Our Last Day

WARWICK we are back where we had our first night on the 17th January 2009, where have the last 87 weeks and 1 day gone? It just feels like yesterday that we left home.

What an incredible adventure we have had travelling around this great land clocking up 78,000km’s of trouble free motoring. We will get a new windscreen on our return as have a chip and a crack and last week we got our first puncture caused by a splinter from some wooden edging in the caravan park, so can’t complain.

People ask where our favourite spot is and where could we live, a tough question, every area has great spots. In an ideal world it would be great to follow the sun and have a month or so in different spots, would have to include Coral Bay in WA for the snorkeling off the beach, Port Douglas here in QLD again for the beach and relaxed atmosphere. Northern NSW is also nice and you would have to spend some time in Tasmania, I could go on and on. There are too many spectacular sights to mention and must say we have done some great walks, alas haven’t lost any weight.

Have loved living in our house on wheels, it has everything that you want and makes it a horrible thought going to our storage shed next week and unpacking our ‘stuff’, can see another garage sale on the agenda.

The only thing we would do differently is that we would buy a satellite dish, Paul loves the TV and there are a lot of places where you only get two or three channels. As you can imagine having a laptop has been great and I have enjoyed sharing our days with the blog, thank you for following it. Thanks to the folks who have kept in touch, it has been much appreciated and nice to know that we weren’t forgotten.

It is now exciting that we are going home tomorrow and really looking forward to seeing Mum and Dad and friends who we haven’t seen since the first week of January this year. Have really loved not having a job and being footloose and fancy free so going back to reality and getting a job is daunting, fingers crossed that our lotto numbers come up.

If you are looking to travel anywhere and would like some hints and tips, just give us a yell.

Farewell for now from Mrs Cara Van and Paul until lap 2!

Our neighbours.

Back to the Darling Downs

THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE at Barcaldine acknowledges where the Labour Party, formerly The Australian Workers Party was formed after a shearers strike occurred here in 1891. The actual ghost gum tree by the railway station has now died and this monstrosity has been built around it.

HAPPY FARMERS  the outback has had some great rain and must say that it is the first time that we have seen green wheat. Even the road verges are green and some wild flowers are in bloom. This was north of Roma, we visited Roma last year so just having a night here and got to stock up at Woollies.

Outback Queensland

AUSTRALIAN STOCKMAN’S HALL OF FAME a great tribute to the pioneers and spirit of the outback. What a harsh life it must of been years ago, a bit easier these days with technology but certainly not everyones cup of tea.

QANTAS FOUNDERS MUSEUM fancy the airline setting up out here. Last year we visited the Cloncurry hanger which was the first destination and this was the head office, what a great vision the original owners had. At the museum they have a Boeing 747 that they were able to land here but due to the length of the runway it will never be able to depart.

BLACK HEADED PYTHON here at the caravan park in Longreach they had a cockatoo bird show and then a snake show. The snake was very warm and had a very shiny skin, funny feeling it’s muscles contract.

Bladensburg National Park

                                       

SCRAMMY GORGE just out of Winton. On the drive out here we saw a wedge tailed eagle having breakfast, lot's of red kangaroos, brolgas and a lizard. Driving from Hughenden to Winton there are cattle and sheep stations and one very bumpy highway.

If you carry on down the road you come to Lark Quarry where there are footprints of the only known dinosaur stampede in the world and these prints were used by Speilberg when he made the film Jurassic Park.

View from Scrammys lookout I reckon you expect to see giraffes and zebras on the plains below.

Dinosaur Country

PORCUPINE GORGE NATIONAL PARK, Hughenden The gorge is several hundred million years old and the area was home to dinosaurs when the area was an inland sea.

THE PYRAMID it was an easy 1.2 km walk down to the gorge for a gorge walk, although Paul looked like he was about to die once we got back to the top. Hard to imagine the amount of water that water that must have flowed through here in the past to create this solid wall on the bend in the 27 km gorge.

Yesterday we left the coast and turned inland at Townsville, it sure was nice to finally have clear blue skies on our way to Hughenden and then last night to see stars. Today has been really hot in the mid 30's. 

Australian Record

WALLAMAN FALLS is in behind Ingham and is the longest permanent single drop waterfall in Australia at 268 metres. As you can see there was mist from the valleys and would imagine that it hovers most days, the sound of the water dropping into the bottom pool was quite thunderous.

TAYLORS BEACH couldn't resist standing under this sign, as my old name.

Heading South

MISSION BEACH looking across to Dunk Island early yesterday morning. We were down there early to watch competitors set off in their kayaks for the island and back, then they did some biking and running, rather them than us.

There was one poor fellow who only made it about 50 metres in his kayak and tipped over about four times, paddled back to the shore and called it a day, he certainly had all the gear but no ability, so better luck next year.

LUCINDA JETTY Lucinda is 25kms east of Ingham and there is a lot  of sugar cane in the area with Victoria mills the largest in the southern hemisphere. Here the jetty is 6kms long to take the sugar away. As you can see it is another overcast day, won't complain when you look at what other areas are going through.

CURLEW there are about 25 of them around the caravan park, they make a real crying noise and we have been warned to expect that tonight. We don't mind the sounds of nature, there must of been about a thousand frogs croaking during the night at Mission Beach.

                                               

Curlew nesting.