June 2018 We are in Bramston Beach, Qld and we are up early to hit the road and indeed ready to go early but we find that the van is stuck behind a tree. We must unhook, reverse the car at a 45 degree angle and hitch up again to get it out. Which begs the question, how did we get it in there in the first place? Continue reading Where did that tree come from?
As there is only one small store in Bramston Beach where we are staying we drive into Babinda for newspapers (yes, Woody is an old fashioned kind of guy). Babinda is a typical Queensland town with mainly wooden Queenslander houses, a large wooden pub and a colourful cafe bursting to the seams with people having Sunday breakfast. The breakfast looks good. There is a rather solid concrete toilet block in the park. The sign says that it was originally built as an air raid shelter in 1942. I guess if it can withstand a bomb it can handle a good … Continue reading A Bomb Proof Dunny
May 2018 In Cobar, NSW our favourite freedom camp the Newey Reservoir has been closed, but a kind local directs us to the skate Park which has now become the unofficial freedom camp. The story goes that thanks to a … Continue reading Cobar Skate Park
Billabourie in central NSW, is more of a farmstay than a caravan park. It is 10 kms down a good gravel road and on the way in we spot a fox feasting on roadkill. The camp is set in amongst … Continue reading Shattering the peace
Tiny cotton bushes line the Kidman Way with healthy balls of cotton on them. We buy meat at Milnes Butchery in Hillston, NSW and the butcher is so proud of his caramelised onion sausages that he opens the bag wide for Elle to smell them. Back on the road it’s hard work being a navigator as our next camp isn’t easy to find. To make things worse there is a lot of chatter on the CB radio. There are warnings to give our mates behind of ‘roos and emus and carcasses on the road. Woody keeps asking where the turnoff … Continue reading Everybody’s talkin’ at me
May 2018 By the time we arrive in Kyneton,Vic the temperature has dropped to a chilly 11 degrees. The town is busy with puffer jacketed families out celebrating Mother’s Day. We buy a coffee and a particularly good curry pie from Grist Bakery while we wait for our mates to catch up. The pie is so good that we buy one for Elaine and keep it warm on the dashboard using the windscreen demister, as they drive through town Woody stands on Piper Street and passes the pie through the window to Elaine with a perfect relay pass. That would … Continue reading The Kyneton Pie Relay
In the Clare Valley of South Australia not far the small village of Mintaro, think appealing stone buildings, autumnal vineyards of gnarly vines, long lunches and complex rieslings, is this handsome Georgian style mansion. It was built in 1879 by a sheep farmer. A 21 year old sheep farmer, Edmund Bowman. For the movie buffs Martindale Hall featured in the movie ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’ in 1976. Continue reading Martindale Hall
Call it what you will. Princes, Pacific, Bruce, Eyre, Bass, Stuart, Great Northern, Savannah Way, but Highway One which encompasses many state highways is 14,500 kms long. It is the longest national highway in the world and known to most as ‘The Big Lap’. In comparison the Trans Siberian Highway is 11,000kms long. From deserts to snow capped mountains, from dry savannah to lush rainforests, from bustling cities to remote outback roadhouses, from multi lane highway to dirt road this is a road that has everything including a lot of roadkill. Source Wikipedia Image By Evad37Original author of GIS data:© … Continue reading Highway One
Every night I wake up to go to the loo and I wonder where the hell we are. In fact I refuse to go back to bed until I actually work out where we are. Between that and the neck exercises sitting on the loo is quite busy. The next thing I know it’s morning and I go through the whole thing again. Cunnamulla? No. Quilpie? No. Burra? No wrong trip. Oh shit I know it’s Cairns…isn’t it? Continue reading Where the heck are we?
In the Fort O’Hare camp ground at Dartmoor, Vic I wander down to the Glenelg River to take a few photos and sit on the wooden landing. Another camper sits beside me and we start chatting about this and that. It turns out that we went to high school together. Small world yet again. Continue reading If we went to school together can you put your hand up?
