Travelling Around Australia: December 2011

15^th November 2011 til 2012

Well here I am again and this blog will be a little different as we have a bit of news. After leaving Emerald we headed towards Toowoomba with the aim of getting the car serviced. We travelled about 800 km’s that day as we couldn’t find a decent camping spot. It was getting really late, so we decided on a motel for one night. Unfortunately everywhere was booked out. We finally found a vacancy in a little town called Chinchilla. The Acacia motel is run by a young couple who have a delightful and clean establishment and provide a home cooked dinner and breakfast.

Toowoomba isn’t far from Chinchilla, so we arrived there before lunch on Wednesday and set up our camper trailer in The Garden City Big 4 caravan park.

While we were in Mackay, Greg and I decided to go home in the New Year and sell the house. We really love this life on the road and have decided to keep doing it for a number of years. Then when we were in Emerald we discussed the possibility of buying a caravan after we sell the house. We have really enjoyed our life in the camper trailer and have been able to visit a lot of places, but it really is not viable for long term travel. I would totally recommend one for weekends and annual camping holidays, but after living in one for 11 months, it becomes a bit tedious. It takes a while for us to fully set up and is not ideal for overnight stops. We always had to set up for at least 4 days or more to make it worth our while.

So the plan was to go home, sell the house, buy a caravan and take off again. Things changed a little in Toowoomba. After we had the car serviced, we decided to look at some caravans, just to get an idea of what was available. Well as it turned out it was the most expensive car service ever, as we ended up buying a van. We looked at a few and kept going back to the first one we saw, which is the one we bought. So our time in Toowoomba was spent organising the trading in of the camper trailer and the purchasing of the van. Along with other bits and pieces we needed to do to get the van on the road.

Not much to report on Toowoomba, except that it is somewhere I wouldn’t like to live. The shopping is fantastic, but the weather is ordinary. I really think Toowoomba forgot it was in Queensland. It was wet and cool and nothing like Queensland weather should be. After 23 days at Emerald with an average temperature of 35 degrees, we all of a sudden felt very cold. According to locals, cool weather is not unusual in Toowoomba. It can be very cold during the summer and particularly at Christmas. Pretty much like Geelong really.

So, about the van. It is beautiful, although the camper trailer was well equipped and very comfortable, the van is another story. We called the camper our Taj Mahal, but the caravan is our Imperial Palace. It is an Evolution, Luxliner, semi off road and 21ft 6ins long. It has a full ensuite, air conditioner, oven and microwave. I have included some photos at the end of this blog. This is our new home!

After spending too long in Toowoomba and finally organising everything with the van, we left on Friday 9^th December. Our first stop was an overnighter just south of Tenterfield, NSW. Yay, finally in Daylight Savings Time. My oh my how easy it was to set up for an overnighter in a van. Compared to the camper trailer it was a breeze. But Greg felt a little lost, he couldn’t believe that 15 mins after arriving, he could sit and have a brew. He kept thinking he had forgotten to do something.

Next day we headed further south to Armidale and set up for another overnighter at the Amaresq Dam Reserve about 18kms west of Armidale. Again it rained all day and night. When we will ever get a summer? Seems we were able to swim all winter, but are now wrapping up to keep warm for summer! I can imagine how nice it would be at this reserve if the weather was kind. Really nice facilities and perfect for all water sports. We packed up on Sunday morning and headed into town to do our Christmas shopping as it was the last major town we will be near prior to Christmas. We also stocked up on food and drink etc before heading to our next destination. A couple we met at Emerald told us about this great camping spot, about 34 kms north of Gloucester. It is called Bretti reserve, which is situated along the Barnard and Manning Rivers on Thunderbolt Way, (an appropriate name). It is only about 200kms south of Armidale.

What they didn’t tell us was how difficult the drive would be. We climbed at one stage to 1440 metres before descending to about 500 metres. That was the nature of the whole drive, up and down, up and down. This is very beautiful but extremely undulating territory. About 18 kms out from the camp spot we were still about 1300 metres above sea level. We couldn’t believe that we would be camping beside a river in a few kilometres. That is until the warning signs came up for the very steep and long descent. Oh dear, oh hell. How would the cruiser which had coped so well with the big climbs and descents for 100kms or so manage this. Not only that, the weather had turned bad, it was blowing a gale and pelting with rain.

Greg engaged in low gear, really low, 1^st gear to be precise and down we went. Slowly, very slowly and pulling about 2 and a half ton of caravan to boot. I was feeling a bit nervous, but had every faith in Greg, who later told me that in all his years of driving he has never been confronted with such a huge downhill run. The length of the descent was 11 kms. Phew! But we arrived safely and in one piece to a most beautiful camping spot. This is where we will be spending Christmas before heading to Forster on the coast to meet with Louy and Phil for the New Year. The only drawback to this site is there is absolutely no internet or phone service, so our plans of Skypeing family on Christmas day have been cancelled. We will need to travel the 34kms to Gloucester to make a phone call, so we will do that on Christmas morning before heading back to camp to enjoy our Christmas feast.

This will be our last blog until after the New Year. We hope you have all enjoyed reading about our travels in 2011. There will of course be more to come sometime in 2012 with many more new adventures for us to enjoy writing about.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish all our family and friends, and new friends who we have met during our travels this year, a very Merry Christmas and a safe and Happy New Year. We hope we can catch up with most of you at home in the New Year or somewhere in the great outdoors in 2012.

Cheers til 2012.