Winton to Home!

As we've had a lot of kms to do, we haven't been diligent keeping the frequency of our Blog updates.

This is the last entry for this year's Blog, and it has a lot of pictures in it.

Although this portion of our trip covered 2,700 kms in 3 weeks, most driving days we only did maximum 350 kms/day, but we had 2 big days of 491 kms and 439 kms. 

Barcaldine (Barcy as the locals call it) is a "must do" stop for us when traveling in these parts.

We crossed the Tropic of Capricorn just north of Barcy, so we were out of the Tropics after 15 weeks of tropical warm weather. No wonder we felt the coolness.

Not so many years ago they won the award for having "The Best Water in Queensland" as presented to them by the Queensland Water Authority.

We've always elected to stay at the Barcy Showgrounds although they are becoming quite expensive at $43/night.

The main attraction other than the fresh water, are very easy spots to get into and it's not crowded. Although our favorite area was taken when we pulled up,  we still managed to get a nice spot for the night.

The main tourist attraction in Barcy is the Tree of Knowledge in the centre of town.  This is where the Labor Party was formed.  Unfortunately some deadbeat poisoned the tree and killed it a few years ago, and it's just a large stick these days.

We were determined that we didn't have to go to Lara Wetlands this trip as we've been there 7 times before.  We kept looking at options on the map while we were camped in Barcy, and considering Lara was only 36 kms away, it was a no brainer.  So this was our 8th time. We obviously love Lara - huge campsites, GRASS, hot mineral springs to soak in, fires and a beautiful lake to camp around. Friendly campers and lots of bird life. What's there not to like?

Two nights of this relaxation was just what we needed before driving further south.

The weather was good for us and we were able enjoy this almost tropical climate before we started to suffer the cold in Sydney.

Chinchilla is the melon capital of Queensland.

So as you would expect they have the "Big Melon"

After we left Chinchilla the Queensland roads finally caused us real grief.

Traveling along one of Queensland major roads at around 95kms/hour Jayne's bike came crashing down on the outside of our car.

It was just hanging there by the rear wheel. We had several large cattle trucks very close behind us and not a lot of room to safely pull off to the side of the road.

Fortunately there was at least some verge when we managed to pull off so we could retrieve the bike before it came off the car completely, causing even more issues.

If it had fallen off the damage and potential accidents to traffic behind us could have been terrible.

There's not a lot of room on these roads for the traffic to dodge and miss a bike that would have been laying in the middle of the road.

All roads on Map 35 are never to be travelled on again.

Of all the rotten roads in Queensland, we think this is probably the worst (although adjoining Map 36 wasn't much better).

We do enjoy showground camping more so that caravan parks. They are generally spacious, have everything we need and relatively inexpensive.

Wondai Showgrounds met all of these criteria, except spacious. We got their last site amongst the horse stables!

We did pass a quaint town, Kilkivan, which had two very quirky shops. The owner of this cafe where we had mornos was a little obsessive, and this display was just one corner of his shop.

As we drove into Coolum, we came across two things unseen for 5 weeks!

We weren't too keen on the traffic lights, but it was great to see the ocean again.

Stanthorpe is the highest and coldest town in Queensland.

We've camped at Foxbar Falls before and enjoyed it, so we thought we'd try it again!

Sometimes I wonder why? It was certainly cold there at night, and we had to have a fire each night, which actually was the main reason we went there.

The camping around the lake is spectacular as well. It's so quiet and peaceful and the only sounds are the birds.

Stanthorpe area is known as Amiens, which has a lot of roads named after French battlefields. There's really some great history there.

The Amiens Legacy Centre was established to preserve the memory of the settlers who participated in the Pikedale Soldier Settlement Scheme in SE Qld following WWI and this museum uses this train coach as its centre piece.

This carriage was used on 26th July 1920 by The Prince of Wales, Prince Edward, who officially opened the Cottonvale to Amiens Rail Branch line.

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Traveling south, just past Tamworth our driving became very scary when this person just decided on an open clear country road, to do a U-turn right in front of us.

On good roads we cruise along at a cool 96 kms/hour, and the car way in front of us pulled over to the left. OK, no issues with that.

But as we got closer he then pulls out across a solid line and turns right immediately in front of us.

Try stopping 7.5 tonnes of car and van in a very short space!

Luckily Alan did just that. With much cursing and vertical fingers to the offending driver we managed this unscathed.

        Video of this incident

As our last night, we stopped at Hinton in the Hunter Valley at the Victoria Hotel.  Hinton has suffered flooding recently and we weren't certain if they were open to camping. Luckily they were and we were joined by a single lady in a new RV, and a couple in a Jayco.

We read on Wikicamps that the pub meals were good but expensive.

Don't believe everything you read.

They were cheap as and very good. Double bonus.

Chicken Schnitty's for $9 each! What a bargain. And even though the sauce wasn't included, it was only $4.00 Merv :) They have similar specials each week night, but as we love Chicken Schnitties we were lucky to be there on a Tuesday night.

The pub was very busy as you can imagine and we even enjoyed Happy Hour before digging into our $9 Schnitzel.

What a find!

And then we were home. Such a change with so much room, endless hot water and not having to empty toilets every few days.

More trips in the pipeline!