the distance we had to adjourn inside for our steak sandwich as the rain came down. We made a mess of their driveway getting out next morning as the black soil was very wet. It was great to see Doug again and have a few laughs – we will have to call in again. After the required toilet break in Cecil Plains we took the back road to Millmerran and were at Beris’s before lunch. Had a lovely day with her – even picked some mulberries for my mulberry tart for dessert. The poor mulberry tree is getting a big lean in its old age – don’t know how much longer it will be providing us with those lovely juicy berries.

Frosty was home when we arrived so we started the week long catch up with him and Tracey and the boys. Thomas is in a leg brace as he broke it falling off his motorbike. Our visit to David has me going for an echocardiogram to see what the heart murmur is all about but everything turns out ok. As my blood pressure hasn’t gone down he changes my pills and also gives me something for the diorhea. John has a blood test for diabetes and we both get the thumbs up next Friday when we go in for the results. Our visit to the Bull and Barley is very disappointing as this is the first time I have ever had a dud meal. The pasta wasn’t cooked enough and the sauce didn’t have half the ingredients it said on the menu which made it very bland. Catching up with Bill & Jan is always great fun and we had a long chat to them about our travels.

Sunday sees us heading to Pittsworth for St Andrew’s centenary celebrations and there was a full house in attendance. Fred Ailwood delivered the sermon and lost the plot, but it all went off well. They have removed the pulpit and Ian Kronk used it and some pews from Mt Tyson, Tummerville and Yarranlea churches to make a cabinet to store their memorabilia. It looked very well made. MaryAnn came down with Beris so we all went to the brick for a cold drink and hear about her travels. She is a scream and you always look forward to seeing her again. We had lunch there and then called on Wilma and Lindsay to say we would be at the Lions meeting on Tuesday night and spent a pleasant few hours chatting to them. After being conned into giving another speil on our travels J spent 6 hours on Monday putting together a 10 minute slide show!! But they seemed to enjoy it and as the Lions convention is on in Toowoomba next weekend we volunteered to help Brian with a barbeque breakfast for the fun run at Historical village next Sunday. (Won’t be going to church at St Matthews this time either) Catching up with Ivan and Jean we learn that Ivan (88) has fallen off the ladder while fixing the flyscreens on their high garage out the back and has a few deep gashes to his arms and hand, but it didn’t stop him showing off his hanging baskets. They are a lovely couple and it is always a pleasure to talk to them.

We also have lunch with Tom & Wendy and chat to them about church matters and our respective travels. Ray has resigned as rector and is going to Anglicare, which might be good for him as he doesn’t seem to have won too many friends as rector. Tom was rather upset that the parish is once again in debt, after he left parish council they had $46,000 in the bank. Don’t know what happened but Graham and Jenny haven’t been to church for 3 months. Norman Fry as church warden wants to close down St Pauls’ and St Peters churches as they don’t have toilets, electricity, ramps etc which HO now deem necessary. Janice Williams even tried to rope Pam into Rent a crowd to get the numbers up at church. (Didn’t work so the building is still standing) Having morning tea and lunch with John and Laura and Pam was good fun. Really makes you miss being involved with your community, but hopefully they will all still be around when we finish travelling and can rejoin the Bush Connection. We had been chatting to Bluey and Joy over the fence about our travels so when they came over to check out the van we ended having a few drinks on their front verandah and convinced them to give it a go. They are now frantically finishing off their renovations so they can put the house on market and get on the road. They have really wowed up their Qld’r by opening up the kitchen, dining and lounge rooms and making it seem big and airy. We swapped phone and email addresses and hope to catch up somewhere in the wide blue yonder.

Wednesday sees us in Brisbane for a visit with Janis and then we go out to Gumdale to meet Beppe and get the info on her house in St Helens that is nearly finished. She wants us to come and go from there so people think that there is someone living there, and hopefully won’t break in or vandalise the place.We received another email from Meg regarding the gym equipment – seems incredible that you can get 20 emails about 2 pieces of equipment that you gave away 2 years earlier. She will get a direct, to the point email sent to her solicitor when I am in a bad mood next. Have replied to a very bitchy sms from Nicole with the same amount of venom. She has been up to old tricks of not paying the rent and it is supposedly our fault. Craig and Megan are the opposite and showed us the gas box that Don had to replace. They also commented that the tv antenna was falling apart and they can’t get channels 7, 9 and 10 on some days. We commented about this to Ivan who had just had a guy out to fix his antenna and his daughter Ros’ at Westbrook had also used him and found him very good. So we rang him and got a new digital antenna and cabling to 2 rooms for $300 which i thought was very reasonable. We had a big Saturday night barbeque with Paul & Joy, and Danni and Michael joining us, then it was off to Pittsworth to cook up some bacon & egg and sausage & egg sandwiches for the runners. I had read in the Sentinel that someone in Bowden street had won a prize in garden competition so just in case it was at ‘Four Winds’ we drove up there. Alas it was a house next to Rankine’s and not ours so I didn’t get to wander around the back yard and see if my cubby and old swing were still there.

At the Fine food and craft spectacular we found some Christmas presents and had a chat to Shirley over lunch. She is going well but David has been in hospital and I think the relationship is wearing thin, which is sad. We arrange to meet up with George and Pam Postle at 3pm at the brick and go off to fill in time. There were some exquisite quilts in the School of Arts and some very good paintings at the Art Gallery before we ventured over the road to Masonic Hall where we met up with Bob Holzberger and the gent that Beth had been talking to (Colin Lee?) about Annie Scott. They chattered away to J about joining a lodge and he came away with a bag of info for a change. Then we went up to new Uniting church to see their Angel theme displays. It was thought provoking and well done. At St Andrew’s they were dismantling all the floral arrangements and cleaning up but we were able to have a chat to Pearl who finally remembered who I was. Then it was off to the cemetery and while J was cleaning the dust of Dad’s headstone I was attacked by a magpie. Can you believe it? After holding up a branch of a tree he left me alone but really! While we were at the School of Arts I noticed that Grand Villa had changed shape so we drove around and parked out the front to check it all out. They have replaced the verandah floor and sanded the wrought iron and repainted the roof so it all looked very nice. I still couldn’t figure out what had happened to back of house so we drove around Forest street to have a look at back view. The owner came down to back fence so I explained what we were doing and she invited us in for a look. Her husband, the vet, was also home so he chatted away about what was where and what I remembered. They were very interested in when the trees were planted too. They have extended the kitchen out to include an eating area and it looks great. When they pulled up the carpet they found some newspapers from 1937 and have framed the front pages and hung them on the wall which looked great. They have also taken part of Barb’s room and made a walk in robe and ensuite, which made my room bigger. She hasn’t decided what to do with the sewing room but the bathroom has been transformed and that dreadful pink colour has gone completely. They moved the laundry next to the bathroom and put a big deck along the back of house which helped to let in more light. It all looked really good, and I’ll look forward to seeing what they come up with for the garden. We had a chat to George and Pam and some friends about house sitting and farm sitting and looked over their new home and its gardens – very impressive. After wishing them well in their travels and retirement we headed back to Cambooya for a farewell dinner.

 Then it was a move to Laidley where we had arranged to help Bill & Yvonne build a garden shed. When we got there and saw the size of slab we knew we were in for trouble – it was huge! When measuring up bits and pieces on Tuesday we discovered that the slab was shorter than beams and 4 inches different in width from back to front, so there were a few phone calls to and from Tasmania. Stratco’s solution to sending out the wrong dimensions was to offer to sell them the goods needed to fix the problems at cost price!! I know what I would have done. But we persevered and dug out new front footings and filled up bottomless plastic buckets with rapid set and carried on. Nothing seemed to be the correct size or shape – nearly everything had to be cut to fit – it was a never ending nightmare. Of course it rained Thursday and Friday so we lost time there and we went off to Brisbane on Sunday to spend the day with Barb & Shannon and the boys as it was Liam’s birthday party. He was a bit shy but I guess they don’t get to skype very often so we were strangers. They have fun with Kevin (the peacock) who comes around displaying his tail at them. I wonder if he is a descendent of Pretty Boy that Mother used to feed. She was also in good spirits this morning when we visited and had a long conversation but I didn’t understand any of it. J fixed up the hole where cat door used to be so the boys couldn’t crawl out and nailed a tread onto the back stairs. The place is well cared for even if the garden has almost completely gone but I guess Shannon will get around to doing whatever she wants oneday. We had a long chat to them all and it was wonderful to just be with them, but it all comes to an end and we say goodbye not knowing when we will see them again. Maybe 21^st August next year, maybe earlier, maybe later – but that is at least 10 months away.

We had planned to be in Sydney for Lilly’s birthday party next Sunday but with the shed nowhere near completion we decide to leave the van and just drive down and stay with Pete & Lindy. Alas they are in WA on holidays so we gratefully accept accommodation from Kelly & Tim and head south. We don’t leave Laidley till 1pm on Wednesday so our first stop is Glen Innes where we stop at the new Tattersalls Hotel Motel. It is quite good for $85 night and we speak to the chef while booking in, so head to their Bistro for dinner and have a lovely meal. J has a beef and guiness casserole and I have Lamb cutlets!!! since we are in prime lamb territory and they were delicious. Our drive through Deepwater was entertained with their scarecrows all dolled up for a competition at end November. 

Our leisurely drive next morning sees us taking the detour down main street of Guyra – it is a lot bigger than I thought (Maybe 2000 people), and then we detoured into Armidale to get fuel. One trip we will have to stop here for a few days and have a proper look around. Our next stop was at the Big Golden Guitar in Tamworth which had some fantastic wax models of our country music stars and info boards on the golden guitar winners. Also well worth a visit. Out the back they have a Bradman museum with hundreds of cricket bats proported to have been used by Don Bradman. Some of them were signed by members of his teams and the opposition. They also had hundreds of prints of him in various poses for sale – someone has spent a lot of time gathering this collection. In the souvenir shop we buy some tea towels for J’s siblings for Christmas. They have a couple driving along with their caravan and chatting about how good life is on the road and the guy in semi behind them is pulling his hair out. Hope they appreciate the pun. 

 Of course we hit the traffic at Muswellbrook and crawl along to Cessnock where we decide to spend the night. Our motel had a pub next door so we went there for dinner. It was very busy – waited 70 minutes for our main course. I ordered duck Maryland with mushroom and red wine infused rice. The duck was divine but the rice had lots of white in it and no mushrooms to be seen which made it bland which was a pity because the duck was melt in mouth stuff. We played the new Keno while waiting and to my reckoning we should have won $5 but came away with $20 and had an extra 5 games thrown in for free. David says the pub has to foot the bill when till is out so they will go broke fast.

Friday 25^th has us entering Sydney along Pennant Hills road as our Putty road has been cut with the bushfires. We did see where the fires had cut motorway earlier in the week. We had arranged to have lunch with Vic & Heather and arrived to find Peter, Faith, William and Victoria were staying as they had been evacuated from Blue Mtns because of the fires. Of course Vic was grumbling but I think Heather enjoyed having them. William was a lovely little boy who evidently gets up to mischief with Thomas. All too soon it was time to leave and go and meet the kids from school.

We have a lovely time on the trampoline, swings and slippery slide and then it is time to go and make mudcakes in the cubby. The twins haven’t got the hang of keeping the sand for next time and it all seems to get tipped out so when there is no more left to play with it is time for a bath and dinner.

 As Tim has been away for several weeks, Zoe is having a sleepover so Kelly and Tim can have some time together. We feel like intruders walking in about 9.30pm but they are sitting up watching tv so we have a cup of tea and chat. Tim is lighting/floor manager for Cosentino the magician on tv, but has signed a contract not to reveal any secrets so we don’t get to learn how he does some of those tricks. John has promised Lilly he will learn some of the magic tricks we gave David last Christmas and show them all on Sunday. He does practise on Saturday while they are all at another 6^th birthday party and hopefully will be reasonable adept by Sunday night. As David is working Saturday night and Kelly and Narelle want to go to a friend’s 30^th birthday party Tim is babysitting, so we have all 4 kids for hot dogs and pandemonium. Why I promised Lilly she could come and get into bed with me the next morning and we will read a story book or three, I don’t know. We sat up till late playing cards with Tim and all too soon we had 3 kids in the bed with us – Jayden was a bit scared so he stood at the foot of bed and watched – probably the safest place.

Once the Jumping Castle was inflated all the kids moved into it and peace reigned for a few minutes. The party seemed to go off without a hitch – nothing much organised just jumping and playing on trampoline etc then sausage in a roll, birthday cake, lots of lollies and nearly everyone went home. Lilly forgot all about Poppy’s magic tricks when opening her presents found that someone had given her a pair of Barbie roller skates. Michelle’s glitter hearts also went everywhere. Nathan and Emily arrived later in the afternoon and we sat around chatting to them until I was frozen at 8.30pm and we went home to warm up.

Monday 28^th saw us head back up Pennant Hills Nightmare and out onto the coast road to meet up with Graham and Terri at South West Rocks. They took us for a drive out to Trial Bay Gaol and around the town and it seemed like a lovely place so has a big tick in our book. We will come back here for a longer stay. Graham is doing really well and not drinking very much alcohol at all. Terri has spent considerable time in hospital before being nursed back to health by Graham, but is looking good now and says she feels great.

 After a lovely dinner and long chat we head north up the Pacific Highway. It isn’t as bad as I though most

of it is double lane and the traffic wasn’t too heavy.

John has spoken about Vialla Beach as being a lovely spot and that we should think about retiring there as it is half way between Brisbane & Sydney, so we turn in and go for a look. How things can change over time – it is probably 12 years since they all had a holiday here and the caravan park is now full of permanents, the  town is built out and has no shops to speak of and looked horrid. We will not be retiring here - South West Rocks is a better bet. Very disappointed we go back to the highway and head north in the drizzle – why couldn’t they have this in the bushfire areas. We saw a big bushfire very close to road east of Buledelah which got under John’s nerves for a while, but went past fairly quickly. There were lots of areas burnt across the road which must have been dreadful for the firies to try to contain.To stretch the legs we stop off at Tropical Fruit world near Murwillumbah and buy some very interesting fruit and a bag of avocados and have a double decker fruit icecream. I have been trying to call Kevin and Joyce for the last week but they aren’t answering so we keep going north and arrive back at Laidley in time to have dinner at the hotel. Fortunately it isn’t as busy as the Plainland. Yvonne arrives back in Laidley on Friday, informing us that Deagon has had a heart attack and she had been in Tewantin all week looking after Lily and Piper. He is in his 30’s so it is a bit of a worry, especially with 2 very small girls (Lily is 3 and Piper 1). We soldier on and with lots of frustration and redoing bits the shed progresses. Gavin their neighbour jumps the fence and lifts the roller door up onto the bracket on Saturday afternoon so now it is just a case of fixing it in place and the fiddly bits with it and the door and the ridge capping and barge boards on the roof. Not much at all heh. Our friendly but shy bush turkey, wallabies and not so shy peacock have been keeping an eye on the happenings as if to say what are you doing to our patch!

Monday 4^th November 2013 will forever be remembered as the day we finished the shed. The barge boards were on and roller door finished by lunchtime so we went back to QN for lunch. Once again the chef excelled himself as my tempura prawn salad (15 of them) with garlic aioli was lovely. J’s blue steak was also cooked (or not cooked) to his liking. A quick visit to chemist and service station saw us refill and head home for a scan (senior citizens afternoon nap) before Bill & Yvonne headed back to Brisbane and we start packing up. Fancy leaving on Melbourne Cup day – don’t know where we will get to but we had better stop somewhere we can watch the race. Think we will go up Cunningham’s gap and out to Inglewood before heading over border at Texas and going on to Yetman before heading south again – but who knows.

Wed 6^th  We didn’t leave yesterday but had a rest day doing jobs, packing up and watching the cup and left today about 1pm. There are still roadworks on Cunningham’s gap but otherwise we had an uneventful trip through Inglewood and Texas where we crossed the border and headed for Warialda. Just after we left the Bruxner highway at Yetman we came across a big mob of cows and calves. The drover was a young pommie who didn’t like the job much. The cows had come from 100Klm east Goondiwindi and were just eating out the stock route while waiting for the sale the following Monday, so they hadn’t come far. It seemed to me that there were over 1000 head in the mob. The caravan park is very new and clean and only $24 night.

 On leaving the next morning we came across another big mob of yearling cattle droving along the road south of Warialda, but the drover? wasn’t interested in talking. We spent the night in bush near where we sat around talking to the couple next door till dark.

Friday 8^th and we made it into Mudgee and after checking in went for a drive and at our first winery, Burnbrae we had the ‘best’ wine J has ever tasted. I couldn’t argue with him so we bought our first cases. After sampling some lovely balsamic vinegars and olive oils which we bought Apple Balsamic dressing, Caramelised balsamic, Caramelised Cabernet (will be divine in gravy) Honey sesame soy, Lime and green chilli sauce, and a sweet chilli sauce from Blacklea, we went for a drive to Hills End. The Blacks son Nathan is a chef in Sydney who holds cooking classes at the winery every year. There is an Asian fusion class in February, Thai in June and French in October – would love to do any one but the Thai should be fantastic – maybe one day we can organise it. The hills didn’t end there but what a view. There are hills and valleys around every turn and you enter town through a tree lined street.

They have a lot of very old houses and a pub, and after filling up with fuel (why do we never have a full tank when I decide to go for a drive?) we found Merlin’s lookout which looks out over an old gold mining area. You can still see the entrances to many mine shafts through the bush. The trip home through Sofala and Ilford was equally breathtaking until we neared Mudgee when the wind and rain came down. It was a relief to get to the caravan and see that we still had an awning, but we rolled it up in case things got windier.

Saturday saw us checking out the wines at Robert Oatley which were awful. This is the place where Poet’s Corner wines were made so they have changed winemakers. Wild Oats 11 the Sydney – Hobart yacht racer must be owned by him as the café and all logos are of ‘wild oats’ with a little yacht between the words. We have lunch here – food quite good pity about the wine – definitely don’t recommend the chardy or sav blanc. At Bunnamagoo we taste some more very nice wines where the Sav Blanc, Chardy and yes another Reisling as well as the Merlot get big ticks; and then call into Elliot Rocke where they have some very nice Semi Sav Blanc, unwooded Chardy and shock of shocks a Traminer Riesling that I liked. They also do an Ice Sparkling Semillon which is nicer than most Champagnes I have tasted. It is a pity you can’t buy them in bottle shops, when you need a bottle of bubbles. John’s comments on the Merlot was that it is VERY smooth, but they have a nice shiraz on special so we come away with a 6 pack, some riesling. They tell us about a sparkling Merlot at Lowe, who also have some nice wines; and a sparkling shiraz that Walter Wines have. We bought 2 bottles of sparkling Merlot, but Walter was closed so didn’t get to try the shiraz. After all that wine and with lots of daylight left we go for a country drive to Leaning Oak Cheese and wine. It is obviously a new venture for them. The woman doing tastings was the shepherdess/milker as well, but very knowledgeable and informative and the feta cheeses were lovely. We came away with a lemon flavoured one and a basil feta as well as a very nice goat chevre cheese. The lemon one made it to Geelong where I put it in Sunday night’s salad and it was very well received. The goats, a llama and some sheep were in a yard next to dairy so we got to look at them as well as the very old house which would have been fascinating to see inside.

Sunday we stayed in bed watching the Kangaroos beat Ireland in Rugby League World cup instead of going to church and then went to High Valley Wine and Cheese for some tastings and lunch. Both were very yummy and we came away with a chilli feta and Colly blue cheese after sampling their Antipasto platter. They had a big assortment of flavours and textures and some lovely cheeses which went down very nicely with a bottle of Sav Blanc. Blue Wren wines were next on list and also got a big tick and we came away with a mixed dozen. Their sparkling Chardy would be on a par with yesterdays bubbly and the Sav Blanc was lovely, but the Verdelho White Port was absolutely divine with a slice of lime over ice. Of course a bottle of it came home with us. The reds have been demolished by the Calders in Geelong as they met with approval from Muzz, Cassie and June. My whites have also taken a hammering as June and Cassie liked them as well – but the white port is still under the bed. As Thumbprint and Short Sheep wineries were not open we head into town to have a look around and end up having afternoon tea in a lovely old café.

Gulgong is reported to be the home of Henry Lawson and they have a museum so we detour north on Monday and take a look around the $10 note town. Gulgong is the town on ten dollar note; and it has lots of very old buildings and very narrow streets and a museum full of Henry Lawson memorabilia and well worth a visit. They have photos, paintings, prints and newspaper cuttings relating to Henry and the parts of region that he refers to in his poems and stories. His mother Louisa was also famous and they have a lot of information on her life. The Prince of Wales Opera House is reported to be the largest bark structure every built and is still used today. It’s other famous performers were Nellie Melba and Les Darcy. They have a Henry Lawson Heritage Festival on June long weekend every which looks like it would be great – if they are having a heatwave, but I might just brave it one year. The Information Centre was built between 1885 and 1890 and was home to the local blacksmith’s family from 1892 to 1950; it is now owned by RSL and it retains its charm and historic value. We will have to come back this way and check out Kandos, Rylstone and some of the other old mining towns in the area. 

Passing through Wellington I get miserable think about Beth telling me what a lovely old town it was, so we keep going and stop in Manilla for lunch at a Greek Café. It has lots of old glass windows and doors and mirrors along the walls which gets us interested so the owner (since 1951) comes over and starts talking. His father started the shop in 1935 and he has only recently renovated it but kept most of the old worlde charm. After trying his olive paste and bottled olives we eventually get away with both and head south in the pouring rain through Yeoval and Cumnock to Molong. Couldn’t find the caravan park, even though there were sign posts, so had to keep going to Orange.

A few years ago they had a competition for the locals to erect statues along the roadsides with the theme of ‘Animals on Bikes’ between Molong and Cumnock and ‘Bugs on Bikes’ between Cumnock and Dubbo and there were some wonderful creations. I was fairly wet by the time we stopped to take photos at the ones we could and they probably all have raindrops on the lens but you get the idea.

/11 When we passed through Blayney on our way to Bathurst last April I thought how lovely it looked with all the autumn leaves so we decide to stay here for a few days and check it out. The caravan park we chose had some interesting characters lying around so that was a good sign?

 Our first esploration took us through Barry and Hobbys Yards to Neville and back onto the highway at Mandurama. The first 3 places are just areas with a few houses and Mandurama had a couple of hundred people. Then it was down to Lyndhurst which was a bit rundown, then the driver took a back road and we eventually ended up at Lake Wyangala, which looked very pretty from ontop of the hills and when full 2.5 times Sydney Harbour. There was a free camp at Darby’s Falls so we checked it out – nothing special – and then went into Cowra for afternoon tea. Cowra is a big town with lots of old buildings and signs around the streets telling you their history. Coming home we stop in Carcoar settled in 1820 and the sign says ‘The Town that time forgot’ and they’re right. It only has old buildings and tree lined streets and was wonderful. Alas it was very cloudy so my photos are too dark to do it justice – but it is well worth a visit.

Blayney from the lookout is quite big and we couldn’t work out what all the large buildings were (Purina was signed) but they obviously create employment with all the new houses. Purina – the place where Dusty’s food was made employs 220 people and there was a large container depot and the obligatory mine so that all helps. 

Our second stop today is at the Age of Fishes museum in Canowindra. Back in 1963 on the Canowindra to Gooloogong road they discovered thousands of fish fossils, one 360 million years old and from the time when we were still attached to Antarctica and had a large inland sea; and some have been put on display. The rest are still under the road waiting for the council to get enough money to reroute the road! They have lots of details on how old the different ones are and where else around the world you can find similar fish fossils. With a population just over 2000 Canowindra has an eclectic assortment of shops and eateries in old buildings and looked like a nice place to live or visit. 

Mt Canobolas and the nearby Lake were to be our next stop but someone drove straight past, then straight through Orange and missed the turn to Millthorpe – don’t know what was in his iced coffee at lunch but he seemed to be more than half asleep. We had been told to go to the Mill Inn for afternoon tea as it was something special but it was closed when we got there so at the moment I cannot recommend it. Millthorpe home to 700 people opens most of their shops and eateries etc on weekends to cater to the Sydneysiders on day trips, which is a pity as they had lots of very old buildings just waiting to be explored – oh well maybe next time.

Our next base was Crookwell to see what we could find out about the Fryers. Granny Gordon had told Aunty Thea that she was born and raised in Crookwell even though her birth certificate says it was registered at Albion Park. Nowadays that is a 2 hour drive but back in 1875 I guess it was a 3 day ride. Had an unsuccessful search on that account, though we did find that Ada's uncle Henry Wesley was appointed manager of Goulbourn branch of Coastal Farmers Co-operative Society in 1905. Another uncle, Humphrey was a C of E minister who did some time at Richmond, which is very close to where David lives in Sydney so next time we are there we will see what we can find out about him. While John was looking through more newspapers, I idly turned to a book which listed the convicts who arrived in Aust in 1835, and there under the Fryers was a William, with the correct birth date. Going through more microfishe we found one that listed the convicts who had applied to get married. I couldn't believe it when we found that William applied to marry Sarah Dunster and did so on 14th December 1842. So we have convict blood in us!! William was sent out here for 7 years for housebreaking - his records say he was a very good bricklayer. We will have to spend some time around Albion Park (just south of Sydney) and see what else we can dig up. David rings up late on Saturday night to see if we want to come back to Sydney and be his chauffeur for the next 10 weeks as he has snapped his archilles tendon playing netball and will be in plaster. If he really needs us we will try and transfer our ferry trip to mid January and just fly to Hobart for Christmas.


 Mother has also had a ‘turn’ and caused a bit of angxt before having a proper cup of tea (made by Barb) and making a recovery. Barb says her memory also came good for a few days but has now relapsed.

Crookwell was first established in 1820’s so has a few very old buildings and Lidner sock factory, where we watched them make woollen socks. The machine was fascinating to watch and after 6 are knitted, the machine spits them out with an unravelling thread to separate them into individual items and then they are overlocked across the toes and checked. It took 10 minutes from starting the machine to putting the pair on the shelf for sale. I came away with a lovely thick pair of pink & purple long socks to wear in Tassie, but have already worn them on 2 nights, and a pair of stripey ones for the Sydneysiders. I wasn’t sure if the Bne boys would wear woolly socks but we can always buy more when back this way. 

We checked out the War Memorial to see if Edward Fryer had gone to WW1 from Crookwell but his name didn’t appear anywhere.

 Crookwell has 2 gardens that open in Open gardens scheme – one of them is Markdale which was designed by Edna Walling so it looks like I will have to brave the cold, and come back here in April to visit it. There are several wineries in the area which we didn’t visit so that might make a visit in colder months worthwhile. Our touring took us through Pejar where they have dammed the Wollondilly river. The great divide is 946m high here and the water flows west into Crookwell river and east into Wollondilly. Being so close to top of range you would hardly think they would have enough flow to fill a dam, but it does. Between here and Goulburn is the property ‘Kangaroobie’ bought by Patrick Tully (of Kings in Grass Castles fame) with his earnings from gold mining at Owens river diggings in 1850’s. Heading east along Woodhouselee road we pass an old stone church with an auction sign out the front. We learn the next day at church that it was St James’ and sold by auction that morning for $181,000. It seemed quite a decent size so should make something worthwhile. Rev Margaret told us about how the original land had been unsuitable to put down any foundations so the donor had given them another 2 acres on top of hill but no one had changed the title deeds and now 130 years later they had to spend $25,000 to get it resurveyed etc. After they pay back that loan, pay the GST and Diocese they will have $110,000 to keep afloat with.

Continuing on we stop to look through the gates at “Rosslyn” homestead built by Alexander McGuiness in 1888 and very impressive, and see the name post for “Merrivale” but don’t see any old homes. This was the birthplace of Dame Mary Gilmour, author and poetess in early 1900’s. Just before you reach the highway again the old Cotta Walla Butter factory building is still standing in the middle of a paddock. 

Coming back through town we head up another dirt road towards Binda through some more lovely rolling hills and pass the old Laggan ‘mile post’ which actually says 10 miles. 

Binda was originally the administrative centre for Abercrombie district and has some lovely old buildings, houses and St James church. A sign on the door said that they welcome visitors and to go to store and get the key which we did, and it had some wonderful stained glass windows. I don’t know how often they have a service but the church was immaculate and very well cared for. It was built in 1863 – you wonder why the one at Woodhouselee was being sold when it is in the same sort of area as this. 

An old mill has been turned into a B n B and looks great but I wouldn't want to have to climb to the top to go to bed - wouldn't want to climb to the top for anything!

Being so close to the Gold fields around Goulburn there are lots of bushranger stories from the area. One that made us smile was of Ben Hall, John Dunn and John Gilbert who rode into town with 3 local girls on Boxing day 1864 to go to the Christmas Ball. First they held up the store and took 100 pounds and rounded all townsfolk into the dance hall where they locked them in. The store owner was a retired policeman who escaped and tried to get help so a furious Ben Hall burnt down the store in retribution. On your way back into town you go down Wades Hill with great views. This was named after Ben Hall’s brother-in-law Thomas Wade who owned the land in 1860’s and was a prominent citizen!

Saturday is market day and this week it was Laggan’s turn so we checked out their wares and came away with a pair of very cute owl earings and a wonderful handbag with appliqued owls on it, as well as some lavender cupcakes. From here we headed across to Taralga (a motorbikers’ haunt from the number outside the coffee shop). They mustn’t stop at museums because Taralga has 3 and all are open by appointment only. So out along the Oberon road to Tin Shed Gallery we go - unfortunately it was well disguised as we couldn’t find it so turned west and past through more rolling hills, and wooded areas to Tuena where we stop at the only shop for a microwave heated pie to eat with our cup cake for lunch. A local tells us about their free caravan park and says we have to see the suspension bridge so we go bush bashing and river crossing to find it. Talking to a neighbour we learn the footbridge was built so that those living on the other side can get to shop, school etc when the creek is in flood – there is no other bridge across the river in the area! The locals (not the shop owner) are very proud of their town and have a great brochure and local rag (A4 sheet) with all the happenings which our mate outside gave us. Shop owner didn’t even say hello! 

Sheck Webster lookout is on way into Bigga and gives more views across the hills to Oberon.

From Bigga we turn south and wander through more rolling green pastures and wooded lanes to Crookwell.

18/11 Leaving Crookwell we headed south through Queanbeyan and Cooma to Bombala and over the border into Vic from there. The Snowy Mtns were lovely - very green with a few small snow caps on the tops of some and the weather was nice and sunny. On Monday we went for a drive to Boggy Creek Lookout and Pheasants nest, both up winding logging tracks. Boggy creek looked more rocky to me but maybe it is only rocky at Devils Pulpit Lookout – where do they get these names from.

After lunch in town we find a sign to lookout and check out the view of snow on snowy mtns in distance and some flowers a bit closer, before heading off to find 6 mile reserve – another camping ground.

It is a reasonable dirt road so John decides to continue on Bega. It is only 65klms – but what a road, very steep, winding, and never ending. We get to Bega cheese at 4pm and check out the museum before tasting some cheeses. It is all help yourself so we have a good feed and buy some extra strong and heritage ones to add to our collection. We have some strong and bitey in the fridge at the moment and it is very moreish. They have a dry marinade mix on display so I buy an Alpine Pepper blend and we head home through Pambula and up the bitumen which was much more civilised. Arriving home late we decide to go to the Imperial Hotel for dinner. It had been recommended to us. The locals were very friendly and while talking to the owner/chef he mentioned that he had some oysters leftover from the bikeshow over the weekend and would we like some. We had a dozen for $10 and then he gave me a special of ½ chicken, 6 prawns and 6 oysters with a salad for $18. John was another matter – he wanted a mixed grill which the chef said was a big meal and he wouldn’t eat it all. Then he said he had a challenge – if you eat the mixed grill he will give a dessert for free, but if you don’t eat it all you have to buy him a schooner. Of course challenge taken up – John sat down to a HUGE meal of 3 eggs, 3 tomatoes, 3 sausages, 3 steaks, loin chop, bacon, chips and salad – and he finished it and then scoffed his crème brulee, and help me out with one of the prawns. Needless to say he wasn’t interested in morning tea in Cann River or lunch when we got to Marla the next day.

19^th The road across the border was winding but lovely through all the trees – seemed hard to believe that you could leave NSW and be on south coast of Vic in 1 ½ hrs.  Our first 3 days in Vic we spent at Marla - where the snowy river meets the ocean - and the weather closed in after first day and it had been cold and drizzley since. Fortunately we went walking along the beach on our first afternoon when it was sunny so had a lovely view of the Snowy river and all the sand bars. Judging by all the boats in the caravan park they must be easy to navigate around because everyone goes fishing.

 After driving around town which is very small we decide to spend the next day going for a drive through the mountains. I work out an itinerary based on the tourist maps and we head off. First stop is Buchan – well not quite Katrina took us the wrong way out of Orbost so we had to turn around and come back. Then we follow the map towards Ensay – and it is supposed to be a road!! John enjoys the 4WD’ing and we wind up and down the ranges and across rivers and creeks and several hours later we cover the 59Klms and get there.

 There don’t seem to be any shops in Ensay so we head to Swift Creek for lunch at the bakery and then wind our way into Omeo, where we check out the Cuckoo Clock Centre before going home through Cassilis. They have a cattlemans’ hut close to the road which was in immaculate condition. The countryside is lovely and green with lots of trees and on a clear day you can see from Mt Birregun lookout across the Gippsland Plains to the ocean - supposedly. The Alpine road back through Bruthen is also steep and winding, with lots of creek crossings.

 Every few kilometers they have given the area a name, and all the creeks seem to be the same one but they have different names every few klms. The one that took my fancy was running creek.

 It just stopped drizzling as we got to Nowa Nowa so we stopped to stretch the legs and walked down to the lookout over Boggy Creek – looked pretty rocky to me, but hey.

 We had done 380klms by the time we refuelled in Orbost and it had taken all day – so much for my 500 Klm tour – we had only done 2 of the 10 trips on my brochure. We didn’t do a quarter of what I had planned – so will think twice about doing the other trips mentioned. Or else we could come back to Bright and do day trips from there. Stopping at Orbost for a few days could be worthwhile too, and Murray says the Metung is a delightful little place to base yourself for a few days. John’s foot was very swollen and aching so we had a rest day on Thursday and watched the start of Ashes test from home, and didn’t the Aussies do well. We have an uneventful trip till we get over the West Gate Bridge where we sit in a 5 lane car park for the next 2 hours till we get past an accident near Laverton. Then we have to find our caravan park and unhitch before going to Eton road.

Since arriving in Geelong last Friday afternoon, we have spent most of the time with John's mum and Muzz & Cassie. Yesterday we called into the post office Sandy & John own, and had a chat to them. We have arranged to have dinner with everyone on Friday night. John is cleaning out the garage and back yard and taking all the junk to rubbish tip today. Don't know whether we will get to call in on friends this time or if we do it on our return in March. We are having dinner with Muzz and Cassie tonight at White Eagle as they have schnitzels on special which should be great. Of course we have to have bread as starter, then I get mussels instead of the Italian schnitzel I ordered. The mussels were very salty – so salty I couldn’t eat the soup, but fortunately there were 18 mussels so that was filling enough. Then everyone wants dessert as well.

Wednesday was a day at the van as car was in getting it’s 30,000 klm service at 36,000 klm! Then June took us out to dinner at Empire Rose which was very nice but expensive. Once again we ate far too much – really wonder why we do it. Cassie calls on Thursday to tell us about her horrid toothache which has been going on since Tuesday night, and hopefully the dentist will fix it later today. No such luck she is in so much pain that a trip to hospital was in order. She has taken so many antibiotics and painkillers that she is now nauseous. The afternoon is spent driving down to Barwon Heads where we have coffee and cake (another huge piece) on the water’s edge. It is a lovely spot if raining, though it did ease up when we got to Buckleys Falls. In years gone bye they put a small weir over the Barwon river to get some water for the mill next door and the local kids went swimming there on hot summer days.

Friday night we head over to Pakington street to a lovely Thai restaurant (Pani) and a great time with Sandy and John. June seemed to like the photo of twins and the Grandmother book – let’s hope she fills it out. Because Cassie is still in a lot of pain we call in during the afternoon to say goodbye and then have a farewell dinner with June.
Now you will have to log onto number 10 to see what happens in Tasmania.