28th April 2018–Rolleston

Distance: 314 km

Foggy again this morning.

Rather an uneventful drive only stopped a couple of times on the way.

A traffic jam!

The country was very brown yet here and there in the midst of the brown were full dams.

Rolleston is a very small town with one fuel stop and two pubs. It is Saturday so even the workers have gone home.

Once I had unhitched I took the opportunity to get my laundry done; the machine here was only $4 and it was dry within a couple of hours so I am good for nearly a week again.

Will get fuel in Emerald tomorrow – at Rolleston it is one stop for everything.

Like a lot of small towns businesses have closed.

4th November 2107–Texas to Goondiwindi

Distance: 145Km

Did my washing this morning so that I have enough clean clothes to get me home. Didn’t leave the park until after 9am but it didn’t matter we were only going to Goondiwindi which is only about 100km away.

First stop was Texas Rabbit Works. Now a museum but for a very long time, until myxomatosis wiped out their business, it was a thriving industry from the 1930’s until it closed in 1992. It provided rabbit meat, pelts and fur for hats. There was a video showing the whole process of making an Akubra hat. BTW Akubra now have to import rabbit fur.

Still had the cooling rooms with massive pipes carrying the ammonia coolant, the steam engine and the cooling compressors. It was well worth the visit and cheap at $7.

BTW I have absolutely no idea what sort of boiler that was, too much is missing.

The journey to Goondiwindi was along minor roads shadowing the border with NSW. They were in good condition and made the Gwydir Hwy look like a goat track.

Arrived at a suitable caravan park at about midday and booked in. I had wondered whether it being a Saturday would cause problems but even late afternoon the park is largely empty, about a dozen vans and tents.

Set up quickly and went into town to look around. First stop was Gunsynd’s Memorial on the banks of the Macintyre River.

Nearby was the Tree of Knowledge, not the Labor party version but a tree where he locals came to view the possibility of flooding which happened regularly before the 1956 levee was built however the levee has been over topped a few times since.

Drove into NSW across the ‘historic’ bridge (the river is the border) past the old Customs House from the days when NSW and Queensland were separate colonies.

BTW there is an election on both sides of the bridge; the Queensland State election has been called while on the other side Barnaby Joyce’s New England byelection is happening.

Bought a 6 pack to top up my depleted beer supply then drove and walked around the town checking out the landmarks and weighing up the options for tonight’s meal. Two Chinese or a Thai restaurants are currently favourite.

Dinner

After a shower ventured back to town for food. Decided to try the Chinese Malaysian restauant Bao Bao. It was very good and reasonably priced; $46 for the two of us – main meals, desert, tea and a beer.

18th May 2017–Rambling.

Distance: 10 km
Fuel: 29 L

Had a day off! It was a chance to get the doona covers, pillow cases and odd items of clothing washed, plan the rest of my journey in WA and think about how I am going to go through Queensland. Because there will be no adventures or sights to cover I will just ramble on about this and that.

But first… What did I do today?

Visited Tom Price’s Coles fairly early this morning to get ice and milk but I needed to go again later when the grog shop was open to top up with another six pack and also buy fuel at the service station for tomorrow.

One thing is for sure; if I do nothing else when I get back home it will be to install a fridge freezer and battery system in the back of my car because even at the local Coles ice is $6.50 a bag.

By the time I returned to the caravan park people were packing up their vans, I am not surprised that women live longer than men. Inspite of the blokes often having much worse mobility issues than me they always dismantled the various connections, rolled up the awning, carried the dunny can to the dump station and connected the caravan with all its anti roll paraphernalia to the car without any help from their wife (and I mean absolutely no help at all). It appears that, from my observation, equality of the sexes is alien to caravan life among the grey nomads. BTW, almost within the hour of writing that a couple in their late 30s or early 40s arrived and set up their camper trailer, the lady was as involved as the man in its set up so it must just be an age thing.

Last night I watched the latest version of “The Magnificent Seven”, it wasn’t bad but I hope that no-one gets it into their head to remake “High Noon” or “Casablanca” because the original was still better. I warned you I would ramble.

Good and Bad

OK, now that I have been living in my camper continuously for four weeks I am getting a handle on its good points and its bad.

The Good:

The bed is really comfortable; my thick doona, thin doona and sheet selection works well. I sleep well – never too hot or too cold.
The camper is easy to tow, easy to set up and easy to prepare to move. The reversing camera makes a big difference to hitching it up unaided. Caravans, mobile homes, camper trailers all have different disadvantages, there is no perfect set up.
The Bunning’s table and white plastic chair are a good combination I never get the folding camping chair out now.
The $10 toaster was a great buy. The combination of toaster, electric jug and microwave is all I need, never get the gas stove out (obviously that would change if there was no powered site available)
Having the HDD with movies and TV shows was a good idea because by about 9.30/10pm just about everybody in these parks is asleep however what does surprise me is that they are not early risers – I shower when the sun comes up – rarely see more than one other person about.
Sunrice microwave meals are brilliant when there is no club or bistro nearby – they only take about 90 seconds to cook. After the disaster of trying to carry eggs I have decided that preparing food is just too much trouble.
The cheese, jam and peanut butter I carry are handy for sandwiches/toast. (Bleeding obvious really)
Paper plates, disposable spoons etc save a lot of washing up (I didn’t say I was ecologically sound).
The gazebo is really good too as is the side sheet I bought for it but if I am only staying one night I don’t bother putting it up. One thing I try to remember is to take it down the evening before I move on. Ideally I do it as the sun is about to set – ie just before it gets dark. It makes preparing to leave in the morning so much easier if it is already packed away

The Bad.

The Esky – Bad, bad, bad! The bane of my life. As that is the worst thing you can see that life is pretty good really.
The camper really needs a vent to allow air in for the roof vent fan to extract when the glass outer doors are closed (say for rain). This hasn’t been a problem on this trip but it could be.
I haven’t used any of my pots, pans or rice cooker, it is too easy to go out for a meal or have a pre-prepared one, toast or a sandwich.

Things I just don’t get.

There is nothing wrong with these things it is just that I don’t understand them.

I am surprised by the number of people who have said to me something along the lines of, “We are staying here for another 11 days then we are having a fortnight in XXX”. What on earth do they do for all this time? I can understand if you have kids then longer in one place is probably better but 10 days? a fortnight? When I was a kid we used to go for a week at a guesthouse (B&B?) but by the end of the week you had exhausted the charms of the place, in fact, even a week at Butlins was enough.
The couple next to me moved this morning, I asked them where they were going. It turns out they are going to the caravan park in the National Park I visited yesterday. I wonder why? it is 50km away, you can drive there in 30 minutes without lugging a ruddy great caravan with you. As I say I don’t get it.
Car cleaning: some people of all ages seem obsessed with cleaning their car and/or caravan. Remember I mentioned a terrific van that fitted on the back of a flat bed ute? As the fellow was preparing it his wife was wiping every external surface she could reach, as he lowered it onto the ute she was busily cleaning the jacks even as they retracted. Another fellow after spending an hour washing and polishing his car then cleaned his off road caravan’s wheels and tyre blacked all the tyres (I mean, he carried tyre black with him on holiday??) – Yes, I know this says more about me than them, I have had my car for two years and cleaned it twice.

That’s it; all my raving has finished.

16th May 2017 – Onslow to Tom Price

Distance: 489 km
Fuel: 53 L

One of the things I like about this camper is how easy it is to pack up when you need to leave a site – literally the biggest job is dismantling the TV aerial. I had a fair distance to travel today so I was ready to move just after 8am.

The first part of the trip was retracing my steps south for 100km before turning off toward the Hamersley Range and Tom Price the mining town. It was nice to get away from the flat coastal plains.

I was soon set up at the Tom Price Tourist Park. Even got some laundry done.

13th May 2017–Rest Day

Distance: 27 km
Fuel: 20 L

As soon as the sun was up I had my dirty clothes in one of the park’s washing machine so that by the time I had a shower and breakfast they were ready to hang on the line.

Spent a leisurely morning watching the happy campers pack up their gear and move off. One that did impress me fitted on the back of a flat bed crew cab ute. I have seen them before but did like the way the jacks ran on electric motors and basically all he had to do was reverse the ute underneath.

Once I tired of all this activity I took off to find Chinaman’s Pool a local shady picnic spot by a billabong.

Spend a little time sitting by the water watching the water birds but I think it was a bit overgrown for too many people to use. Anyway after spending a while there I drove into town to walk further along the tramway track.

The area is supposed to be teeming with wild life but apart from seagulls I saw little evidence of it, there were more birds in the caravan park.

Suddenly it was past lunch time and I stumbled across a fish and chip shop, not exactly the seafood I had in mind yesterday but I was hungry. It turned out a good choice; for $9 I had two big, tasty pieces of flake and more chips than I could eat. Good meal.

Did some shopping to top up on quick meals, fruit plus some other groceries, by the time I filled up with fuel the afternoon was nearly over.

Back at the caravan park I got on the phone and booked a site at a place called Onslow for tomorrow night. I read the brochure for Exmouth and it seemed to cater for the swimming, fishing, snorkelling and boating mob so decided to give it a miss… Onslow has some ruins.

Before I knew it it was getting dark… Odd, yesterday I did a lot more sightseeing etc but today just seemed to fly past. Oh BTW… haven’t seen a cloud for days.

Smile