A place to stay....

Groper Creek, 28th & 29th May

We had planned to stay at the free camping spot "Funny Dunny" about 40kms north of Bowen, but missed the turn-off and ended up at Groper Creek. Another beautiful spot, about 15kms off the Bruce just south of Ayr. We had planned on only staying one night but it was just too nice to leave. The park is full of people that have been coming here for years and most of them camp for two or three months at a time over winter. All older people (I think we are the only ones under 55) and so friendly, we have been given fresh whiting, flathead and bream (already filleted) for dinner from our neighbours on one side and also freshly caught prawns (three batches from three different people). That's what I call hospitality. Hutchy still hasn't caught any fish worth eating and we are in fishermans paradise apparently. Jesse is a hit with everyone in the park of course and he has just been down on the bank of the river feeding fish offcuts to the pelicans with the neighbours. Every afternoon there is a 'happy hour' at someones van, which is full of laughter and fun.

The park is obviously flood prone though, in February it was 8ft under water after the Burdekin Dam flooded, it took me while to work out why the public telephone is one story up (see the picture).

We are leaving here tomorrow and I will be really sad to leave this place, all caravan parks are full of people that are happy and friendly but everyone at Groper Creek has been exceptionally welcoming.


Sunrise at Groper Creek


The telephone box and caravan park office


The view from our window

Mackay

Mackay - Sunday to Wednesday 27th May

Another 'comfort stop' with Lee-anne (Hutchy's sister) her husband Craig, and daughters Madeleine and Rebekah. They have just moved to Mirani, just west of Mackay. Beautiful spot with canefields and lovely mountain ranges all around. Once again it was nice to spend some time with family (and to shower, do the laundry and even watch TV). Hutchy had a full day in town getting the airbags on the car fixed again......



We left on Wednesday AM and on route decided to stop in at Airlie Beach. Pristine blue water and all I have to say is that I wish I was 20something again.













Coconut catchers

On the way to Mackay...

Roadhouse south of Mackay - Sunday 25th May















We caught up with our neighbour Bull and his big truck on the way back from a run to Bowen. We are learning the truckie lingo on the CB Radio too. "Southbound, Flash for Cash, just around the next bend"


Camila Beach - Saturday 24th May

We pulled up stumps at Camila Beach which is just south of Mackay and about 6kms of the highway to the free campspot, another gorgeous spot, but a little windy and the tide goes out about half a kilometre, it was low tide when we arrived and low tide when we left, high tide in the middle of the night which woke me up as it was so close to our van at full height I thought we were going to get washed away.

Heading North...

Yeppoon - 22nd to 24th May

We have just arrived in Yeppoon. This is the best spot for a caravan park ever! Right on the beach and a park nearby with a swing that has a 'seatbelt' for Jesse. We have been trying to track down one of these swings for a while now, as this seems to be Jesse's benchmark of a good place to hang out. Every time we leave a spot and tell him we are heading 'North' he asks if there will be swings there.

When we arrived at the park, the managers were not in attendance but left a whiteboard out the front of the office with the available site numbers, how many days they are available for, a map so you could see where they were, and the toilet keys for each site. So you pick a vacant site, rub it off the whiteboard and take the toilet keys or your site. What a brilliant idea! And we can see Great Keppell Island from our beds. And I am sitting outside the van, typing the blog with a glass of wine, the sun going down, the sounds and sights of the beach, John Butler playing out of the car stereo, and the smell of t-bone steaks cooking on the barbie, life doesn't get much better than this!

There is nothing better than waking up to the sound of the ocean just outside your window! We took a drive down to Emu Park which is just south of Yeppoon on the coast. We visited the Singing Ship (pictured) which is a memorial to Captain Cook, when it is windy the tubes vibrate and hum. Then we cruised into Rockhampton as we needed to do shopping and get the car looked at. While the car was at the mechanics (no-where land) we sat in a nearby park (no playground), until it got the better of us and we decided to look for a pub to have a beer (it was pretty hot). Only problem was whether it would be a white pub, well we found one, although all it had was a public bar and I was a bit sceptical about taking Jesse in so sent Hutchy in to have a look, I needn't have worried, there was a little girl sitting at the bar with her mum and grandparents (grandma was largered), and a cat roaming around as well. Anyway one beer was enough to pass the time and the car was ready.

We then went to visit Marshall (Meg Rac's brother) and his wife Gabbi and three kids, had a lovely dinner with them and a good chat.

We (reluctantly) packed up the next day, Saturday, and headed on up the road again. We had to make one last stop in Yeppoon before leaving though at the 'Great Australian Ice-Creamery' as they have the BEST bubblegum ice-cream, which is my favorite ever! (It tastes just like the bubblegum out of the machines when we were kids, but even better). I managed to talk Hutchy into it by telling him they had licorice flavour also (luckily they did), however Jesse didn't like his Mango one so ate all of Hutchy's licorice anyway. I escaped with my bubblegum ice-cream intact under the ruse of walking up to the Newsagents to get the paper.
I actually had a good reason for getting the paper that day. My good friend from Mooloolaba Ruth Frost 'Frosty' was featured in the Courier Mail weekend magazine. Frosty wrote a book 'Pavlova's to Popcorn' about her journey to America as a newly-wed 'war-bride'. She is an amazing lady. Check out her website at http://www.frostmedia.com.au/ruthfrost/

We decided to make a stop at the Capricorn Caves, just north of Rockhampton. We took the hour tour which was just amazing. The caves were discovered in the late 1800's by a man called 'Olsen' and some of the timber bridges and stairs that he built to get around the caves are still used today. In the biggest cave called 'Cathedral Cave' they actually hold weddings, it is absolutely stunning and has near perfect acoustics, the tour guide played a CD for us and it sounded just incredible.
Jesse has started calling everyone, males and females alike, 'that fella', we are definately in North Qld.

A perfect sunset.....

Town of 1770, 21 - 22 May
















Just north-east of Bundaberg, on the coast, there is the town of Agnes Waters and 1770 is a little bit further along the coast, basically a caravan park, and a pub, which overlooks the water and looks like it hasn't changed since the 60's, this is a beautiful spot.














Amphibious Vehicle















The caravan park is on the beach of a large inlet and so at sunset we went down to the beach along with the rest of the caravan park residents with their camp chairs, beer, wine and snacks to watch the setting sun over the water, it was really cool to sit on the beach and look up and down at the rest of the people enjoying the beauty of this lovely place. We had to laugh though at one older (looked like they were in their 80's) couple that were near us, as soon as the sun disappeared, he looked at his watch, 'time for a drink' he stated and off they went. We reckon he worked up thirst just getting down there.
















On the next day Hutchy and Jesse went for a fish on the point (still haven't had fish for dinner) , and then we walked up to the pub for a snack and beer and that night we caught up with Richard (an ex-NCP mate of Hutchys) who has a shed 40 acres about 20 minutes out of Agnes Waters.

Inskip......

Inskip Point - Friday 16th - Tuesday 20th May

We left on a lovely Friday afternoon to cruise up to the customary first point of call for those leaving the coast to travel around Australia, Inskip Point. We camped with Darryn & Lorie, my Aunty Deb, Uncle Steve and their family and Nellie and Trent and their girls came up too. We had a lovely spot right on the water and the most perfect spot for a campfire, the nearly full moon lit up the water nicely and we had a great time hanging out at the beach. Another hard goodbye when everyone left. We stayed until Tuesday morning and resisted the magnetism of Inskip Point that has held others there for months and years.......

Another perfect beachside campsite.....

Hutchy described leaving Inskip Point as 'Passing Go' as it felt like this was the last piece of familiar territory for us.

Back on the Sushine Coast...

Home - Sunday 10th - Friday 16th May

We arrived back on the Sunshine Coast on Sunday afternoon, our good friends Nellie and Trent let us park under their big shed (thanks guys). We tried to catch up with a few people but Jesse and I came down with a very nasty bug which made things a little hard, so for those we did not get to see, hopefully we will be back in December (for Woodford) and see you then. It was good to see both our lovely home and Darcy Dog being well looked after by Snake and Wazza. Besides being sick we were flat doing maintenance on the car and house, repacking the van so we could leave some stuff behind etc....... While it was nice to be in familar territory and see friends we were both very keen to get on the road again.

Bonfire....

Canungra - Nette, Steve, Sienna and Kims house - Thursday 8th - Sunday 11th May

We left Brooms Head and took the back road through Casino, Kyogle, Woodenbong and Rathdowney to Canungra where Nette, Steve, Sienna and Kim live. It was great to see our good friends again and camp at their lovely house at the base of Mount Tambourine. We had planned to leave on Saturday AM to get up to the Sunshine Coast but a big bonfire was planned on Saturday night to celebrate some friends birthdays so we stayed for that, needless to say a good night had by all and I think a testament to a good party is the fact that many of us who are what I would call 'seasoned' drinkers ran out of alcohol early in the proceedings.

View of Mount Lindsay from the NSW / QLD border

Sienna and Jesse

Glenno and Hutchy

Steve, Nette and Sienna, Mothers Day Breakfast

So it was that on Sunday (Mothers Day) we left our good friends all of us with sore heads and heavy hearts to head home to the Sunshine Coast.

The best camping spot......

Brooms Head - Wednesday 7th May

WOW! Brooms Head is the most amazingly beautiful camping spot. It is just west of Maclean in the Yuraygir National Park. We stayed at Lake Arragan / Red Cliffs camping area which is just off the main road to Brooms Head. The camping area only has toilets but you can camp right on the beach, there were kangaroos everywhere, and the most beautiful beach with rockpools. Jess and I went for a walk on the beach while Hutchy setup the van and we paddled in a great rockpool that was very similar to one I used to play in as a child at Station Creek, which is in the same National Park just a bit further south. We took off our shoes and pants and were having a lovely time paddling around and looking for fish when out of the corner of my eye I saw a creature moving on the sand, it was a little Octopus and it was trying to sneak up on us by moving a little bit at a time and camouflaging itself to look like a rock, freaked me right out! I grabbed Jesse and hightailed it out of that pool. The octopus still chased us over to where we were standing on a rock out of the water, and once it was sure we weren't coming back in to the water swam off to it's little hiding place. I wish I had my camera as it was quite amazing and it would be good to have proof as I don't think Hutchy believes me.

We had a nice little fire up on the headland and the sky was so clear that you could see the milky way almost all the way across.

In the morning we all went for a walk on the beach to the entrance of the Lake and we were virtually the only ones on the beach! Magic.....




Yes, that's our caravan on the left, what a spot!



Lake Arragan

Kangaroo and Joey at our campsite

Nana Glen

Saturday 3rd May - Tuesday 6th May

Well, we had a Jesse free afternoon and night. We went to watch my brother Ace play footy for North Coffs, and then made it home to watch the last quarter of Hawthorn v's Collingwood, happy Hutchy as the Hawks won by over 60 points. We had a lovely dinner at the Kookaburra Kafe which is a restaurant near my Dad's place and highly recommended for anyone down Nana Glen / Coffs Harbour way, and then picked up Jesse the next day from Mum and Roger's, he had a great time according to Mum.

My cousin Darryn and his wife Lorie and two girls, Meisham and Billie (from Melbourne) are travelling around in a caravan too, on their way to Perth. They stopped in at Dads for a couple of nights also, so we have re-named Dads property Robbo's Retreat Camping Ground and plan to enter it in the Camps Australia book and we nailed a (bottomless) 'Honesty Box' to one of the fenceposts down at the creek before we left.



Mowing the lawn with Grandpa








Meisham, Billie and Jesse toasting Marshmallows on the campfire at Dad's (Robbo's) place.

Slideshow

I have added a slideshow of our photos on the right hand side nav bar. If you click in the middle of the photos it will take you to another website 'flickr'. You can then click on the little projector screen icon on the right hand side of the little photos and it will go to a slideshow. Once this is running if you click on 'Options' you should be able to check a box to show title and that will add text to the photo to tell you what it is. Tan xx

Homeward bound

Saturday 3 May 2008 - Nana Glen
We arrived at Dads place yesterday and are camped by the creek on his property at Nana Glen (25km NW of Coffs Harbour and made famous by Russell Crowe...). It is a lovely spot and last night we enjoyed a campfire by the creek with Joke and Cheryl (two Woodford friends) and Dad and Ben. We are gearing up for the Hawthorn vs Collingwood match this afternoon as my Dad and brothers are Collingwood supporters and of course Hutchy is Hawthorn. Nanny Carly (my Mum) and Roger are looking after Jess this afternoon and a sleepover. The first night he has spent away from us - mixed feelings on that score but it will be nice to spend a bit of time getting things organised and watching a WHOLE football game in the afternoon, maybe a nice dinner......

The past few days have been quite adventurous.

Thursday 1st May 2008 - Coopernook State Forest

We made it to Taree today, we could have probably pushed to get to Coffs but it would have made for a long day and we just wanted to get somewhere, set up early and have a relaxing afternoon. We camped at Coopernook State Forest, a free camp 4km in off the highway just north of Taree. A nice little camp ground and my Dad and his friend Joke (pron. yolk) joined us as the had been doing a bit of touring around ACT and Sydney as well. We used the camp oven for the first time, cooked a lovely butter chicken and settled down for a nice chat around the campfire. At about 9:30 our peaceful campsite was quite rudely interrupted by some joy riders who drove at high speed through the middle of the camping ground, narrowly missing the caravan where Jesse was sleeping and I was in making a cup of tea, they swung around, then facing the caravan took off again and swerved back on to the road, I really didn't know what to do, there were other campers whose cars were only missed by 5-6 metres as well, they took off down the road in the other direction, we had just settled down and 10 minutes later they came roaring past again, this time not into the campsite but close enough to freak us all out again, thankfully they didn't come back a third time and the rest of the night was fine, we were quite stunned in the morning however, when three or four cows came wandering through the campsite eating their breakfast.

Wednesday 30 April 2008 - Moonee Moonee - Hawkesbury River

We decided to leave the van in the free camping area while we visited the Jenolan Caves, as we have a special hitch on the van, you can't tow it with a normal towbar so we thought it would be safe, the road going in was quite narrow and steep so I was happy we didn't take it. Jenolan Caves is just spectacular and out of all the places I have ever been I would like to go back there and spend more time exploring. The colour of the water coming out of the limestone underwater springs is amazing, and the entrance to the villiage is just incredible. We didn't do any tours as they were quite expensive and didn't know how Jess would go for the hour or so it takes, also there was a car rally going through on the road and it was closed to outgoing traffic from 11.45am to 1.45pm, we didn't want to get stuck in there and leave our caravan/home by itself for that long!

We had planned to go to Katoomba after the caves and have a look at the three sisters and go on the scenic railway, but then we met a lady who told us about the Zig-Zag Railway, just out of Lithgow which operates a steam train on Wednesday's. This is an incredible piece of engineering really, to get down the steep mountain the track forms a 'Z' and the train actually stops at the junctions and the engine shunts from the front of the train to the back, and then goes down the next bit of track, and does the same again, have a look at the website http://www.zigzagrailway.com.au/

From here, we had planned to go to Rylstone (near Mudgee) for the night, but as it was so cold the night before, we decided to head back into the coast, it would be less kms to get to Coffs and much warmer...

We camped at the Moonee Moonee rest area which is just north of the Hawkesbury River bridge, Highway 1 from Sydney to Newcastle, it is actually only a day rest area but there are not many free camps around that area so we didn't have much choice. The Hawkesbury River is stunning, however, the six lanes of semi-trailers coming over the bridge all night was a bit noisy, but the 132,000 volt power line that we camped underneath meant that we didn't have to use batteries for anything all night, the water rats going through the rubbish bins didn't really make me feel all that comfortable either.

Tuesday 29 April 2008 - Jenolan Caves

We left Kiama early on Tuesday morning, having showered and laundered and recharged and decided to head up into the Blue Mountains (and we thought Kiama was cold!!!). We went over the Macquarie Pass which is a winding narrow road, I don't recall ever seeing 15km speed limit sign for a hairpin bend and I have definately never seen a sign that indicates semi-trailers have to reverse back to get around the corners. Luckily we did not pass any semi-trailers on the corners.

We stopped at Moss Vale to do some shopping and then on to Mittagong. We had decided to go past the Wombeyan Caves on the way to Jenolan, in the map books it showed about 30kms of unsealed road but that other option was to backtrack to Goulburn (about 60kms longer trip) up to Oberon and miss out on the Wombeyan Caves, we didn't buy an offroad camper for nothing so decided to bite the bullet. We stopped to get directions at a servo and the girl there told me it was a pretty rough track, lots of potholes and with recent rain would be ordinary, but we decided to forge ahead, until we got to the turn off to the road and we were faced with a rather large sign 'No Caravans, Trucks or Buses'. Back to Goulburn.

We went through Taralaga, and faced another 'No Caravans' sign, this time we knew it was about 20kms of unsealed road with steep climbs, and we decided to keep going, the road ended up being sealed even though all of our map books indicated unsealed road, so that was a bonus and made it much easier going. We stopped for lunch at Abercrombie River which is at the edge of Abercrombie and Blue Mountains National Parks. After lunch we headed for Oberon and the Jenolan Caves. We were quite surprised to see SNOW on the side of the road as we went through Porters Retreat and Back Springs, as we hadn't heard any news for a few days we didn't know about the massive cold front hanging around mid-NSW. We got to a free camp spot about 15kms out of Jenolan Caves, another 'No Caravans' sign..... So parked for the night in a lovely spot with lots of nice big pine trees, lit our first campfire since Easter and settled in for the night, by the time the sun went down it was around 5 degrees outside (and not much warmer in our van).... Hutchy took a photo of the temperature guage at 7.00am when we got out of bed the next morning and it was -1 inside the van.