ON OUR FIRST TRIP TO AUSTRALIA BACK IN ’04 we drove around New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia for 3 months in an old Ford Falcon and camped in a tent. And we loved it. In 2012 we graduated to a series of Toyota campervans — a month each in Western Australia, Northern Territory, Tasmania and Queensland. We loved that even more.
Where we laid our heads in "The Good Old Days"
This time we driving a rental sedan and staying in hotels, motels, B&Bs and lodges. Wherever we lay our heads is our home. Wyndover Mountain Retreat has set the bar pretty high but booking.com, our go-to website, hasn’t let us down. Each place has had its own charm aas long as we're together.
Suites at Amamoor Christine and Malcolm
Chester . . . and the Chicken
Amamoor Lodge is convenient to Amamoor State Park and the all-purpose Amamoor General Store/Post Office. Malcolm and Christina have done a wonderful job while Chester, the border collie and the resident chicken patrol the grounds and keep things lively.
Our Villa Dr. Alex's Ad Campaign
Ingenia Holiday Resort in Hervey Bay is actually a caravan park with several duplex “villas.” Ours had 2 bedrooms, a full kitchen and excellent wifi. It’s near two shopping centers where we booked airline tickets to Cairns, shopped for groceries and toiletries and got much needed haircuts. It’s also home to Dr. Alex, an on-call chiropractor who adjusted John’s aching back.
Phil and Sonia Beerwah Retreat
Phil and Sonia have been flogging their Beerwah Retreat guest suite on booking.com. for only a couple of months to rave reviews. They are treating us like actual guests in their wonderful home and we’re not sure how we feel about it. I think we prefer to be less visible but we can’t complain about the level of comfort. Phil keeps offering me beer or wine — I think he doesn’t like to drink alone — and they even prepared a barbecue for us last night — steak and snags, of course. We talked about returning to "house sit" when they go on some future trip.
Beach Thick-knee A K A Stone Curlew
We’ve had to skip Sonia’s “full English” breakfasts in order to get an early start on birding. Some of the hotspots Connie has found are a bit of a drive. Of course there is construction and Matilda, our GPS, calmly warned “You are driving the wrong way on this road,” when we diverted to the other side of the freeway. It was worth the drive, though. After years of searching we finally saw our first Stone Curlew, aka Beach Thick-knee. Please forgive the photo — it was more than 100 meters away. Maybe these other pictures will make up for it.
Pheasant Cuckoo
Bronze Mannikins
Blue-faced Honey-eater
