It’s July 2014 and we’re hoping to meet our friends G & S while we’re in the Cooktown area. G keeps trying to ring us but his phone cuts out. We drive out to Endeavour River Escape just north of … Continue reading Endeavour River Escape
Gunnedah in country NSW has a Dorothea Mackellar memorial because she was inspired to write part of her much loved poem “My Country” in 1905 when she visited one of her family’s properties at Gunnedah. The good folk of Gunnedah have taken things a little further by engraving poems on the backs of the public toilet doors. One can choose which poet they’d prefer to read as the names are on the outside of the door. Now after we compared our photos I have a sneaking suspicion that the poets match the gender of the toilet, but that is only … Continue reading Spending a penny and learning a lot
While we are in Emerald, Qld we must visit the gem fields. Anakie, Sapphire and Rubyvale are only 44kms west of here. Woody suggests that we check out the Sunday market as miners like to sell their finds at these. … Continue reading Fossicking on the gemfields
We stop at Causeway Lake near Yeppoon in Queensland and I chat to fishermen who are working the ebb tide. They show me how to use a bait pump and they are sucking Nippers out of the mud. Nippers look like a white yabbie half the size of your little finger but with one giant pink claw as long as their body. Soldier crabs skitter across the sand nervously even though no one is interested in them. The water from the lake gushes out to sea at a fair speed and the fish are biting. Those nippers must taste damned … Continue reading Causeway Lake
Last winter we had a forced stay in Yeppoon, Qld while we waited for a spare part for the car. Our RACV Total Care insurance covered the cost of a hire car while the Jeep was off the road. We caught the local bus out front of our caravan park at Mulambin and toured the suburbs of Yeppoon and all the way to Rockhampton airport ( a little over 40kms) where the hire car was waiting. Woody was right, the local bus was an interesting way to travel and the driver was teaching another driver the intricacies of the route. … Continue reading Civility Costs Nothing
Clermont is a sprawling and unmistakably Queensland town perched on a hill. There is a replica piano high in the crook of a gum tree as a reminder of the 1916 floodwaters that really did leave a piano perched 32 … Continue reading Piano in the Tree
There is a freedom camp at the Fisherman’s Park at Surat on the Balonne River where a gold coin donation for your stay buys the local fishing club fingerlings (baby fish) for future release into the waterway. There are a … Continue reading Surat, Qld
We were camped at Anglesea on Victoria’s south west coast and the weather was unseasonally cool. I was so tempted to just roll over and go back to sleep but with only one day of the holiday left I dragged … Continue reading Sometimes it pays to get out of bed
Remember our poor old mate ‘Toothless Johnno’ who lost a tooth from his dental plate whilst eating lunch in the sun? Well ‘Johnno’ rang his dentist to see how quickly he could get his dentures repaired because he is a police officer and he didn’t want to return to work looking more like one of the crooks. “Just bring the tooth in on Monday” said the dentist. ‘Johnno’ had to explain how the bird ate the tooth and that he won’t be bringing the bloody bird into the dentist’s office. “Hmm, it must have thought it was a piece of bread.” … Continue reading Scarce as hen’s teeth
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