Doug and Robyn's Vision

Sunday 11.11.2012

dougnrobyn — Sun, 11 Nov 2012 20:53:00 GMT

For the first time this week, we needed our doona on the bed about 4am! But it was a good night for our first real "freedom camp". Leaving the lookout with clear views in all directions, we drove to Quirindi, where we walked a fair way along their new walk/cycleway and across their new pedestrian bridge - definitely "pedestrian" because skate boarders, cyclists and horse riders have to dismount before crossing it! We sat in the car in Quirindi for a while and listened to a sermon of John Mason's which Doug had downloaded from their website.

Driving on, through Willow Tree into more familiar territory of the New England Highway, we stopped for morning tea at a rest area above Murrurundi, fuel in Muswellbrook and lunch at a rest area near the open cut mines north of Singleton.

Since the fridge and freezer at home were off, we went into Aldi at Kurri Kurri for some perishable food supplies and arrived home about 3.30pm.

We've done some unpacking and organising at home, including ringing the concreter to let him know we are home as arranged and check that he is still OK for tomorrow - only to be told that he was waiting for Doug to ring and let him know he was home to book us in! We came back a week early to be here for him tomorrow ... little bit annoyed!

All is well at home ... dry like many parts of the country we have visited. Only 7,200 steps today, but a few hours driving.

Over all, we are very happy with the motorhome. Felt a bit rushed at times and obviously not properly set up and organised yet. However, we are formulating some ideas to streamline living and storage in close quarters.

Saturday 10.11.2012

dougnrobyn — Sat, 10 Nov 2012 20:05:00 GMT

A quiet peaceful night's sleep at Lake Keepit. After vacating our site, we drove beyond where we'd walked last night to a lookout with expansive views over the lake and glimpses of the dam wall. We then slowly toured the eastern side of the lake where there is feedom camping allowed anywhere along that part of the lake. The tents and caravans were all about 200m apart. One of the caravaners was flying his radio controlled model sea plane which was interesting to watch. The couple, who are from the Central Coast chatted to us for a short while. One of their sons had a Tiger Moth radio controlled model plane too. There is also a gliding club on the hill behind, but we didn't see or hear any action from them, though we did see some glider trailers arriving last night - may have been too calm that early, not enough thermals.

From there, we went into Gunnedah. Morning tea, a quick pop into Woolies, a wander through the Christmas Fete in the Town Hall...lots of hand made stuff...many hours of work represented...lots of different community groups represented. Next was to do an interesting "Poet'sTour" around town - it was supposed to be a driving tour but as many were near the CBD on Saturday morning, we decided to walk to as many as we could. The poems are aimed at giving people an idea of life in country Australia. Because of where we could park the van, we started at the end of the list. We found the Lyrical Loos - with poems read continuously over a PA system, and the loo doors engraved/carved with bits of country type poems. Going in reverse we could not see the next 3, found one, couldn't find the next one...walked to the Visitor Information Centre to ask if it was still a current thing - found a newer leaflet - it still had the ones we could not find, and didn't have the one we had found! The lady said they are getting ready to reprint the booklet we were using and she'd have to check it out because we were the first ones to go to the VIC and say they couldn't find them. There were a few on our walk back which we did find - one in particular was very moving. After a late lunch and a lot of steps we gave up and did the Driving Tour of the town which tells you about places you're driving past. It was confusing in places but we saw a lot - including another poem & 2 lookouts. The expanse of the plains the town overlooks is amazing! In fact, we've since driven about 70kms across that flat plain to Quirindi via Curlewis (where my Grandpa & Grandma Ayrton once lived).

Late dinner tonight at the "Who'd a thought it Lookout" above Quirindi with views for kms in almost every direction. Robyn got some brilliant sunset photos - actually they look better than the real thing! (Amanda, remember sunset the enhancement we had on Norfolk Island? This was just like that.) We are planning to stay here for the night, on top of the world! Today's steps 12,283. Doug promised he'd buy me an ice cream when I do 20,000 in a day, so I'm still WAY short of that :-(

Friday 09.11.2012

dougnrobyn — Fri, 9 Nov 2012 21:01:00 GMT

Our night's sleep was slightly disturbed by light rain (batten down the hatches) but otherwise quiet and peaceful. It was a nice place to stay. After the morning routine, we drove around to the newer campsite - just to see what it was like. It was quite nice, though smaller, had a clearer view of the river but would have been harder to find level ground for a motorhome - may be meant for tenters.

Driving on through farming country, we stopped at Warialda Information centre. There were a few things we might have done there, but they all involved walking in the rain - so we've saved them for another day. Further south Bingara had a lookout, so we headed up, up, up to it on a very steep road. The view was extensive across the town and valley and we walked to another lookout section along a bush track 250m each way before having lunch. This gave the transmission fluid time to cool down - the warning light that it was too hot came on on the way up the hill ...well, I told you it was a steep climb up! It was a very steep descent too, but it was a sealed roadway, which helped.

Barraba was the next town on The Fossickers Way. We visited their Information Centre too and the supermarket for a few basic supplies. There was some rain and very dark clouds moving through the area. We had one flash of lightening and one clap of thunder and saw & heard no more. On the way south we went into two parts of Split Rock Dam but didn't really like them enough to want to stay, so we drove on to Manilla. It also had a lookout which we drove up too for nice views - the road up to it was less extreme than the previous one!

We then headed in the direction of Gunnedah, stopping at Lake Keepit State Park for the night. It is quite busy here, being a Friday. However, it is a very extensive area. After tea, we walked the length of the main part & back and that took nearly 4,000 steps - close to 3kms round trip. It's a nice fairly flat walk, and all the fcilities are stretched along the shores of Lake Keepit.

It is nearly time for the 10pm curfew on noise, so we'd better get this sent and get to bed.

Steps for today were 10,150.

Thursday 08.11.2012

dougnrobyn — Fri, 9 Nov 2012 18:39:00 GMT

Thursday 08.11.2012

Overnight at Coolmunda Dam Caravan Park, we heard only 2 trains - one while we ate tea and the other about 1am. The 3 peacocks squarked on and off all through the night (one of their cries sounds like "help"). Between the intermittent peacocks calls and the plethora of other birds which happily wake up with the dawn (c.4.30am) our sleep could be described as "disturbed". Most other human occupants (at least 6 caravans & 3 cabins worth) were gone by 7.30am, so there was no waiting in the amenities when we had showers after breakfast!

We drove southish passed the dam, through mostly dry scrub, flattish farming country through Limevale to Texas. A lookout a few kms out of town became our lunch spot and it had a narrowish view over Texas and the farmlands towards distant hills. The directions and signpostings weren't great, but we found it.

Crossing the QLD/NSW border just south of Texas, we continued through dry looking farming country through Bonshaw to Ashford. We picked up a few leaflets at the Tourist Information Office which is also the library, Post Office, & Multi Government agencies. Ashford is a small town, with a school, a pub, a garage cum general store, a few shops, a few empty shops, a swimming pool and some nice parks.

We decided to have a look at Kwiambal (pronounced Kigh-am-bal) National Park, about 20kms west and then about 20 north on dirt roads. Afternoon tea was in the picnic area from which we did the short walk to the Macintyre Falls on the Macintyre River. In the picnic area we watched a reasonably large lizard (maybe 750mm long) sniffing his way across in front of us. The falls are minimal at present, but there are some dramatic rocks which could be quite spectacular after rain, except the road in may well be impassable! After another walk to a different lookout, and another down to the rock pool (lots of formed steps but no rails), we drove to Lemon Tree Flat and decided it was to our liking for an overnight stay. It is a picnic/camping area managed by the National Parks & Wildlife Service. It is on the banks of the Severn River, probably 500m long x 75-100m wide, with lots of cleared area under trees and a number of wallabies/kangaroos (a few with joeys hopping near them).

A casual stroll along the length of it revealled a sign we'd not seen on the way in, about how to pay camping fees - that was a surprise as the leaflet we picked up in Ashford said there were no fees! It's only $10 for 2 per night, which is Ok - we were glad we had the right change though. After walking back to the van to get the money, we walked back to put it in the box. Another couple in a camper trailer arrived and set up camp about 100m away. Steps for today only come up to 7,657 and we are hoping for a reasonably early & quiet night.

You will not recieve this until we are back in internet connection zone - no mobile coverage here.

Wednesday 07.11.2012

dougnrobyn — Wed, 7 Nov 2012 20:31:00 GMT

Another leisurely start today after a good sound sleep last night. It is coming into daylight here at some ridiculous hour like 4.30am and there were some very vocal birds up early! While we were packing up, Doug noticed a very long line of cormorants stretched across the opening to the bay, and told me to go down towards the shore and photograph it. By the time I got there, one end of the line turned in towards us, and as I watched the right hand end of the group kept turning back on the line forming a V formation while those way off on the left end just stayed in place. Even from a few hundred metres awy, I could hear them paddling like crazy. They kept this going until the line was about half the length it had started at and then the left hand ones flew over to join the other side of the V, but they seemed to fly around the outside of the V shape rather than across the opening. Soon after there was a free for all of birds diving and flying around in what appeared to be a feeding frenzy. There were hundreds of them. What fascinated us was the straight line formation to start with and the beautiful choreography of the rest - and we wondered how they organise themselves so well. Anyway, that was s special sight to behold!

We emptied our grey water tank there and made sure the fresh water one was full.

The lookout over the town of Esk on the western side of Lake Wivenhoe was our morning tea stop after we had bought a few supplies at the local supermarket. These Queenslanders need to learn a bit more about lookouts - like lopping trees that block the view and plant replacements on the non-view side.

Lunch was overlooking a park with a lake on the other side of it in Gatton. This area of QLD that we've been in for the last 2 days is very dry, and the grass browned off. Quite a contrast to less than 2 years ago when they had a disastrous abundance of water. Also a contrast to our recent travels in south eastern NSW & Vic where things were quite lush and green.

From Gatton, we drove through some interesting contrasting landforms from rugged mountains to flat flood plains, wheat & other crop fields, sheep & cattle farms to Leyburn via Clifton. A dry but small, clean park with clean amenities was the afternoon tea stop. There were a few interesting things in the park...a Little model of a sprint car, memorial to the Z force from WW2 which was based near Leyburn, historic water pump and a sundial made from metal wheels - one of which came off the wagon that hauled the first load of alcohol between Leyburn & Toowoomba.

Continuing on via Karara towards Inglewood, we have stopped at Lake Coolmunda Caravan Park for tonight. It is busier here than the other places we've stayed and the railway line runs passed us about 50 metres or less away - we have had one goods train go by already. There are also 3 resident peacocks which were very noisy until they settled in their various trees for the night. Memories of Percy come flooding back!

Today's lesson in Motorhoming is...when you pack up your water inlet hose, make sure you also remove your brass connector from the tap. Oh well, at least our tank is full and it will be replaceable somewhere along the way!

Dinner, wash up, nightly blog - and our chores are done!

More kms than steps today - just 3735.

Tuesday 6.11.12

dougnrobyn — Tue, 6 Nov 2012 21:28:00 GMT

After a reasonable night's sleep, we did some more organising in the motorhome and had a look outside the windows. The Dayboro Showground was nestled in a nice valley and was quite picturesque.

After the leisurely start which included more organisation in our little house and morning tea, we left about 11am and drove to Mt Glorious. Silly us...amateur tourists...we expected a place with a name like that to have a great lookout! However, it is probably best described as being like Olinda area but not tourist shoppy. The road was much steeper, a smidge wider, no bicyclists, some motorcyclists, but the vehicle handled it all well. There was a nice park set up on the edge of the National Park on the site of an old sawmill. After eating lunch there, we walked through the fairly dry rainforest on a 3/4 hour, 2km loop walk. The "Wivenhoe Outlook" further up the road gave distance glimpsy views of the dam, and we did a short walk through the picnic area there. Coming off the ranges, our next stop was at Cormorant Park near the Spillway of Lake Wivenhoe - very expansive picnic areas really well cared for by Seqwater - had it almost to ourselves while we had afternoon tea and went for a long casual walk around and through maybe a quarter of it. Next stop was Lumley Hill Camp, where we set up before dark tonight - in one of 3 camping areas run by Seqwater on another part of Lake Wivenhoe. It is lovely here this week. It looks like there are about 45 campsites, only 3 of which are occupied tonight, so we're all well spaced apart!

On arrival, Doug set about the power and water connections.

Robyn has established Motorhoming Rule no 1: From this day forward, yoghurt gets priority placement on the door of the fridge.

Reason for rule no 1: it seems so logical with the wisdom of hindsight, but yoghurt does not always travel well on the main shelves of the fridge. If the lid is not a secure fit, it can be very wasteful and messy:-)

The great yoghurt cleanup of 2012 was followed by a less eventful evening meal, evening walk after dark (over 11,000 steps today), and a Big Blog 2 busy days catchup. Supper & sleep are next on our agenda.

Monday 5.11.12

dougnrobyn — Tue, 6 Nov 2012 20:48:00 GMT

John called in to our Motel about 7.30am to collect the paperwork for the NSW RMS to enable him to register the motorhome in Doug's name. As he left to drive it to Tweed Heads, we had our first glimpse of the real thing. We were excited, but it also didn't feel real!

Shortly thereafter, we caught a cab to the Europcar hire place in Clontarf - from which we had booked a small 5 door hatch vehicle for the day. After delivering our baggage to Dave's factory, we drove about 15kms to Westfield Shopping Centre at North Lakes - a huge complex in which we wore 1cm off our height trudging back and forth along the length of it buying in the supplies to set up the van (eg pillows, doona, crockery, cooking utensils - just a carload of the essentials!) We were at the complex by about 8.20am, and left about 1.15pm. We had morning tea and lunch there - it was like we'd moved in - well, we had our bedding and kitchen utensils, so why not? We also bought some basic non-perishable food, which turned out to be a good move.

Arriving back at Dave's factory, we were only about 10 minutes behind John getting back from the rego trip, so we were pleased with the timing estimate. Our motorhome is BS 84 ZR. Another couple on an investigation visit were being shown through it, so it was good timing for them too! We unloaded the hire car into Dave's office (it was a tad crowded in there!) with our luggage before Doug returned the car about 1.45pm.

Then things got serious. Dave did the tour of the motorhome's features and explained how everything works - it may be small but it took 3 hours. Robyn randomly loaded all the shopping into cupboards so we could drive safely without loose stuff everywhere - while Doug finalised things with Dave and bought the Comprehensive Insurance. When we were about to leave, we discovered the outside sensor light wasn't working and were delayed while Dave fixed it!

We had jokingly considered spending the night camped in his yard, but drove to Dayboro instead via the dam at Whiteside for a quick look before dark. Arriving at the Showground at Dayboro about 7pm in the dark, and shared the area with the caretaker in his van - so it was very quiet. We ate tea and spent until midnight getting all the shopping stuff in place, washing all the new crockery and utensils, lining the cupboards with the non-slip matting, unpacking our suitcases from home, made the bed and fell into it quite exhausted about midnight. (just under 11,000 steps today)

Sunday 4.11.12

dougnrobyn — Sun, 4 Nov 2012 19:39:00 GMT

After packing as much as possible last night, we were up by 6am to be ready for the hire car to pick us up at 7.10am and transport us to Williamtown Airport enjoying the minimal traffic. Everything happened in good time, the flight was on time - soon after we had climbed above the 2 or 3 layers of clouds to the 37,000 ft mark, we began our descent - arriving at Brisbane airport about 10 minutes after we left Williamtown because of the lack of daylight saving here. The taxi run from the airport to Margate was clear being 10am on a Sunday morning.

The motel let us into our room early to drop off our bags and have a cuppa. It is on the waterfront, with a great pedestrian/cycleway along the coast, so we "pedestrianed" off to Redcliffe Pier, stopping occasionally to watch sky divers land on the beach; take in the scenery including the well designed and extensive man made "lagoon" (big swimming pool and park area - all free and very well patronised today); marvel at the concentration of blue jelly blubbers on the beach that convinced us we don't want to swim here; found Sunday markets and huge crowds at Redcliffe. At Redcliffe, we enjoyed a Subway lunch at a picnic table under cover in the middle of the pier. Although this morning's flight was in or above cloud all the way, with rain patches around Brisbane, the skies cleared here to a glorious day. The extensive waterfront cycle/walkway (which goes beyond what we walked in both directions) and the parks and "lagoon" along the way were very well used by man and beast and bikes for walks, picnics, parties and rides. My step tally for today is 13,270. Marks along the walkway indicate we were taking 154 steps per 100 metres.

At 2pm (local time) we met Coral Moody (Amanda's friend who taught us Creative Memories when she lived in Newcastle) at a Coffee Shop and had a 2 1/2 hour catch up over coffee and milkshakes. She offered to drive us back to the motel, but we walked back buying dinner and sitting opposite the motel taking in the scenery some more before the sun disappeared. (Almost 13,500 steps today)

Preparation for the First Day

dougnrobyn — Sat, 3 Nov 2012 15:14:00 GMT

Saturday 03.11.2012.

Today we finish our work commitments before the final packing in preparation for Sunday Morning's Early Flight from Williamtown to Brisbane.

We are booked in to the same Motel that we stayed in on our initial investigation trip.