It's been a while .... yes, we're still travelling


we’ve been a tad slow getting this edition out. Maybe we’re taking the cruzin’ a bit too seriously, cos we haven’t been doing a lot and yet we keep running out of time each day.

Since our stay at the amazing Carnarvon Gorge, there has been a lot of lazing around at some pretty decent campsites. They’ve included:-

Emerald – we stayed again at Higher Ground Home Stay, owned by our favourite eccentric, Kathy (the one with heaps and heaps of ride on mowers, most not working). 

John caught his first red claw for the season and was so excited.

It’s a tiddler which made the whole event rather pathetic, but he was happy! 

Bedford Weir – we’d heard about this place repeatedly, so headed there for a few days. Imagine our delight when we ran into one of our absolute favourite couples from last year as we walked around the area. Not only was it lovely to see them, they gave us more “secret spots” to check out on our way north.

Theresa Creek Dam – the photos are almost the views from our front door (well, to be accurate, from our only door).

Another few days socialising and generally being slovenly was just what we needed and we grasped it firmly before packing up and moving on from this little piece of paradise..

Blackwood National Park – a “nothing in the middle of nothing” with no one else around, and yet another great spot albeit only as an over-nighter. 

Charters Towers area - instead of staying with the herds of nomads at Fletcher Creek 40km north of Charters Towers, we stayed at an all-but deserted spot only 20km out which is 100 times nicer. 

The folks we ran into at Theresa Creek told us about this spot and why few others stay is beyond us. No risk of flooding, no crocs, no "feral locals", everything about the spot was perfect. We also had yet more delightful neighbours ... everywhere we've been truly lucky with camping nearby great people.  

Burdekin River – this was a chance find and what a gem. One of the true joys of travelling this way is is going wherever your wants take you and this is a great example. We nearly drove on by, deciding on the spur of the moment to stop and explore. Where we first pulled up was a quiet but unspectacular spot. We drove on a bit and what was going to be a one arvo/night stop turned into two and we could have stayed much longer.

We’ll also remember it as being just after the world’s longest cattle grid (a couple of hundred metres, they really don’t want the cattle from either side to mix). OK, so it was presumably because the river kept washing away the traditional-style bridges). Pretty exciting stuff overall, as we actually got to use 4WD to get in.

On the road again, we had the perfect opportunity to top up the fuel tank at Greenvale a few km’s later but did we? Having driven off the highway into the town, it would be an obvious thing to do but in all the excitement ...... the last 100km into Mount Garnett was not the most relaxed – cruise control off, 75km/hr on the flat, whatever up the hills, no braking downhill and A/C off. We rolled into the servo with less than a litre remaining in the fuel tank. Maybe the boy will learn some day!

Our next stop is Archer Creek at the start of one of our favourite places, the Atherton Tablelands which we will cover in the next blog when we can spare the time from our busy schedule.

Cheers for now,

J&J