On The Road Again

I can’t believe the last blog I wrote was almost a month ago!  The time has just flown by.  And now … where do I begin to fill you in on all that we’ve done since our fantastic time at Palm Cove. Let’s see (and I hope I can remember all we’ve done) - when we left Palm Cove we went to…..

Herberton … my cousin Bill and his wife Hilde have a holiday place at Wondecla just outside Herberton. Bill travelled from his home in Bright, Victoria, to do some work on the property while we were there so we were able to have ‘smokos’ and dinner with him every day and a couple of trips out.  We went to the local museums, the Crater, visited family in Atherton again … coz like bad pennies we kept returning to Chris and Keith’s (we just felt so much at home with them that we kept going back for meals and swims!!)  We had a lovely farewell meal with Phil, Kayleen and Sheree, Judy, Murray and Kirsty and Bill at The Brothers Club in Cairns and Geoff and I stayed at Phil and Kayleen’s that night …. Ohhhhhh bliss ………… the bed was sooooo soft and soooooo big compared to what we’ve got used to in our little van!  And I had  my first bath in 3 months … heaven!!! 

We’d left the van at Rocky Creek up on the Tablelands at Janice and Charlie’s place (Janice is my cousin Win’s daughter).  They have a mango farm and were having a few problems with the mango slicing machine so Geoff volunteered to take a look at it for them - in return for a couple of nights free camping in their garden!  Anyway - to cut a long story short - the problem was solved and Geoff enjoyed thinking of new ways to help make the whole mango slicing/drying process more productive and efficient leaving Janice time to do her nails!! (sorry - in joke there).  And we enjoyed getting to know Janice and Charlie and their lovely children Brendon and Katelyn.

It was strange leaving Janice and Charlie’s because we’d always had a “plan” - we had always known where we were going and we’d spent a lot of time recently with or near family too.  Now we were leaving and the only plan we had was Brisbane for Christmas.  We didn’t think we had any family in between so we actually felt a bit like we were out on a limb. 

 

So from Rocky Creek we drove down to Innisfail which was going through a terrible thunderstorm at the time - so we kept on going!  From there we went to a campsite several kms south of Townsville called Alligator Creek where we did our laundry etc before setting off again the next morning for Charters Towers and the Goldfields.  On the way there we free camped on the banks of the Burdekin River at Macrossan Bridge for a couple of nights - where unknowingly Geoff set the generator right on an ants nest!  He came back in to the van a funny colour after dancing around trying to get rid of them!  We did some shopping at Charters Towers and visited the gold mining museum - marvelling at what the miners endured in the 1800’s.

We arrived in Claremont and booked in at a site for 2 nights thinking that we would move on pretty quickly.  However - we then discovered that my cousin Dave and Lynn were managing a camp site at Blackall - about 130 kms south west of where we were.  So arranged to go to stay with them for a few days.  On Friday morning we packed up the van and drove out of the site to the local information shop to check that the roads etc were ok for us to travel.  There’d been some heavy rain over the past few days but it was a lovely sunny day so we couldn’t see there being any problem.  We were told in no uncertain terms that there was no way we would get out of Claremont.  The storms out west had caused rivers and creeks to break their banks and roads were up to a metre under water.  So - turn around and back to the site to book on for another night - which turned out to be another three.

Dave told me that Sharon and Clint (by cousin Dot’s daughter) lived in Claremont and I should give her a call.  I felt a bit cheeky - but my other cousin Geoff in Brisbane gave her a call and she appeared at the camp site on Saturday afternoon inviting us round for a meal on Sunday night.  Clint and Sharon and their children, Bronson and Jacqui were lovely and we spent a great evening with them and discovered we had so much in common.  We’re so glad that we were able to meet them.  And they had a Christmas tree up so I actually felt a little bit Christmasy!! 

While at Clermont we also met up with a couple who were into gold detecting in a big way - I’ll do a separate blog about ‘gold’ - but it was so lovely to be invited into their home and for them to show us their finds - what truly lovely, friendly people!

We were stuck in Claremont for 5 days due to the heavy rain - although we actually had really hot sunny days while we were there. And even on Monday morning when we were told we could get out of Claremont we couldn’t get to Blackall to Dave and Lynn. Our way out was to back track all the way to MacKay on the coast adding another 6 hours to our plan.   It’s a shame we didn’t get to see Dave and Lynn but we didn’t want to take the chance of being stuck in Blackall if further rains then prevented us leaving there - and according to locals, that was a big possibility. Again vicious thunder storms at Rockhampton decided us to keep on going - and we free camped at Sharon just outside Bundaberg.

We’ve done a fair bit of free camping over the past few weeks - we have a generator so we’re able to have some electric - but out of courtesy to other campers tend to switch it off at 8pm as it’s a bit noisy.  So lots of early nights!

Now we’re at a paid site just outside of Bundaberg, right opposite the beach.  The weather’s hot and sunny and I think we’ll probably spend a few days here enjoying the holiday atmosphere again.  It’s hard to believe that Christmas is just a couple of weeks away and so strange with it being hot and sunny - especially hearing of all the snow back home! 

And our plan for the next week or so is to travel slowly down the coast to Brisbane to Geoff and Janelle’s for Christmas.