Day 54 - Chinchilla to Moree

The mornings are upon us earlier and earlier as we creep up on summer. It is definitely the best part of the day.

A cuppa, some toast and pack-up commences.

Just over 4 hours driving today but of course additional stops pushed it out a little further.

The majority of those 4 hours were near on a nightmare. I can’t believe the state of the roads in Queensland. They are shocking. Graham did allude to the possibility it’s the

“geotechnical-induced road deformation, in the underlying substructure that has caused the longitudinal undulation and unpredictable vertical displacement.” Well, he didn’t quite say that, but it’s what he meant. I just said they’re shit.

Not so many visually pleasing sights and towns today, compared to the previous drive, but we did stop at Moonie which is the pig hunting capital of Australia. This stop was extremely well timed, given the biggest over sized load we’ve encountered to date passed through as we were ingesting our refreshments.

We crossed the border into NSW just before lunch time. This was just outside Goodawindi, a town made famous by the birth of the famous equine species Gunsynd.

We arrived at the Gwydir Thermal Pools Motel and Caravan Park with all of us looking forward to making good use of those pools. Without going into too much detail the stream of people heading to and from the pools resembled scenes out of the movie Cocoon.

Full services are available here so a little more setup required.

This is definitely one of the more geographically challenging parks we’ve been in. Not much room between vans. But it did foster an environment of relationship building. Thank goodness Karen and Graham had engaged in a civil and respectful manner with their neighbours. A little later he popped over and gave us a heads up of the impending invasion of birds, that sit in the trees above the cars, squawk ridiculously loud and defecate at will.

Just for something different the weather was fantastic so we settled in for a few afternoon drinks and nibbles.

I decided to serve the Pork Salami with Black Truffle I purchased at Goomeri a few days ago. This would normally have been referred to the Minister for Shopping, but it was purchased with our funds (Gail and mine). Said salami was about half the size of a banana and weighed in at 250 grams.
It wasn’t till I opened it that I became privy to the price I had paid…….. $20.50…….10c more than the 2 packets of choc mint drumsticks that resulted in a constitutional crisis days earlier. A financially very irresponsible purchase, but as mentioned done so with personal funds. Whilst immune from sanctions from the Minister for Shopping, the Minister for Home Affairs is carefully considering an appropriate punishment.

Drumstickgate generated a flurry of activity from those of you following us in detail. Thanks to Glenn in Victoria for providing an update on drumstick pricing and thanks to Terry in Perth who provided additional balanced and logical arguments to this crisis. (see attached photos),

Given we’d passed through the pig hunting capital of Australia we felt that the pork ribs and BBQ pork char siu bites we’d purchased before becoming aware of Moree’s claim to fame, were an appropriate selection for dinner. Plus the salad Gail crafted.

Drumsticks for dessert then bed.Read more