Road trip to the Sunshine Coast

It's taken a visit from the Dusty Camper to break the drought in South East Queensland.  Torrential rain followed us most of the way from Grafton inland to the border. The sun came out  in the afternoon as we arrived for a night at Toollum Falls This was the first water over the falls in 8 months and the talk of the nearby town of Urbanville bringing the locals came out for a look. 

The sun continued to shine into the afternoon and there was some excellent birding, of note some Golden Whistlers and Lewins Honeyeaters in good numbers as well as a huge Diamond Python curled up beside the path.

We have used the Camps book (7th edition) to find these great out of the way sites. After a smooth trip, this Brisbane we arrived  at Chez Seidl at Yandina in time for a delicious home grown lunch on the verandah.

Capertee Valley

We left Narooma on Sunday morning, with the view of making it to Abercrombie River NP by evening. After a stop at Surf Beach to catch up with my mum and dad and to wish mum a happy 91st birthday for next month we were back up the Clyde and on the road to Goulburn by early afternoon. 

The road through to Oberon is almost all sealed except for a few patches of bone shattering coregations. We reached our destination at Bummaroo Ford (camps no 430) around 4 o'clock and were lulled to sleep by the sounds of Powerful Owls calling down the valley.

Apart from a semi trailer roll over we had an in eventful drive through to Lithgow and on to Wallerawang

Where we stopped for a cuppa and to our delight found that the rest area loos also has hot showers, does it get any better?

Our next stop was the birding mecca of NSW the Capertee Valley. This beautiful valley is largest enclosed valley in the world and the home of the elusive Regent Honeyeater. We camped at Glen Davis (camps 381), a community run site. A great spot, run on the honesty box - donation. Our only neighbours were a couple of twitchers, looking to tick of the Honeyeater.

Posting this on the road north of Grafton it's raining so we have decided to leave the coast and find some fine weather.

Road trip planning

Mr P is back from his fishing trip to the coast and Dusty is in need of an overhaul inside and out before next setting of on our road trip, north to Queensland.

First things first, curtains and seat covers were stripped out and put in the wash, this was a long overdue chore.  We will need to go out to Fyshwick tomorrow to get the shower tent and pump. I think Anaconda will be out best bet for these. Monday it's new tyres and a trip to Bitch'n stitch' for the privacy screen for the Fiama awning.

We are hoping to get down to Narooma next Saturday for the school reunion and a catch up with friends before hitting the road north on Sunday. Our first stop will be the popular birding spot at Capertee Valley, driving up through Goulburn to Bathurst will also by pass Sydney.

Stay tuned for more reports.

Snowy Mountains Road trip - Canberra Day Long Weekend.

Like a lot of Canberrans we made the most of the 3 day weekend, to take a break from the city. The weather at the coast was predicted to be wet and windy, no better excuse was need to head the hills. We were on the road by 8am on Saturday morning and made a stop in Cooma, I love a good Tourist Information Centre. All those free maps and  the local bird list. Our destination was the thermal pool at Yarrongabilly Caves in the Kosciusko National Park, via Adaminaby and Kiandra.

I forgot to take the camera down with us, so this image is uploaded from the Internet. The pools are down a steep track from the car park, the walk takes about 15 minutes on the way down and was a bit of a trek back up taking us twice as long. We enjoyed the afternoon swimming in the 27 degree water, despite a couple of showers of rain. There is no camp site at the pools so we drove on to the site of old township of Yarrongabilly, to a great little camp site beside the river.

Although we saw lots of warning signs and poo on the road we didn't see any of the reported 7,500 brumbies running wild the the park.

The VW really went well and ate up the hills arriving at the camp in time to get the fire going before dark. We were relieved when this storm passed to the north, entertaining us over dinner with a lightening show.

The drive through the mountains to Tumut follows the side of the Blowering Reservior, most of the campsites along the way were patronised by water skiers, so we decided to continue on stopping for lunch at the 24 hour RV camp at Gundagui. This site is really interesting as it under Gundagui's beautiful old wooden  bridges, you can just make out the railway bridge in the background..

Sunday night was spent at the great camp at Jugiong Showground. This is a very clever move by the showground trust and the Harden Shire Council, to bring grey nomads into the area. Thus tapping those tourist dollars.

I had a great paddle up the Murrumbidgee River while Mr P peddled around the town. Our camp spot was beside the river complete with a camp fire. We were able to burn some more of our supply fence posts we carry in the Venter. 

We very happily made a donation for our nights stay.