With the car serviced and the moho heater fixed, we could finally decide which direction we wanted to go. North west away from the coast and the upcoming school holiday crowds obviously!
On my endless list of Places To Go, Dusty Hill Vineyard in Moffatdale appeared close by. Of course when we got there mid Wednesday, it’s closed, so we called the private campground next door and spent the night next to a lake with only 2 caravans sharing the long shoreline.
Dusty Hill wine tasting happened the next day, and with a bottle of their merlot, we had the beef pie special in the restaurant.
One problem with not pre-planning anything is that you end up having to adjust where you thought you might go if it isn’t possible. We had thought to go to Blackdown National Park, but Google told us it was closed due to road maintenance. Same with Nuga Nuga NP. We’ve been to Carnarvon Gorge before but thought we might as well see it again and called them. No vacancies, anywhere, but we were 3rd on the wait list for Sandstone Park campground. Luckily, they called the next day before we had driven too far away.
Remembering the aching muscles of our last hiking trip at Carnarvon, we decided the best approach, if we wanted to see everything, was to put off doing the side trails on the first day and just head straight down the main track and see the Cathedral Cave, Boowinda Gorge and the Big Bend at the end.
That was a 20km, 36000 step, round trip with 17 creek crossings, and required a full day of recovery, before tackling the side trails on the 3rd day, called Boolimba Bluff, the Moss Garden and the Amphitheatre, where we met Jennifer a lovely Spanish girl volunteering for the National Park in order to become a ranger and get her permanent residency.
On leaving after the 4th night, we checked out Mickey Creek which is another shorter walk just before the Carnarvon entrance but also a lovely walk.
We still wanted to head north west to get to the warmer and hopefully less crowded areas. Next stop for 2 nights was Emerald and the gemfields of Rubyvale and Sapphire. We have been here before and have to say Rubyvale hasn’t changed with lots of little home based shops selling their rough and cut and polished multi-coloured sapphires mostly set in 9ct gold or silver, for prices almost as outrageous as in the city. Having previously bought my souvenir sapphire ring on the last trip here, I managed to avoid the temptation to buy another. The photo is the 25m high Van Gogh painting in the park at Emerald.
At Tambo there’s a free camp by the Barcoo River which is 15 minutes walk into town. This town is famous for the Tambo Teddies shop which handmakes teddy bears from sheepskins. We didn’t buy any teddies but did buy 2 sheepskins to sit cosily on our camp chairs. When we got back to our campsite, we found 2 guys, John and James, parked up near us in their campers, one of which was another Explorer (#522 Snailspace). We had a good chat and compared notes on our solar set ups. James has installed a really high tech 48V system in his Explorer which we are envious of, since we don’t seem to be able to get ours fully charged unless we are plugged in at a caravan park. After much poking around, John seemed to think we may have an issue with 1 or 2 of our solar panels not being connected up properly. Another thing to check out 😦 We might learn something from the little ramshackle house we saw in Tambo that had more solar panels than most modern houses.
In the evening, we headed into town for Ben’s Chicken Racing at the Royal Carrangara Hotel. They have a free minibus that picks people up from the free camp, and the racing often attracts 200 people! It was the best night and well worth the detour to this little outback town. Check out Ben’s Chicken Racing videos on Youtube.
We made a detour to the Lara Station and Wetlands when I saw the billboard on the road to Barcaldine, having heard of it before. It’s the end of the QLD school holidays, so Saturday night was full when they had a country singer and a lamb stew cooked over a campfire for everyone. Many of the caravans left the next morning, so we moved to a spot closer to the wetlands and we could check out the birdlife. There’s also a natural artesian hot pool here – another reason we couldn’t resist.
With the daytime temperatures here around mid 20’s, and BOM weather warnings for home saying there’s wind, frost, hail and temperatures barely hitting 12 degrees, we’re not in a hurry to leave Queensland yet.
Travelling Old Farts 