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April/May 2023

April - May 2023
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  • TravelerApril/May 2023
    Day 35

    Reflecting back in Noosa

    May 21, 2023 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 19 °C

    We are back home in Noosa. It’s been lovely sunny day today with a drive through some lovely scenery that was split into 3 parts.
    The first part was from Quinalow to Black Butt because the bakery there has the best pies we have ever tasted. It is a regular stopover for us whenever we are in this area. So it was a delicious mushroom steak pie and coffee for breakfast while we looked over some of the street art murals on the walls.
    The second part was from Black Butt to Kilcoy through some fantastic scenery because there is a caravan washing station there. Our caravan was carrying the dirty evidence of 5 weeks of long distance driving often on gravel roads and it badly needed a good wash. So the washing station at Kilcoy has high steps to gain access to wash the roof and can fit a caravan. It took about an hour but when the caravan came out it looked like a new one.
    The third part was from Kilcoy to home in Noosa where on arrival we put the caravan on the front lawn of the house while we unpacked both the car and the caravan which took about 2 hours. Then it was time to take the car to the local car wash as it was really dirty and it too came out looking like new.
    Our holiday trip seemed to go too quickly. It was busy yet very relaxing and we did a lot and saw a lot, and thankfully everything went according to plan without any major problems. We drove more than 8,700km over the 4 weeks. We averaged 20.2 litre per 100km, which is in line with our expectations and is a good figure for long distance towing of a large rig including some headwinds along the way. Fuel prices varied between $1.70 up to $2.02 per litre and averaged $1.80 which was lower than we had expected. Our long range fuel tank allowed us to top up when the price was low and to bypass the places with higher prices.
    The caravan performed very well and was very comfortable and easy to live in despite some cold temperatures and some periods of rain. The van continues to meet and even exceed our expectations and we are very happy to have chosen the 20.6 Zone RV Base Off-Road.
    Unfortunately we had a time constraint on this trip and had to be back home by today, but if we had more time there would have been a few places we would have stayed longer, for example the Barossa Valley and Broken Hill. We saw a lot of country and outback that gave us a taste of areas of Australia that Carolina had not seen before. We will go back to some of these places another time for a longer look.
    Would we do anything differently? There are always ways of improving a trip. The campsite we had at Barossa Valley was not as good as many of the others we used during the trip and if we went back there we would choose a better one. However the free camps we stayed at turned out to be generally very nice in a variety of locations. We had put a lot of prep time into selecting these camps using WikiCamps as our primary reference and using their Trip Planner to put it all together. The time spent on finding good free camps was invaluable and made the trip so much more enjoyable. The number of excellent free camps available throughout Australia is simply staggering.
    For most of this trip we travelled by ourselves which was fine because it allowed us to spend good quality time together. However our time with Mark & Sue was very pleasant and for future long trips we may put more focus on travelling together with some of our other caravanning friends. This would provide a nice social aspect to our travels while at the same time allowing us at times to venture into some of the more remote places of Australia where travelling as a group provides more safety and security as well as more fun.
    Thankfully this trip has been very enjoyable and has whet our appetite for more caravan trips in the future. In the meantime we will take the caravan back to our Doonan storage in the next day or so as we won’t have the opportunity to use it again until September.    Read more

  • TravelerApril/May 2023
    Day 34

    Pizza & Our Last Night

    May 20, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    Today is the penultimate day of our trip and it started with an OAT of 2 degrees! Clear sunny skies and no wind, but 2 degrees still tests our resolve. Fortunately the caravan remained warm and we lashed out by having bacon and eggs for breakfast. Delicious!
    Our next destination lies 350km to east in the small town of Quinalow, and why you ask is this town so important to us? Well Carolina decided our last night should be celebrated over a pub dinner so we looked up WikiCamps to see which pubs have a free camp in the general area and the Quinalow Pub came up with good references and was about the right travel distance for us.
    So we braved the cold and got underway around 9am. As soon as we left St George we lost GSM phone signal despite our GSM booster and this made us feel we were still in the outback. Our Cel-fi Go GSM booster in the car has been fantastic and we have had phone coverage for virtually all of our trip which is amazing considering some of the remote areas we have been. However today we lost coverage for a lot of the way to our first stop 200km down the road at the wonderful location of - Moonie! We know all about this place because on our last trip we stayed here on our last night at the free camp behind the hotel. It’s nothing flash and is probably best avoided unless no other options exist. But today Moonie provided the first chance of the day to get an en route cappuccino.
    Then it was onwards towards Dalby and then Quinalow.
    And we then experienced the big disappointment of the day for Carolina. Dalby is a fairly large town of some 15,000 people and CK has been waiting to get there to see the shops. However it’s Saturday and we arrived at 1:30pm, and to her disappointment Carolina discovered the shops close at 12:30pm on Saturdays. The screams of anguish were probably heard in Noosa. So after desperate attempts to find a shop still open we finally headed off from Dalby around 2:30pm for the last 50km to Quinalow.
    We didn’t really know what to expect there. We knew there is a small free camp opposite the hotel and when we arrived we were very pleasantly surprised that it was quite a scenic campsite. Very nice trees and several large flat grass areas suitable for about 10 caravans. We set ourselves up in a nice area with nice views for our last night on the road and as the sun set we had the last of our sparkling rosé sitting outside while we reminisced about our trip.
    Quinalow Pub has a reputation - it is famous for it’s pizza with the Quinalow Special Pizza being its most well known. So we really had no choice except to try the house specialty especially since pizza is one of Carolina’s favourite dishes. And it lived up to its reputation! Simply put, large & delicious! A very nice casual dinner to help celebrate the last night of our trip.    Read more

  • TravelerApril/May 2023
    Day 33

    A Change of Plans

    May 19, 2023 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 15 °C

    We are heading east for the remainder of our trip on our way back home to Noosa. Today was never going to be an exciting day as the 300km involved only one intermediate town between Cunnamulla and our destination of St George. That mid-point town of Bollon became our one and only coffee stop.
    Once we got to St George we spent a couple of hours looking around the town including a very nice stopover at the Riversands Winery where we enjoyed a very acceptable sparkling rosé in the garden and sunshine.
    Our plans were to stay at a free camp a few km out of St George on the banks of the Balonne River. So in due course we set out for this campsite. We knew it was out of town, but we did not realise how far out of town. After 15km of driving, the gravel road started and we saw that the campsite was still about another 7km further on.
    That was when Carolina lost patience. She did not want to be so far out of town and was concerned we might be the only caravan at this free camp. So without ever getting to the campsite to check it out we turned around and headed back to St George for a change of plans. Carolina decided the River Gum Tourist Park looked to be the best option so that is where we ended up for the night. It was also close to the river and we went for a long walk along it during the late afternoon including seeing the Australian Hotel where our friend Laurie dines when he is in St George.
    Along the river walk was a high red pole which held the marker heights for the river for the past 100 years, although the record recent flood levels were not there perhaps because they were higher than the pole!
    The Tourist Park was run by a friendly owner called Ivan who made us feel welcome. Despite the Park being quite full he gave us a nice large spot that was away from the madding crowd.
    It was a nice change of plans that kept everybody happy.    Read more

  • TravelerApril/May 2023
    1
    Day 32

    The Cunnamulla Surprise

    May 18, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    It’s was a chilly 3 degrees outside this morning as we woke. At least we were comfy with the van heater and snug-as-a-bug-in-a-rug. We had seen a very nice cafe yesterday not far from the caravan park called COOEE so we decided to forego our usual cappu in the van and enjoy one at the cafe. At the cafe we met a couple of French guys who we had seen and chatted to in the Flinders Ranges a few weeks ago - it is a small world!
    The drive to Cunnamulla is only about 270km and we did this is a single 3-hour drive. The scenery was still changing and greener than we had expected for the outback due to the rains last year, and the typical red-orange colour of the soil was very apparent everywhere. Along the way we crossed the Queensland border and let out a cheer to be back in our home state again. Caravans were everywhere too and by the time we arrived in Cunnamulla we had a convoy of about 6 vans behind us.
    Cunnamulla had been chosen because it was a strategic distance to split up the long journey back to Noosa. If we didn’t stop here we had a further 380km to go before our next stop, and that was not practical. Cunnamulla is a reasonable size outback town which we did not think had too much going for it.
    But then we pulled into the Warrego Riverside Holiday Park for the night - and what a surprise! It was a truly lovely caravan park with lots of manicured trees including fruit trees where you were allowed to pick off the fruit, green grass, secluded sites, and with the Warengo River passing through it. What a relaxing campground! Who would have thought we would find such a gem in the outback wilds of Cunnamulla??
    So after a quick drive around the quaint little town we settled down to a relaxing afternoon on a very nice unpowered site with great bush surroundings and 30 seconds walk from the river.    Read more

  • TravelerApril/May 2023
    Day 31

    Back O’ Bourke!

    May 17, 2023 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 12 °C

    Today had two destinations - the towns of Cobar and Bourke. Cobar was first being only about 70km from the previous night’s campsite. A nice city centre with ample opportunity for Carolina to get her shopping fix, and a few tourist sights such as “The Big Beer”.
    About 170km further on was the famous town of Bourke which was our final destination for today. Known by reputation as being the boundary of the “real” outback, in the past anyone travelling beyond Bourke was venturing into the unknown realms of the great Australian wilderness known as the Outback. Henry Lawson who spent a lot of time in Bourke and wrote many of his poems here penned the phrase “ If you know Bourke, you know Australia”.
    So coming to Bourke was a special event for the new Australian among us and Carolina enjoyed looking around. In particular she was excited to see more black cockatoos which were probably also around in Henry Lawaon’s day.
    Bourke unfortunately now has the reputation of being one of Australia’s most dangerous towns with youth crime being very high. So we stayed at the Mitchell Caravan Park today to provide that little extra bit of security.
    It was very quiet around the town with fewer people than we expected. Nevertheless we hopped into the car and toured some of the sights. This included the painted water tower of the aboriginal athlete Percy Hobson who won a Gold Medal at the 1962 Commonwealth Games for the high jump. A main attraction in Bourke is the Back O’ Bourke exhibition which gives a detailed history of the city and the surrounding areas which were at the frontier edge of settlement for so many years during the 1800s and 1900s.
    Of course the Darling River played an enormously important role in the development of Bourke by providing not only water but also a means of transport for taking the produce from the area out to the east coast.
    The Mitchell Caravan Park is an oasis of green among the generally drier areas of the city. When we got back to the caravan after touring Bourke a large central campfire was burning in the middle of the Park so we joined it only to find out we were gate crashing a large group of caravanners from Toowoomba who were on a 1-month mystery tour. They only find out each night where they are going the next day! They did however welcome us joining their midst and were very friendly.
    For dinner tonight we had some of the pork chops we had bought at the pig farm in Coffin Bay and they were delicious! Tomorrow morning is forecast to be a chilly 5 degrees. We will complete our quick tour of Bourke before heading further north to Cunnamulla.    Read more

  • TravelerApril/May 2023
    Day 30

    A Day on an Outback Road

    May 16, 2023 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

    We woke at 6am with an outside air temperature of 6 degrees. It was warm in the van as the gas heater had been on low all night and the all-composite construction of the Zone interior, walls, floor, and roof make for a very well insulated van. Our plan was to drive about 400km to a free camp about 60km from Cobar. This camp was a rest area close to the Barrier Highway which contained a number of camp sites in a bush environment and had very good reviews on WikiCamps. There was not much to do at such a campsite except relax, have a campfire, cook a meal, and chill out. So there was no point in getting there too early, and we planned to leave Broken Hill at a leisurely time of around 9am.
    In the meantime we went for a good walk around the racetrack area where our campsite is located. There is a large dirt racetrack and two main grandstands. Parts of the surrounding grass areas where the horses may be presented has been turned into the campground and provides very flat nice grassy areas with access to toilets and showers as well as a number of power and water sites for an extra fee. We are fully self-contained so we opted for a unpowered site that was away from the grandstand and under some trees which gave a nice bush setting and some privacy. After our walk we hitched up for the day ahead.
    Once underway the next decision was where are we planning to stop for a cappuccino? After due consultation with the GPS and Google Maps we decided that would be the the exciting outback town of Wilcannia. So with that target in mind we cruised for about 2 hours along the Barrier Highway only occasionally passing a truck or car coming the opposite way. The kilometres ticked by… and there it was! The big sign saying welcome to the RV Friendly town of Wilcannia! We could smell the coffee - or so we thought, because it turned out we were in for a shock.
    As we entered the reasonable sized town we starting searching for the cafe, it had to be somewhere near the main road. Up and down the main streets we went until it dawned on us that there is no cafe open in Wilcannia!!! Whaaaat!! That had to be wrong, so Carolina hopped out of the car and went into a Pharmacy that was open. When she came out the colour was drained from her face - there is no cafe open in Wilcannia!!
    With knees trembling from shock we pulled over on the side of the road next to a nice park and made our own cappuccinos in the van and drank them while looking at a group of ducks.
    Then something else caught Carolina’s eye. A black cockatoo! So camera in hand she rushed over and got a quick picture of this lovely bird before it flew away.
    Having now seen the sights of wonderful Wilcannia we headed out again on the Barrier Highway. Only 200 km to go to our camp site.
    Again the kilometres ticked over as the scenery varied slightly from flat wide plains to long areas of trees and slightly undulating hills. The outback of Australia can be a little monotonous but it does change and is never really boring. However Carolina was starting to get frustrated and wanted the day to finish and was very pleased when we around 3pm we turned into the Meadow Glen Rest Area campsite. It is quite a large tree and bush area with room for around 20 caravans spread among generally secluded bush sites. One item that immediately caught our attention was many of the trees have clocks hanging on them! Yes you read correctly, clocks! Clearly some previous caravanners have decided to make this a special site by hanging a clock on a tree and there are perhaps 15 clocks in the area. A funny and different way of distinguishing this campground.
    We set up and then relaxed over a rum & coke (or two) before cooking our final supply of Salvadorean papusas for a nice dinner next to a campfire. The campfire today was not one of our best ones and the wood did not burn easily or give out as much heat as normal. So it was an early night after just another day on an outback road.    Read more

  • TravelerApril/May 2023
    Day 29

    Broken Hill in a whirlwind 10 hours

    May 15, 2023 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 15 °C

    The Silver City has so much to offer the tourist. Lots of things to see and do, but in our case we had so little time to get this done. To do justice to the sights and attractions of this fascinating town you should really set aside a minimum of 3-4 days. However our time schedule here will only allow us one full day as we have to get back to Noosa by next weekend. So today was always going to be action-packed.
    We were up early and started seeing the sights at 8am and finally ended with a beautiful sunset at 6pm. 10 hours of busy but very interesting and varied touring.
    During the day we did a full tour of the Royal Flying Doctor Service facilities which has a big base and historical museum in Broken Hill, and learned about the important role it has played to those living in the remote outback for the last nearly 100 years. We had a delicious milkshake and waffle at the famous retro 1950s Bells Milk-bar. We gazed in awe at the multitude of amazing paintings at the Pro Hart Gallery and marvelled at his Rolls Royce collection and the prolific way he painted more than 100,000 paintings in his 78 year life! We walked much of the Heritage Trail in the city including the infamous Palace Hotel where Priscilla Queen of the Desert was filmed and where the annual Broken Heel drag festival is held We visited the sobering Miners Memorial that held an honour plaque and a rose for each of those many many miners who have died over the last 100 years in the mines of the Silver City. Unfortunately the mining museums that we wanted so much to visit were closed until later in the week which was a big disappointment.
    Then as the afternoon was drawing to a close we experienced the highlight of the day when we went to the Living Desert Sculptures that are located around 10km outside Broken Hill up on one of the ridges with a great view of the city. These sculptures pick up the early morning sun as well as the sunset and are a very unique collection from sculptors from many places around the world. We had been told these were best viewed just before sunset to pick up the colours and then we should stay and see the sunset - and the advice was right. It was a truly unique experience to see these very unusual sculpture statues lit up by the orange sunset with the setting sun sky alight behind them. A great way to end a busy but fascinating day touring one of Australia’s most interesting outback towns.
    Then it was back to the Broken Hill Racecourse free camp where we had stayed for our 2 nights here which is a well kept campground and a very nice place to stay. A relaxing fish dinner watching TV ended a very pleasant day.    Read more

  • TravelerApril/May 2023
    Day 28

    Mad Max Country

    May 14, 2023 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

    Australia’s outback is always fascinating. Long distances through ever changing scenery, small towns some with only a pub and a general store, others with a life and soul of their own despite their isolation.
    Fascinating people can be found along the way and we met one of these today when we stopped at a roadhouse for coffee at the small outback town of Yunta. He was a truckie from Kununurra named Barry, a friendly guy who took a shine to Chanel. He took us of a story about a dog from Kununurra who was going to be put. down but was bought by someone who lived in Perth, so this truckie agreed to take him in the truck cab to Perth. Along the way his trucking schedule changed due to the floods and instead he drove more than 20,000km in the next 4 weeks around Australia with this dog until he finally got back to Perth. The ABC did a TV article on this story which he showed us:
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-27/abandone…
    A really interesting character to meet over a coffee in the middle of nowhere.
    Today we headed inland towards one of Australia’s most famous outback towns, Broken Hill, also known as Silver City. With a history going back to the 1880s and being the birthplace of Australia’s largest company BHP this city has a lot to offer the tourist.
    So as the kilometres ticked by we looked forward to a short 2-night stay that would give us a taste of this town.
    Researching what to do at each place we visit really is the key to a successful trip. But sometimes the details slip through the cracks. Today we found out when we arrived at Broken Hill that one of the main attractions, Silverton, is almost totally closed on Mondays. Our plan for tomorrow, Monday, was to spend half a day seeing the sights and attractions of Silverton. So despite driving 400km we jumped in the car and drove another 30km to get to Silverton before they closed today.
    Silverton looks like a town from an old western movie with lovely turn of the century buildings set in a real outback environment. As a result it has been used in a number of well known movies including Mad Max 2, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, A Town like Alice, Wake in Fright, Razorback, just to name a few.
    We had 45 mins to go before the Max Max 2 Museum closed so this was our first stop. Movie memorabilia including a large number of vehicles used by Mel Gibson and others was on display. The Silverton Hotel was heaving with people for the Mother’s Day Sunday Session. While having a couple of drinks there a herd of cattle trotted down the dirt road in front of the hotel to add that extra bit of country & western atmosphere. A mixture of odd colours decorated the John Dynon art gallery, and the wide flat horizon at the Mundi Mundi lookout showed off the outback very well.
    Silverton was an interesting place aimed at the tourist. However on our last trip we spent a few days at Lightning Ridge which we felt had more to offer.
    So after a long day it was back to Broken Hill for a Mother’s Day dinner at the Silver City Chinese restaurant. Tomorrow we will spend the whole day looking around Silver City.    Read more

  • TravelerApril/May 2023
    Day 27

    The Road to Déjà Vu

    May 13, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    The alarm sounded at 6am and in the dark we got things ready for leaving Smoky Bay. Today is going to be the longest day of our trip with about 500km to be travelled. We find the ideal max distance for caravanning is around 350km per day as this amounts to about 4 hours of driving, and with a 1-hour coffee or lunch break halfway through, the travelling time is around 5 hours. So leaving at 8am means arriving around 1pm which gives time to set up camp and then explore the new destination.
    Of course there are times when longer distances are required and today was one of those times.
    We were on the road just after 7am with a 38km gravel road easterly shortcut first up to get quick access to the A1 Eyre Highway and then heading for Port Augusta. A perfect day for driving with blue skies, nil wind, and very little traffic on the roads. All we had to do was drive carefully as the sun rose to watch out for kangaroos.
    The drive was uneventful including the mandatory coffee break at a very busy coffee shop and bakery at Wudinna, and then a short break to look at the silo art and the Big Galah at Kimba.
    The road scenery changed a lot and at times the road itself was a straight line that disappeared into the horizon with trees lining either side. Unfortunately Carolina was feeling a bit off colour today and used the long drive to curl up on her seat and have a long sleep.
    Our destination today was a free campsite that we had stayed at earlier on this trip - Hancock’s Lookout just on the eastern side of Port Augusta. When we were here last time it was cold and intermittently raining and in the morning we had cold heavy fog. But today is sky clear and 10 degrees warmer so we thought we should not leave SA without a last stop at the free camp with the best panoramic views! So with a feeling of Déjà Vu we climbed the gravel road to the top of the lockout at 2000’ above sea level and set up camp with a lovely panoramic view over the Spencer Gulf.
    There is another thing that has changed since we were last here. If you look at the campsite photo carefully you will note the caravan is very dirty. Throughout this trip Carolina has been wanting to regularly wash the car and caravan, but this is a big job, and in any case what is the point as they will only get dirty again quickly as we continue our travels. So the big clean up will come when we get back to Noosa in about 8 days.
    Being 2000’amsl, even though the day is warmer than last time it will still get cool at night so a campfire will be needed.
    Tonight is clear skies and no moon, so the sunset was very nice and the night sky turned out to be great for star gazing using the Sky Tonight app to identify the stars/planets and constellations while keeping warm around the campfire. Déjà Vu is not so bad after all.    Read more

  • TravelerApril/May 2023
    Day 26

    The Western Edge

    May 12, 2023 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Today started with a hiccup. When we started our normally very reliable Land Cruiser some warning lights illuminated indicating a possible problem. Mark had a diagnostic tool available that logs into the car OBD system to find out what problem was indicating. A key suspect was that last night the car battery played up requiring a jump start, so we suspected the warnings were spurious caused by the temporary low voltage that had occurred. We rang Toyota service in Port Lincoln who confirmed our thoughts and was happy for us to continue driving the car providing the warning did not re-occur after the fault was cleared. So we cleared the fault and continued our journey and were pleased that the fault did not re-occur. Hopefully the problem will not re-occur for the remainder of our trip. The battery is on its last legs and will need to be replaced.
    These problems delayed our departure, but today was a relatively low mileage day anyway.
    Streaky Bay was only 40kms away and this is a very nice small country town located in the coast. It is clearly a popular tourist stopover because the place was full of caravans and grey nomads. Lots of small shops and a very nice seaside waterfront area, a number of very attractive well-kept old buildings which were very well preserved, with a nice jetty and a number of cafes and food outlets. It was a very pleasant stopover for our morning coffee.
    Then it was off to a famous free camp area at Perlubie Beach, famous because caravans are permitted to drive onto and camp right on the sand in the beach. It has become so popular that a permit is now required to stay there and the number of caravans per night is limited to 30. We were not stying there this time but we wanted to see it for future reference. It is a long white sand beach with good camping facilities, but one of the features we have noticed about many SA beaches is the large amount of seaweed and kelp that piles up on the beach after being washed ashore. This spoils what would otherwise be a lovely long white sand beach.
    After a quick look around the Perlubie Beach campground we continued to our final destination for the day at Smoky Bay.
    Smoky Bay is the most western edge of our trip where we turn around and each day from now on will have us heading east back towards Noosa. This is also the place where Mark and Sue leave us and continue their journey further west. We checked into the Smoky Bay caravan park and bid farewell to Mark & Sue as they headed off to Ceduna.
    Smoky Bay is also famous for its oysters, so after settling in we went to the Oyster outlet area and bought a dozen of the largest and most delicious oysters we have ever tasted! Wow!! A great way to celebrate the western extremity of our trip!
    Smoky Bay has a very laid-back atmosphere and is a place that would be great for a relaxing beach holiday and is probably very popular in the summer months. We walked around feeling very much at home, chatting easily with a few of the locals, and thoroughly enjoying this small town. It was one of the nicest small towns we have seen on this trip. The only downside was that the Internet was a bit like the town - very laid back and slow - which was a bit frustrating.
    Tomorrow will be an early start with around 500km of driving ahead.    Read more

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