Last Blog Post From Australia

So after nearly 10 months this will be the last post from Australia.
We both fly home tomorrow and with that comes the end to our one year long holiday!
We both are amazed at how much we have done especially when we look back over the blog.
We actually drove 5,000kms in Canada and over 30,000kms in Australia.
I have to say Lloyd has driven way more than me so he reckons I have a lot of catching up to do when we get home to NZ.
We both feel ready to go home and have loved exploring both countries. They are so huge and we have really only scratched the surface,especially in Canada but hopefully we can return sometime to see and experience more.
What will especially remain with us is the horizontal views of driving in both countries and the incredible colours of the Australian outback.
The outback has so much to offer and the National Parks are fantastic, we really didn't get over the many gorges and great walks.
Canada's mountains are so majestic and huge and we will always remember our first glimpse of frozen Lake Louise.
However as always it is also the people you meet that make all those memories so special. We have met so many friendly fellow travellers and enjoyed many happy hours and camp fires with like minded people just loving exploring.
For us as a couple we have experienced so many highs and a few lows of course, we did love the joy of waking in the morning and not knowing where exactly we would stay the next night or what the day would bring.
It was all part of the exploration and at times a bit nerve racking, but it has made us more resilient.
Until our next adventure we will sign off. Haere ra!!!!

All loaded with the extra luggage and ready for the airport

Moreton Island

As our time was drawing to and end in Australia we decided to spend a day over at Moreton Island which we had visited with the boys 25 years ago.
Morten Island is reached by ferry from Brisbane, about 45 mins in a fast catamaran or 1 and 1/2hrs in the vehicle ferry which lands right by the wrecks.
The wrecks form a reef for snorkelling just 100mts off the beach. There were 15 ships sunk which form a great place for colourful fish and coral.The water is relatively calm on the inside allowing svn not so strong swimmers to be able to access them.

The wrecks as the tide came in

We enjoyed the ferry ride on a beautiful clear warm day and soon found a nice spot on the beach in front of the wrecks. Many people take their 4wd vehicles over as you can camp or stay in a variety of accommodation.
We had a great day, the boat left at 4.30pm and this meant we were able to get some good sunset shots coming into Brisbane port.

Cars, boats and the wrecks

Sunset over Brisbane

Easter at Tweeds Head

Before we knew it Easter had arrived and we decided to stay at an Air bnb place near Tweeds Head.
We had thought the caravan was sold and even collected a good deposit before the guy went to ground not showing up on the day to pay in full and collect it.
We were staying at a good caravan park in North Brisbane in Ashgrove which worked well as Lloyd had picked up a job near their for a few weeks.We then then had to start the selling process all over again we thought but luckily a guy who had enquired previously was very interested and we ended up selling to him .

Drinks at the bottom of the garen

As we had not been south of Brisbane on this trip we found a nice place for Easter near Tweeds Heads which is right on the NSW border.
We really enjoyed our accommodation choice with the house right on a private lake and a huge patio area for out door dining.
The weather was warm so we made the most of it with all meals eaten outside.
We drove down to Salt and Potville in NSW on Sunday and then on Monday we spent the day at the beach at the Split on the Gold Coast swimming and watching all the boats going by. It was so hot and the water was over 25 deg, the main problem was not getting too much sun as their was little shade.
It is extremely popular for jet skis, we counted 25 just siting on the beach in the area around us.It certainly was a busy place but so much to look at!

The view from the house

View in the evening

Enjoying a beach day at the Spilt on the Gold Coast on Easter Monday. The boat sells drinks,ice creams and food and travels up and down  the beach.

Lamington National Park Binna Burra

Before our walk with Sandra

We arrived in Brisbane and stayed with my cousin Wayne and his wife Sandra in Springwood. 

The caravan needed a tidy up before going on the market to sell so their place in Springwood provided a very good base as it is near to many businesses and services, While staying we had a wonderful day out down the coast at the Binna Bura National Park which is inland from the Gold Coast. It has lovely walks and we enjoyed a picnic.

Toowoomba,Ipswich and into Brisbane

We arrived in Toowoomba in time for lunch and decided to have it at the Japanese Garden near the University.It was a very pleasant tranquil setting.
We ended up staying at the Ipswich Showgrounds for the night which is only one and half hours from Brisbane.

We are still here in Australia!

Yes , it has been awhile and I'm not quite sure why!
 I could blame all sorts of things after arriving here in Brisbane but I am going to finish our last travel journey blog before we arrive home.

To carry where we left off...........
We stayed quite a few days in a small town called Meandarra which is about 2 hours away from Toowoomba.
It is a very RV friendly town supplying power and water by the river for $10 per night.
During the peak season from May to October they tell us it is very busy and the town does very well from the spending travellers.

It was very hot, over 35deg so we enjoyed running the aircon and just chilling out reading etc.
Right by our caravan were some very pretty water lilly's which made for some good photos.

Kingfisher at sunset

Mitchell to Surat

We are obviously thinking and starting to prepare for our return home to NZ in April and this involves selling everything.
Lloyd thought it would be a good idea to put a for sale sign in the window of the Landcruiser advertising the kayaks while we were in Mitchell. On Sunday a man came by our camp to look at them and returned with his son and arranged to pick them up on monday morning. We sold them for $600 which was pretty good as we paid $720 and had a couple of months of fun with them.
 When we bought them the seller suggested we sell them in a regional town as we would get a better price than in a larger city where they are readily available.
He was right!

Our camp by the Balonne River, but if you look its very muddy,not nice for swimming.

However I was still rather sad to see them go all the same.

Goodbye kayaks!!!

Our next stop was a very small place called Surat which is a pastoral town on the Balonne River. It has a Cobb & Co changing station museum and some heritage listed building such as this Warro Shire Hall.I wondered how it got its Indian sounding name and it seems in 1849 the surveyor Burrowes named it after his former place in Bombay India.

Mitchell

We so enjoyed our time at Carnarvon Gorge and luckily Cyclone Marcia decided to stay around the coast area and all we had was a few drops of rain and grey skies for a day or two.

Lovely sunset by the river

By the time we got to the town of Mitchell the sun was out and we settled down by the river for a couple of nights.

Catching up on the blog

One real attraction in Mitchell which interested me was the hot pools which came from a large Artisan Bore. There was a normal ,cool pool next to the hot one which worked really well as we went from one pool to the other. Even though we we went both days on a weekend we were surprised at how few people were there, only a couple but that was good for us.

The Mitchell Hot Pools

Carnarvon Gorge - Part 3

Our final stop off the main track was Ward's Canyon which is the home to the world largest fern ,the King Fern. There is a path that goes under the rock walls around to a small waterfall. Its very pretty and different from the other 2 places.                                              
                         

The rock under the steam was very red on the way in.

The rock pool had beautiful curves and patterns

After leaving here we had been walking for over 3 hours and the humidity was very high so we decided to head back. We thoroughly enjoyed our walk and found the gorge to be so completely different to any other that we had visited in Australia. It perhaps would have been good to be able to walk to the end  Big Bend but by the time we returned we had completed over 14kms and it was very hot and we were exhausted!

The King Ferns

Carnarvon Gorge - Part 2

The walk down to the Amphitheatre is about 4.5kms and you hike off the main track then up a ladder
into a deep chamber with 60 mtr high stone walls and a fernery. It is a quite, tranquil place.

The entrance way in!

This picture is looking back from the inside towards the 

entrance. It is very cool inside so a good place to have a 

morning tea,

Another view from the inside

Once inside

Carnarvon Gorge - Part 1

The gorge is in the Capricorn Central Highlands and we had driven this way especially to see it.
It features over 30kms of high sandstone cliffs with the Carnarvon Creek running through it.
It is very lush compared to the gorges up north with many cycads and fan and king palms.The main walking track crosses the creek many times and leads to many different sites depending on how far you wish to go.The end of the track is 9.7kms one way but this area was closed as they had floods some weeks before.
 We decided on the 14km walk which included visiting the moss graden, amphitheatre and wards canyon. It was a very humid day all thought temperature was around 29 deg it felt much hotter.

Lloyd with the high sandstone cliffs in the background

The moss garden is set up under the cliffs where water constantly drips  from the walls allowing mosses, ferns and liverworts to flourish. It is breathtaking, the water dripping off the walls looks like gold fairy lights and the small water fall looks like it has been perfectly landscaped. It was so beautifully formed and we were there on our own which was great as sometimes these places are spoilt by the crowds.

The photo does not capture the light unfortunately

The small waterfall and pool

Lake Maraboon

We found a very quaint bush camp near Lake Maraboon just out of Emerald.It is 3 times the size of Sydney Harbour.

 The owner Kathy has over 100 acres and opened it up to self contained campers, there are roaming horses,goats and she has chickens so we had lovely fresh eggs. We were the only ones camped there as usual!
The Lake is only 4kms away and we had intended to kayak and fish. However the wind was too strong as the cyclone was approaching although this area was really inland to be too bothered by it.

Bush camping

On the road Longreach to Emerald

On leaving Longreach along the Matilda Highway it was quite depressing as we had in all off our travels here never seen so much road kill.
It was like a Kangaroo cemetery along the highway as every few metres was a dead kangaroo is some state depending on how long it had been there.It seemed to go on for miles and I tried not to look at that part of the road. They are having a drought in the area so whether that meant more kangaroos were moving around looking for water or not we don't know. There was no way that I could photograph it!
We stopped in the town of Barcaldine which has an interesting tree. It is outside the railway station.
The Tree of Knowledge is a memorial to the 1891 Great Shearers Strike which lead to the birth of the Australian Labor Party, so it is regarded as the Labor Party ALP birthplace.It was at the foot of the Ghost gum tree a foundation document was read out in 1892 and so the tree was of importance and in 2006 it was poisoned with roundup.The remains of the tree was removed in 2007 and it was preserved and then returned under a an architecture design structure in 2009 which cost 5 million all up.It recreates the canopy of the tree with hanging long wooden like blades representing shear blades.

Looking up into the structure

It is a very clever design and made a lovely chiming noise in the wind when we were there.

Tree of Knowledge

We stayed the night at a small town Jericho at the show grounds and continued on to Emerald through the area know as the gem fields. In the towns of Sapphire and Rubyvale you can go gem fossicking but we weren't keen in the hot sun to dig in dirt!!!

Longreach

Longreach is sometimes called the capital of the outback and it is home to the Australian Stockmans Hall of Fame,Qantas Founders Outback Museum and is located near the Thompson River.
It got its name from its position near the long reach of the river.
We booked into the caravan park with power, it was on Ibis St. We discovered all the streets are named after birds,those that run east-west are named after waterbirds and north- south streets are named after land birds.
It was St Valentines Day so we enjoyed a lovely candle lit dinner with a bottle of bubbles out in the warm night air, it was just lovely!

Cheers!

There is a lot to see here and we chose to visit the Stockmans Hall of Fame which opened 25 years ago thinking it was all about the outback. However it is way more than that, it has 5 large galleries and starts with the founding of Australia , the halls are Discovery,Pioneers, Out back Properties,and Life in the Outback as well as a gallery all about the Royal Flying Doctors. There were over 1200 items on display and many interactive elements to the museum which made is so interesting.

The Qantas Founders Museum plane outside.

 

Outside the Stockmans Hall of Fame

Winton

After crossing the border we drove through to Mt Isa where we bought a few things and on the way out we were stopped for another breathe test, 2 with in 24 hrs after all our travels.
We were now on the Landsborough Highway and stayed the night at a roadhouse camp at Kyuna. The place was alive with flies and bugs and we had to wear a net to even venture outside.At least we had power for the air-con but the toilets and showers were a no go area as they were full of all sorts and sizes of creepy crawly flying things!!!!!
We were pleased to leave and our next stop was Winton which is a town of about 1000 people and is known for being the birthplace of Waltzing Matilda. It was also one of the founding towns of Qantas. The first board meeting was held at the Winton Club in 1921.
The song Waltzing Matilda was written by Banjo Paterson and first performed in the North Gregory Hotel in Winton in 1895. There is now a whole centre you can visit about the song.

The Waltzing Matilda Hotel in Winton

We also visited a nearby park which has a wall with many thing cemented into it, including sewing machine, engines, vintage typewriters and even a kitchen sink. its over 70mts long and is called Arnos Wall after the man who built it.

Arnos Wall

What I loved most was the Musical Fence. It was set up so that anyone can play the many instruments outside and the fence is tuned and the music to Waltzing Matilda is supplied.It was so awesome, they also supplied the batons needed to play the drum set and the fence. It was such a cool community area. 

To the Queensland Border

Three Ways Again Deja Vu !!!!!

 As we arrived at Three Way we remembered the last time we were here in August and made the decision to turn right and head up north knowing that we could come up the from Port Augusta. We are glad we did as it gave us plenty of time to explore up north and leave before the wet season.

Before we crossed into Queensland we went past a police station in the middle of now where called Avon Downs. There is no settlement at all there except the 2 police families and as we went past a policeman jumped out of this car and waved us down,. It was a random breath test, he was so happy to see us and chat. We had seen only 6 vehicles in 5 hours so you can get the picture. Also it was 40 deg so he was sitting  inside his air-condition car while he waited, very bored by all accounts.!  

We now feel like we are on the last leg of our trip as we head back to Brisbane and arrange to sell the car and caravan.

On the Road up the Stuart Highway from Alice Springs

It was another blue sky day as we drove up the Stuart Highway known as Explorers Highway 500kms to Tennant Creek.
Our first stop was was at Wycliffe Well which only has a caravan park and a roadhouse. It is well known as the UFO capital of Australian as it has by far the most number of reported sightings.

The decorated Roadhouse!!!

Our next stop was Karlu Karlu/ Devils Marbles Conservation Reserve .The natural rock formations are of great cultural and spiritual to the Aboriginal owners and the English name came from the quote from John Ross on a Australian Overland expedition "This is devils country, he's even emptied his bag of marbles around the place" in 1870.

The boulders are scattered over a large are, here are just a few.

We also passed through Aileron a small settlement with a large statue that made for a good photo and then stayed at Tennant Creek for the night in a caravan park. We hardly passed any traffic during the day except for Road Trains which were now over 50 metres long. There is an open speed limit on much of this road which means that you drive to the conditions, whatever that maybe!!!

West Mac Donnells Part 3

One of the most popular places in this area is Ormiston Gorge and Pound. There is a camp site and a near permanent water hole. We had thought of doing the pound walk which is a complete circuit of the gorge but it takes 3 to 4 hours and the heat was just too much at over 40 deg. So we set off on the 40 mins Ghost Gum Lookout which went up to a lookout over the gorge with good views.

The view looking down into the gorge

A much needed cool down!

Lloyd with his net on at the top

We made a decision not to stay the night here because of the heat, it was 43 deg and with no  breeze or power for air con we knew it would have been an unpleasant nights sleep.We also felt we had seen enough of the area. I think if you visited it first before exploring up north, the Kimberly's and Karijini you would have been more impressed but we felt it didn't quite live up to our expectations. So we headed back to Alice for the night and prepared to leave early  the next morning. We knew we were going to have some big days driving of over 500kms so needed to be organised with plenty of water and food.